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More questions on digitizing my music collection…

Posted on by Standard 7

So my last blog post on the subject got some great input, but now I must raise some more specific questions.

  • “The” – So, what do you do about the word “the”?  Say a band like the Misfits… Do you tag them Misfits, or The Misfits?  The Ramones?  The The?  Name the file without the “the”, keep the “the” inside the ID3 tag?  In the stuff I have currently, it’s mix & match.
  • Alternate Spellings?  – The first band that comes to mind is $parechange? a.k.a. Sparechange00.  You may have never heard of them.  (Am I a hipster for that remark?)  I have them on a few compilations and I have 2 of their albums.  Different spelling. Same name. Same Band.  Do I tag them all the way it appears on the album, then move them all to the same artist folder?  I’m not sure if this will pop up with other bands, but it might!
  • Volume – How do you regulate volume?  I have used MP3 Gain with varying results.  They recommend a volume that’s lower than most commercially produced mp3’s.  I’d like all the stuff to be somewhat level.
  • Hidden Tracks – Do you split/name them as separate files if they share one track?  I plan to.  No doubt.  I just dunno if I want to number then the next number like 13 if it’s the 13th song… or 12-1 & 12-2.  Decisions, decisions.
  • Tags? – Not ID3 tags, but is there any player out there with a way to tag a song with attributes… Say I have live songs, bootlegs, and acoustic or unplugged as tags.  Say I want to hear live stuff, but not bootleg quality live stuff, or unplugged live stuff… or only bootleg stuff, including live & studio stuff.  I’d like to be able to play via tags… because (to me anyway) one song could fall into multiple genres.
  • Strays – Dump ’em all in one folder?  Bother tagging them correctly?
  • Various Artists – I have a ton of compilation albums (especially punk comps) & a good amount of soundtracks.  Do you let your burning ripping program make folders for each artist with the album in it, or do you put all the tracks into one folder with the artist in the file name somewhere?  I generally like to keep them all together, but I can see the benefits of breaking out per artist.

Any more tips/tricks advice on organizing, ripping, tagging, & playing your digital music.  I have mp3 folders now that are somewhat organized… but I have a vast quantity of stray chaos that I need to get in order when I put everything all in the same place.

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