How do you curate your music library?

[PaulyT]

My wife thinks this is a symptom of OCD.

Yeah, but I get that. I'd do the same. I need to move at least some of my physical CDs out of my racks, because I just don't have room for them all anymore. But I need to go through and rip the ones that aren't in my digital library before moving them into storage - especially the older classical CDs I've had for years; all the stuff I've bought since getting a squeezebox ~8 years ago or whatever have been ripped as soon as they've arrived, but I still have a big backlog of things I've had from before then. And classical stuff can be a pain to rip and tag, because they're less likely to be found in free online dbs (e.g. freedb that media monkey uses). And I'm more likely to look at liner notes for classical and jazz, since they're typically a lot more informative than pop/rock which are minimal, so I have a hard time completely giving up on physical access.

 

[Flint]

This is why early on I adopted WMP as my platform. I chose lossless WMA as the format because at the time it was the best free tool out there and WMP could convert files to MP3 when syncing with devices. Also, I always rip every new CD I get before I do anything else with it. That way everything is always in the library all the time. With statistically zero exceptions all of the music info, artist info, writer info, artwork, and other such metadata is preserved. Of the 4,000, or so, CDs in my library, may a dozen or so are missing the extended data, but I manually entered the artist, titles for album and songs, and sometimes the composers into the WMP library at the time of ripping if it didn't find it automatically.

So it is all there in a compatible platform I can use from any of my devices. And no extra work is necessary.

That said, I am really impressed by your effort to achieve near perfection, Haywood.

 

[Haywood]

This is why early on I adopted WMP as my platform. I chose lossless WMA as the format because at the time it was the best free tool out there and WMP could convert files to MP3 when syncing with devices. Also, I always rip every new CD I get before I do anything else with it. That way everything is always in the library all the time. With statistically zero exceptions all of the music info, artist info, writer info, artwork, and other such metadata is preserved. Of the 4,000, or so, CDs in my library, may a dozen or so are missing the extended data, but I manually entered the artist, titles for album and songs, and sometimes the composers into the WMP library at the time of ripping if it didn't find it automatically.

So it is all there in a compatible platform I can use from any of my devices. And no extra work is necessary.

That said, I am really impressed by your effort to achieve near perfection, Haywood.

I am being a bit obsessive about the media and metadata in my entire library, but once I get everything base-lined, it will be pretty easy to maintain it with new stuff coming in. I'm bringing a laptop and/or a client box with me to the GTG to show off what is possible. Part of the reason for the obsessive stuff is that I am using a fairly flashy skin that makes heavy use of background art and I want it to look as good as possible. One thing I may start doing for these clients is create custom artwork folders with just the best stuff in them for the home screen and screen saver slide shows. I'm trying to get it to the point where the illusion that it is a fully commercial product is never broken.

 

[Flint]

Ski you like looking at video while listening to music?

Me - i want darkness and no other distractions so i can completely focus on what i heat.

 

[Haywood]

The artwork is part of the experience of navigating the library. I don't really pay much attention to the screen when I'm actually listening.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I don't organize my collection in any manner whatsoever other than keeping CDs separate from vinyl. I don't know why, but its just something I've always neglected.

 

[Deleted member 133]

To rammis' point: with my mind (like a steel sieve) I'd end up buying multiple copies of everything unless I kept a database (as a minimum) and would never be able to find anything unless shelved "properly."

Haywood,

As I add Little Steven's latest release to my collection, I am once again faced with that somewhat perplexing question (to which I have come up with a somewhat random answer): how the heck do you alphabetize "weird" artist names - or even band names with a person's name in it?

So John Smith goes into the database as "Smith, John" and foldered that way as well, but I leave the metadata as "John Smith" (too much hassle to change it for every track) so in iTunes it sorts as "John Smith."

But what to do about:

Little Steven
Meat Loaf
The Weeknd
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Holy Cole Trio
Jethro Tull

Here's what I have done for these example cases, and any like them, but in some cases I'm not necessarily comfortable with my logic. (My general rule re metadata is the same as for John Smith: just leave it as is.)

Little Steven gets foldered as "Little Steven," but databased as "Steven, Little." Have no idea why, but probably was how I did the first one (like maybe Little Richard.) My gut tells me that's wrong - that while two words, it is probably used only together and in that order. I just don't see him using "Little" as a first name.

Meat Loaf is special. I've heard him called by his first name only, and as Mr. Loaf as well. So it's "Loaf, Meat."

The Weeknd is just like that, and the only case where "The" does not get moved to after a comma. Unlike the Littles above, there was no hesitation.

The next two go by the following rule: if it's a proper name followed by "and" or "&" and then a group name, then it's treated like a regular name followed by the rest. But if what follows the proper name describes / details that name, then it stays in that order. Thus "Petty, Tom and the Heartbreakers" and "Holly Cole Trio."

If what sounds like a proper name is really a band's name that does not refer to a band member by name (ie. it's a constructed name, not an alias) then it stays as written. Thus "Jethro Tull" even though for a very brief time when I was young and first heard of them, I thought this was a person's name.

There's lots of other cases where I've had to apply my own logic to come up with a rule that I try to apply consistently in all similar cases - but some of them still feel weird. (And don't even get me started on classical albums with multiple soloists and composers, a conductor and an orchestra etc.!)

Got any that have stumped you?

Jeff

 

[Haywood]

I have a raging case of OCD and track tagging makes me absolutely crazy, especially when dealing with things like show tunes, classical and weird names like the ones you mentioned.

 

[PaulyT]

Yeah I tend to use last name, first name when the band name corresponds to a real person, but in cases like "Jethro Tull" where there's no actual "Mr. Tull" I just leave it as-is.