MP3 folder structure?

[Chris]

I'm trying to solve some indexing issues with DOSCab/WinCab Jukebox, and I'm finding I really can't rely on ID3 tags.  I have a question for the people with large MP3 libraries: how do you store and name your files?

I only have a handful of files, and none are full albums, so I store mine as artist/title.mp3.  I assume that people who have full albums are storing them as artist/album/song.mp3.  Is this right, or are there other common structures?

I also notice that many MP3 files have track number, album, and artist information encoded into the ilename.  Do you generally rename them to just the title, or to some other convention, or leave them the way they were ripped?

Thanks!

--Chris

[Lave Laar]

Full albums I sort in the following way.

Artist -> Year and Albumtitle -> Track number and songtitle
e.g  "c:\Albums\Ayreon\2004 - The Human Equation\01 - Day One Vigil.mp3"

Singles I rename to  "artistname - songtitle"
e.g "Toto - Hold The Line.mp3"

I do make sure that ID3 tags are present in all the files though.

[DrewKaree]

Artist\Album\Track Number - Track Name

I've had problems with tags, but there's progs out there to solve the tag issue....I think it's up to you to pick a tag convention and have that used, skip it altogether, or offer it as an alternative way of sorting if the individual wants to go that route (again, picking whatever tag convention you wish).

Singles, I also rename them to Artist - Song Name, and file them in a folder titled "Various Artists".

As far as leaving something the way it was ripped, I'm anal about that..every file has bare minimum of Artist and Song Name....all the rest is added, but everything is SORTED via the bare minimums, that way, adding extra sort parameters won't screw up the "general" sort.

[GadgetGeek]

I too use the Artist\Album\Track Number - Track Name convention. Singles under a directory called Singles with no really naming method (but I will soon be cleaning it up to be Artist - Song Name.

[appleton71]

I guess I'm odd.  I have my 4,000+ singles sorted mostly by decade.  Then the mp3 filename is "Artist  - Song Title".  I don't have any full albums as there's usually only 2 or 3 good songs on any given album.

[RacerX]

That's almost identical to how I *used* to have mine organized.

I don't have entire albums either.  Heck, some of the best songs of all time are from one-hit wonders.

Then, when I started using WinCab Jukebox, I changed to Artist\SongTitle.mp3 because that is what WinCab wanted, and I've been happy with it.