Organising Music

[Gary (GDK) 0]

I've had a few PM's asking about how I organise my music so I thought I would post a thread about it and other people can contribute how they do their collections to.

 

I have all my music in one folder called All Music. This contains the following subfolders.

 

_DJ Library

Artists are listed in here and all singles released before 2008 and the artists albums are listed in here. The "_" puts this at the top of the folder.

 

_Now Thats What I Call Music

Very handy if I need a explicit free version of a track. The "_" puts this at the top of the folder.

 

100 Hits Series

Very useful series of cds, rather cheap to, and great if your in the middle of a particular mini-set and lose a train of thought its a great little refresher.

 

2008 New Entries

All new entries are in here listed in subfolders of the date of the Sunday that they went into the chart. At the beginning of each song to there is a number and that is the chart position it entered in at.

 

2009 New Entries

All new entries are in here listed in subfolders of the date of the Sunday that they went into the chart. At the beginning of each song to there is a number and that is the chart position it entered in at.

 

2010 New Entries

All new entries are in here listed in subfolders of the date of the Sunday that they went into the chart. At the beginning of each song to there is a number and that is the chart position it entered in at.

 

Christmas

All the usual seasonal rubbish in here.

 

Clubland

All of the Clubland series in here, including the spin off, i.e. the Classics albums.

 

DVD

When I started DJing I used a DVD player and a small portable (very small!) TV to play music to. I know this DVD very well and still use the folder system regularly.

 

Irish

All my Irish stuff in here. Not exactly my strongest point of musical knowledge.

 

Mastermix

As it says on the tin, all Mastermix issues in here and also other releases from them.

 

Megamixes

Various mixes I've picked up over the years

 

Mixes

Mixes other DJ's have made, local ones and several off various forums on the internet.

 

New Downloads

When I receive a request list from a client, if I don't have any I place the downloads in here till after the gig, then place them in the appropriate folder afterwards. Makes it a lot easier to find them when you are under a little pressure.

 

New Year

Just like the Christmas folder.

 

No 1's

All the number ones from 1952 till 2007. Including US charts from 1940s.

 

Various Compilations

All other compilations I buy go in here, i.e. the Ministry of Sound Electronic 80s Album.

Im using that a lot at the moment!

 

My system may not work for everyone, but it does for me!

 

So how do you yours?

[vokf 0]

Nice system!

 

 

I have something much more basic!;

 

Singles(a bit of a dumping ground for specific requests - I only buy an entire album if its worth it)

 

Albums (artist albums)

 

Compilations (100 hits/Ministry of Sound/HedKandi/etc)

 

Now (now thats what I...)

 

These are all top-level directories, with the various album titles underneath.

 

However, I do have quite a few playists. These kind of look like a virtual folder, so I have 50's onwards, a "party" playlist (plenty of brie!), an "indie", "rock", "rock and roll", "Ska/Reagge" etc.

The play lists should ideally be full of great tunes, so I don't really need to look too hard, or navigate too much.

 

 

Jason

[spinner 0]

A mixture of genres and decades.

 

For example 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s.

 

Soul & Groove, Indie, Rock 'n' Roll, Rock, Motown, Reggae, Ska, Salsa, Ballroom, etc. etc. etc.

[gadget 0]

At the moment i create "playlists" within Traktor - so can just go straight to the "cheesey dancey" or "singalong" lpaylists and just play from there.

 

The search on Traktor is very good apart from it doesn't do year searches! (so cant say just type in 1999 i the search box and choose release date for it :damn:

 

Cheers,

 

David

[deejaymitch 0]

Ok here goes. This is how my big hard drive is set out, I have smaller less complicated ones. But the daddy drive has the following FOLDERS/subfolders:

 

BIGGIES (Long megamixes including homemade, Grandmasters, Monsterjams etc)

Sub-folders: Pop, R&B, Dance, Trance, Rave

 

DECADES (Almost exclusively decade themed compilation albums)

Sub-folders: 50s, 60s, 70s (including disco sub-sub-folder), 80s, 90s, 00s, Real Oldies (anything pre 1950)

 

DMC & MASTERMIX (what it says on the tin)

Sub-folders: Mastermix Issue, DMC Commercial Collection, Mastermix Professional

 

GENRES (as you'd expect)

Sub-folders: Cheese, Country, Dance, Irish, R&B, Reggae, Rock, Punk/Ska, Soul (many of these have further sub-folders for really specific stuff or big collections e.g. Now, Clubland, MOS)

 

MUSIC (everything that's left over)

No sub-folders

 

RECENT (it started as being just for the newest tracks but has built up, these are mainly tracks from monthyl promo cds and individually purchased downloads)

Sub-folders: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 (every track I add to these folders has the Album Name changed to the month they were added so I can sort by album title to make the folder chronological-ish)

 

XMAS (cos I love it)

No sub-folders

Edited August 20, 2010 by deejaymitch

[Teez 0]

All my tracks are logged on itunes.

 

itunes playlists include decades, hits of the month, house etc etc

 

VDJ then just reads itunes

 

Simples !

 

:joe:

[vokf 0]

Guys,

those that have;

70s,80's,90s folders and THEN (separately) genres (Disco/Rock etc).

 

Does this mean you have 2 copies?

 

Ie Staying Alive - Bee Gees - sits in 70's, but also in the Disco Genre...

2 copies, or what ever fits first?

