This question is mainly directed to people who use navidrome or similar software. How do you organize your music library in regards to files? Do you keep them all in one folder? Or folders with author names? Or folders where music belongs based on genre?
I can’t get the right way to organize my music library, hence this question.
I’ve tried to use lidarr but I think my archive is too weird for it.
Not only do I have a lot of obscure releases, but I also have things like vinyl and cd rips of every version of every album by certain artists. Like I have a huge amount of frank zappa for example, sometimes I will have 10 versions of the same album, sometimes more. I have collections of the different live variants of many tracks, archives of guitar solo variations ets…
Lidarr has no idea how to handle that so I do it all manually.
I have a kind of complicated system for organizing my music files – some of which is admittedly way too much maintenance but it might be of interest to some.
For my general “commercial” music collection, the folder structure is roughly Music/%Release Artist | Band%/%Album%[%Year%]/%Track No.% - %Title%.%Format%
This is simple to maintain. I basically just use MusicBrainz Picard and set up appropriate paths.
For my soundtrack collection, it gets a bit more complicated. For Anime/Film/Whatever, I have it sorted basically the same way but in a different root folder. So something like: Music/Anime/%Release Artist | Band%/%Album%[%Year%]/%Track No.% - %Title%.%Format%
Which is also easy to maintain since most of these also have commercial releases.
But games are sorted more strangely. To put it simply, I have a folder structure that puts the console or platform first, followed by the game name and then the loose files. Since some of these files are emulated formats (.vgm, .nsf, .spc), I generally don’t bother renaming them and keep them as is and trust that the music program in question has tagging support. It also means that having them sorted by console is mostly beneficial to quickly find emulated file formats, but YMMV and I have regretted the choice on occasion.
Obviously game soundtracks are spotty when it comes to releases. Some companies have reliable metadata you can get from MusicBrainz Picard, like SquareEnix, but others have no tagging at all or very incorrect tag values. Because of this, I generally use something like VGMDB, which is usually higher quality but not always. I do have to resort to manually correcting files on occasion.
If anyone has a nice automated way to sort this stuff out, it would be a real benefit to me as well.
I used to have folders, but that meant a typo or a variation in the artist name made redundant folders and also I had to periodically run some tool that moved and renamed files and folders according to the id3 tags.
Now I prefer to have a big messy folder with 15k unorganized files
Anyway I’m listening via ampache compatibile players, so I won’t even know what’s the file name, for all I know it could be 3c31cd9b-3c9d-42b0-b873-631f1552a24f.mp3
if the album isn’t a studio album, theres an extra folder. eg:
/Music/B/Bruce Springsteen/Compilation/(1996) The Lost Masters I_ Alone in Colts Neck (The Complete Nebraska Session) [CD - FLAC] [8531e427-495a-443a-8fc3-0dd2ef459c93]
/01. Nebraska [4m27s][320+ 44100KHz VBR 2ch].flac
/Music/P/Phil Collins/Singles/(1981) In the Air Tonight [7 Inch Vinyl - FLAC] [e805dd53-9257-4c78-8bff-a95f0cdd767e]
/A. In the Air Tonight [5m29s][320+ 96000KHz VBR 2ch].flac
I have special categories for:
Compilations
Cover
Tribute
Singles
Live
EP
If an album contains multiple disks, there’s an extra folder. Eg:
/Music/M/Michael Jackson/Compilation/(2004) The Ultimate Collection [CD - FLAC] [2d37b204-ed26-3795-9710-1514f0fd931a]
/Disc 1
/01. I Want You Back [3m00s][320+ 44100KHz VBR 2ch].flac
For soundtracks it’s:
~/Music/Soundtrack/T/(YYYY) Title [Type - Format] [MusicBrainz ID]/[side] Title [length][Bandwidth].ext
eg.
/Music/Soundtrack/L/(2001) The Lord of the Rings_ The Fellowship of the Ring - The Complete Recordings [Digital Media - FLAC] [cad73ae7-5966-4de1-bad4-4a603891fd27]
/Disk 1/01. Prologue_ One Ring To Rule Them All [7m15s][320+ 48000KHz VBR 2ch].flac
Been using this for 3+ years and it’s solid.
I’ll try and make a better write up at some point and share my script.
This setup also works flawlessly with Plex + Prism.
I run Picard in a docker container and access it over web, so it can run on my headless Debian server.
I have a lot of music most of which is video game soundtracks and rips. I have tagged most of it using VGMdb years ago but most tools have poor or no support for it now. MusicBrainz is missing far too many albums and usually prioritizes translated track titles. It also lacks the huge amount of images for albums that VGMdb has
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !selfhosted@lemmy.world
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don’t control.
