Organizing Music/Audio Files to use as Referenced

TidBITS Talk
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A recent topic on moving photos out of Photos App got me thinking about my disorganized collection of digital music/audio files. That and importing some recent 99-cent CD purchases from a thrift shop. I searched here and found several Music topics but none on this.

For photos, I just use Finder and folders by year then broad topics and specific projects. Then I can use various photo management softwares to see and work with them in a ‘referenced’ mode without copying them into the management apps.

I’m thinking of similar with music but I don’t listen enough to have built a good system over the years and have never used Music App (maybe launched a few times but not built a library/imported anything). I was more adept at iTunes in the olden days, and have maybe a dozen playlists, synced to various iPod products.

What are some TBTers suggested reorganizing methods, please, with the aims of having music files neatly organized in Finder, and accessible by various music organizer softwares over home network from Apple devices and Linux computers?

I am working on getting an M4 Mac Mini set up as a sort of hub for files and printing but have a lot of research to do. I see there is a Media Server option but apparently it only works if all devices are logged in to the same Apple Account, which won’t work for our situation.

The files are a mix of home-burned CDs (mp3, aiff etc), m4p’s ah, ‘bought’ (and played with Apples permission ;-), maybe some burned elsewhere and simply copied into a Music folder, and some audiobooks. No need for album art.

This is a project for long rainy days for sure, but is it advisable to structure it something like:

Music folder/[artist name]/[album name]/[tracks] ?

Compilations and Audiobooks and Recorded Sounds (ie VoiceMemos app) I suppose would be another folder within Music, or… :thinking:

[edit: extra question posted 27 Jul below]

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I’ve never used iTunes (or any other music app) to “catalog” my saved music.

From the beginning … many years ago… I just created a basic folder/file hierarchy and archived it all that way on a separate “music” drive.
Simple and easy.

Looks like this:

music
music520×472 68.1 KB

All mp3’s. Preferably at higher bit rates.
I’ve never used anything else.

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This is also the way Apple organizes tracks with in the iTunes/Music library, if you have it configured to keep your library organized.

Its Artist / Album / Name (where Name is prefixed with track number or disc-track number, if present), using the values from those fields in the ID3 tags. Fields like Album Artist and the sort-fields are not used for this purpose:

image
image458×550 64.2 KB

They create an “artist” named “Compilations”, which holds all the tracks with the “compilation” box checked in the metadata.

2 Likes
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OK super, thanks @j.albert ! so how do you listen to the music, select some tracks and play them in QuickTime or something? And manually put in the titles? Interesting approach! How about something like playlists, have you got something like Aliases that you can use for that (not sure if that would work)?

I generally like playing a random selection of my collection, more or less by genre (it can be a bit odd to go from ZZ Top to Beethoven). Is there maybe an Automator option for random play (only just now thought of that)?

For some time in iTunes I really enjoyed flipping thru the cover art, as I remember albums more by cover than name, but over time those got mixed up and I think the cover view went away.

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Excellent, thanks @Shamino !

I was thinking to turn off both ‘add to library’/what it’s called to avoid file duplication, and ‘keep organized’, to avoid reorganizing the files.

Kind of same idea as with photos-organize originals in a Finder structure, that manage-use them with apps that ‘look but don’t touch’ the originals, creating say its own relatively small database from which the user can make playlists, play tracks, etc.

Progress! cool!

[edited: PS-btw, if it matters to Topic relies-I’m not an audiophile or someone who collects detailed info about the music or digital files. Just hearing the music is fine. I grew up with AM radio, making cassette tapes of albums by putting a recorder next to the speakers, etc. These days if I have a tedious thing to do over hours I’ll play a random mix from an iPod touch thru its own speaker in my pocket…]

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If you want to keep your separate directory structure, then yes, turn off “add to library”, since that would be duplicating the files. In my case, I rip CDs in Music, and when I purchase tracks from other sites (e.g., Amazon), I delete the download after adding it to Music - keeping the one in Media folder as my master copy.

But if you prefer to keep your external file as the master copy, then copying media would be redundant. And could lead to confusion, since metadata edits from within the app wouldn’t be reflected in the original file. (Unless that’s what you want).

As for the “keep organized” option, that only affects tracks in the Media folder. External tracks shouldn’t be affected by that option. So for your system, it would only affect iTunes Store purchases and any tracks you format-convert from within Music.

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OK thanks @Shamino , that clarifies that option. Technical writing is not easy and that one I never found understandable. Requires some unspecified inside/tech knowledge.

We’re expecting hot weather this week so maybe I’ll stay indoors and work on my home network project and organizing music, photos, etc.

→ New Question: Music and other apps that could work with the originals in Finder, would be able to extract some info from the file to determine its genre from the internet, for instance? Hm. I suppose that would depend on manner of ripping/source, or? Tracks purchased from Apple or others might have that built in, but the hundreds of home-ripped (in iTunes) CD tracks would not, or is it more complicateder?

Auto-determining audio genre
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Just wanted to mention that my recollection of that time period is that AM radio was dominated by Top 40 stations, with tightly controlled playlists of singles, while FM radio was where college radio and freeform (deep cuts, jumps between genres, fewer commercials) stations lived. So taping albums off the radio took place on FM.

ETA: and now that we’re talking about vintage audio gear (my receiver back then could route audio from the tuner to the tape deck jacks so my radio recordings were room-noise proof, ha! …

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Might very well have been, I was in the LA area at the time, might have recorded a favorite DJ’s program. I think I also did some recordings of LPs playing on a cabinet-sized LP player/radio. I think I was as fascinated by the ‘technology’ as much as the music.

Sometimes I wish I also didn’t send my ‘hifi’ gear to my nephew before moving, but so it goes. Would like to have the Bose 901’s I think it was, a base unit with two remote, wired sets of cube speakers. Sounded great to my ears. But anyway, off topic…

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…except in rural areas. All things being equal, AM signals carry much further than FM radio. I did a fair amount of cross country driving in the 90s, and AM often was the only option available in a lot of places.

It’s just another thing that kids who are used to satellite radio will look at us oldsters and wonder how we got through the day.

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Especially at night!

Tell it, ZZ!!!

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