 

I use DJEP to provide a list of all my tracks for clients, it does a fairly good job of removing duplicates, and my Drive does not have deliberate dupes- but the same song on different albums (so Best of BeeGees, probably 100 hits, and about 2 or 3 other compilations! lol)

 

Jas

[gadget 0]

Guys,

those that have;

70s,80's,90s folders and THEN (separately) genres (Disco/Rock etc).

 

Does this mean you have 2 copies?

 

Ie Staying Alive - Bee Gees - sits in 70's, but also in the Disco Genre...

2 copies, or what ever fits first?

 

I use DJEP to provide a list of all my tracks for clients, it does a fairly good job of removing duplicates, and my Drive does not have deliberate dupes- but the same song on different albums (so Best of BeeGees, probably 100 hits, and about 2 or 3 other compilations! lol)

 

Jas

 

No "duplicates" as such - possibly the same track on different albums - but not the exact same track. Playlists are ftw - don't need to remember where it is at all as you just shove in the "root" directory where your music is stored and Traktor creates the Stripes, and indexes and all that shizzle...

 

Anyone tried Mixx, the free s/w ?

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

[deejaymitch 0]

Yeah Jas, my system is far from perfect as I have a lot of duplicates, triplicates and sometimes moreplicates. I really need to do some "data cleansing" to free up more hard drive space.

[Teez 0]

No duplicates with itunes, only links from each playsists.

 

I maybe have the same track on 6 or 7 playlists but only one recording.

 

:joe:

[vokf 0]

No "duplicates" as such - possibly the same track on different albums - but not the exact same track. Playlists are ftw - don't need to remember where it is at all as you just shove in the "root" directory where your music is stored and Traktor creates the Stripes, and indexes and all that shizzle...

 

Anyone tried Mixx, the free s/w ?

 

Cheers,

 

David

 

It sounds like you mostly have similar to me - 6 copies of Billie Jean etc... :joe:

 

I tried Mixx a the other year - it was a bit basic but keep meaning to revisit. I *think* its available on Linux, so could be worth spending time on- I've got more 'nix laptops here than Windows ones....

 

I know there is a commercial DJ app for Linux (but also with Windows/Mac versions), but its based on Java, so would probably struggle on my low-end gear..

[gadget 0]

It sounds like you mostly have similar to me - 6 copies of Billie Jean etc... :joe:

The thing is I like to keep the albums "together", because say, when I click on the release (album name), it brings up all the tracks on that album, so there is one good reason for keeping the duplicates...

 

Obviously rubbish versions are binned or labelled accordingly.. Like Macarena - there's only one version of this I'd ever play which is the version by "Los Del Rio" (The Los del mar version was rubbish imho.. even Now 34 has the wrong version on it :wall: , same goes for Cha Cha Slide too!)

 

I tried Mixx a the other year - it was a bit basic but keep meaning to revisit. I *think* its available on Linux, so could be worth spending time on- I've got more 'nix laptops here than Windows ones....

 

I know there is a commercial DJ app for Linux (but also with Windows/Mac versions), but its based on Java, so would probably struggle on my low-end gear..

 

Yeah, I don't trust Java too much here :)

 

Mixx seemed ok, bit on the basic side, but seemed ok on Windows, and didn't appear to crash. Problem is I have my DJ music separated out over more than one subdirectory - and there are directories of stuff which I *don't* want to appear in the music library... So selecting multiple locations for files for me is better (so Traktor wins here).

 

What I'm looking forward to is getting a decent soundcard with more than 2 channel outputs - will make my life *much* easier to DJ with..

 

All I need is a decent Rackmounted midi controller... I'd love something like an HC4500...

 

Cheers,

 

David

Edited August 20, 2010 by gadget

[fester 0]

I used to work from CD's so when I made the switch to a laptop and ripped my CD's at first I didn't have a problem as I knew which CD's contained which tracks and navigated quite easily.

A few months down the line as I started downloading single tracks from itunes etc, my drive quickly got into a total mess.

I put off trying to organise it for ages but eventually took the plunge and spent many, many boring hours over many evenings over many weeks sorting and renaming tracks and deleting duplicates.

As most compilation albums can contain tracks from various years and genres I took each individual track from each album and placed them into their relevant folder. I deleted hundreds of tracks I have never played and am 99% certain I would never play or be requested such as some of the obscure dance/trance etc you get on a MOS or clubland album.

I also genre tagged each track with the name of it's parent folder which I find works well for me in Virtual DJ.

 

Some screenshots of how I now work are below. I sometimes think I over-complicated things but I actually find it very easy to use. Yes I know i've missed a lot of genres out but I know where they are lol

 

The 'Michael Jackson' folder is something I still haven't sorted, after his death I downloaded a lot more of his back catalogue, stuck it in a folder and it's just sort of stopped there since lol

 

http://imgur.com/CWyBY.png

[spinner 0]

Guys,

those that have;

70s,80's,90s folders and THEN (separately) genres (Disco/Rock etc).

 

Does this mean you have 2 copies?

 

Ie Staying Alive - Bee Gees - sits in 70's, but also in the Disco Genre...

2 copies, or what ever fits first?

 

 

 

Jas

 

 

No. Staying Alive is in a separate folder "Saturday Night Fever". But for that it would be in the Disco folder, rather than 70s.

[1878blues 0]

The way to go is through itunes, it has powerful playlist editors and smart playlists

I like to view my music by genre and decade really..