Rules:
Be civil: we’re here to support and learn from one another. Insults won’t be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it’s not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don’t duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.
Resources:
selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
By not having one. I just use Pandora.
Wait, you guys are organizing your music files?
The lidarr way.
Lidarr organizes it for me.
I’ve tried to use lidarr but I think my archive is too weird for it.
Not only do I have a lot of obscure releases, but I also have things like vinyl and cd rips of every version of every album by certain artists. Like I have a huge amount of frank zappa for example, sometimes I will have 10 versions of the same album, sometimes more. I have collections of the different live variants of many tracks, archives of guitar solo variations ets…
Lidarr has no idea how to handle that so I do it all manually.
Yeah nope for that case. Lidarr can only understand one release at a time.
I have a kind of complicated system for organizing my music files – some of which is admittedly way too much maintenance but it might be of interest to some.
For my general “commercial” music collection, the folder structure is roughly
Music/%Release Artist | Band%/%Album%[%Year%]/%Track No.% - %Title%.%Format%This is simple to maintain. I basically just use MusicBrainz Picard and set up appropriate paths.
For my soundtrack collection, it gets a bit more complicated. For Anime/Film/Whatever, I have it sorted basically the same way but in a different root folder. So something like:
Music/Anime/%Release Artist | Band%/%Album%[%Year%]/%Track No.% - %Title%.%Format%Which is also easy to maintain since most of these also have commercial releases.
But games are sorted more strangely. To put it simply, I have a folder structure that puts the console or platform first, followed by the game name and then the loose files. Since some of these files are emulated formats (
.vgm,.nsf,.spc), I generally don’t bother renaming them and keep them as is and trust that the music program in question has tagging support. It also means that having them sorted by console is mostly beneficial to quickly find emulated file formats, but YMMV and I have regretted the choice on occasion.Obviously game soundtracks are spotty when it comes to releases. Some companies have reliable metadata you can get from MusicBrainz Picard, like SquareEnix, but others have no tagging at all or very incorrect tag values. Because of this, I generally use something like VGMDB, which is usually higher quality but not always. I do have to resort to manually correcting files on occasion.
If anyone has a nice automated way to sort this stuff out, it would be a real benefit to me as well.
Lidarr does the management and either stores soundtracks in
/data/media/soundtrackor music under/data/media/musicSorted by folder is per artist.
Yeah, lidarr just takes care of it, and plexarr for playback.
All sorted by hand by my lovely husband. He liked doing it lmao.
/music/Artist_Name/Album_Name/
Music folder > Artist name > Album Name > Numbered tracks.
Since all the files contain metadata, any music player I use can automatically sort my collection however I like.
Honestly, keeping the actual folder structure simple is more than enough. You aren’t playing tracks from the file manager.
My thought process exactly
deleted by creator
QudoLibet plus mp3s metadata
I used to have folders, but that meant a typo or a variation in the artist name made redundant folders and also I had to periodically run some tool that moved and renamed files and folders according to the id3 tags.
Now I prefer to have a big messy folder with 15k unorganized files
Anyway I’m listening via ampache compatibile players, so I won’t even know what’s the file name, for all I know it could be 3c31cd9b-3c9d-42b0-b873-631f1552a24f.mp3
This is a copy of an older comment of mine:
Everything is tagged and organized using Picard. I use a modified version of https://community.metabrainz.org/t/repository-for-neat-file-name-string-patterns-and-tagger-script-snippets/2786/156.
I’ve been meaning to write a guide for how it works. My current WIP script can be found here: https://gitea.baerentsen.space/FrederikBaerentsen/DataHoarder_scripts/src/branch/master/Picard.txt
My files is setup like:
~/Music/A/Artist/(YYYY) Title [Type - Format] [MusicBrainz ID]/[side] Title [length][Bandwidth].exteg:
if the album isn’t a studio album, theres an extra folder. eg:
I have special categories for:
If an album contains multiple disks, there’s an extra folder. Eg:
For soundtracks it’s:
~/Music/Soundtrack/T/(YYYY) Title [Type - Format] [MusicBrainz ID]/[side] Title [length][Bandwidth].exteg.
Been using this for 3+ years and it’s solid.
I’ll try and make a better write up at some point and share my script.
This setup also works flawlessly with Plex + Prism. I run Picard in a docker container and access it over web, so it can run on my headless Debian server.
I have a lot of music most of which is video game soundtracks and rips. I have tagged most of it using VGMdb years ago but most tools have poor or no support for it now. MusicBrainz is missing far too many albums and usually prioritizes translated track titles. It also lacks the huge amount of images for albums that VGMdb has
I use musicbrainz Picard to sort it for me and then host it with jellyfin.