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Storing your mp3s
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Storing your mp3s

kuttnhaste 11:33 PM - 20 August, 2004
Ok this is kind of confusing me. I've ordered SSL and wanted to get a head start by organising my tunes a little better.

I've done a little bit of fiddling with iTunes but something I don't get is the way it stores files. I'm from a folder driven background, whereby I have my music collection based on folders like "Singles", or "Albums". Inside "Singles" I have a different folder for each Genre. eg: "house", "drum and bass", "breaks". My Singles collection is what i'll be using at gigs mostly.

Now when I transfer my singles to iTunes it takes the songs ID3 tags and organises the singles into a heirarchy based on artist > album name > song names, and it copies all the music to the iTunes folder.

I know you can disable this feature, but I wanted some opinions or preferences on other methods of storing files, especially when using SSL.

Is it better to have a folder driven system in your own Music folder. Or is it better to have iTunes sort all your music (by artist).

To me it seems better to have your own control over the directories of the files, because then it's easier to find tracks that are full length over the ones that are from an album.

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example: Plump DJs have CD albums and Vinyl Albums. I might have a CD version of the Plump DJ's album, which means all the songs are premixed and therefore don't contain all the lead in beats. So I wont want to use those tunes in my DJ sets. However I also have the vinyl version of the Plump DJ's album which i've ripped each single to MP3, and these songs are all full length with lead in and lead out beats, So i'll want to use these in gigs.

If I let iTunes organise both sets of files it would put the files in the same location, because they all belong belong to the same album and artist. So now i'd have to double check that the song i'm cueing up isn't the CD album version.
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Hope this makes sense.. would love to hear what other DJ's are doing.

PS: because I don't have SSL yet, I don't know what the crate system is. -> maybe that will help me
SpinThis! 7:34 PM - 21 August, 2004
i find it easier to let itunes deal with the directory structure and keep things organized.

one way i can think of to differantiate between vinyl and cd albums it just to label them... say in the album field (if you still want to be able to view the cds in the OS) or in comments. Put [vinyl album] or [cd single] after the album, for example. basically the idea is the more metadata you have, the easier it becomes to find things you're looking for. The bpm field can also help here. What I do is label all the stuff I play with a bpm and the key of the song (in the comments field) and create a smart playlist in itunes which automatically shows me all the songs I have keyed and tempo'd.

crates more-or-less work like playlists in itunes. in fact you can make various playlists in itunes and those will show up in ssl all ready to go.
kuttnhaste 10:23 PM - 21 August, 2004
thanks heaps SpinThis! That method of labelling sounds fair enough. Will let iTunes do the thinking and organising.

Crates and smart playlists are going to come in handy.