Organising files if you don't want to use iTunes

[paul_uxb]

This topic may have occurred elsewhere - please point me in the right direction if you know this has been sorted!

 

If we assume for now I want to pursue the highest possible download quality and that, for now, iTunes does not support all the file formats I might want to try out. Is there alternative software which helps me organise the files that come with a download? At present it makes my head go round that you can download individual files, contents pages and artwork but I remain unsure who/how/what helps me sort them out.

 

My plan is to buy a dedicated server, such a Bluesmoke and I guess I want the software loaded onto that to make it all work.

 

Thanks for any advice, regards, Paul

 

[BobH]

This one seems to have slipped by so I'll chuck in my 2p's worth and get the ball rolling!

 

Most jukebox software either requires you to enter a location for your existing library, or will set up locations of its own and trawl your hard-drives for music, copying across what it finds. I much prefer the first choice! So, set up your music directory as you like it and then simply tell the software where it is and not to muck around with it!

 

My library is located on its own drive and is organised by Artist/Album. i.e. F:Bob DylanHighway 61 Revisited, where 'Bob Dylan' is a folder and 'Highway 61 Revisited' is a sub-folder within it. When I download new music, it gets initially downloaded to my C: drive, I then create the necessary folders and/or subfolders, copy the music into them and then copy the whole across to the library drive. It's then just a question of telling your software to rescan the library, if it doesn't do it automatically. iTunes has all of this covered, of course, but if you want to check out other stuff then it will pay to have your library organised the way you like it and then make the software do as it's told!

 

Hope this helps.

 

[PeterSt]

Hi Paul,

 

Albeit Bob has given the answers in general, possibly you knew about that, and is it merely about the actual examples. Please don't take this as a commercial, but as an example of which I think it does what you want.

 

First of all, indeed a "music library" must be appointed. But, this is only when you're just started off. As Bob said, you will be having folders with ArtistAlbum, although in this case things like Artist - Album would work just the same. The "music library" though, is in front of it, and it could be MusicArtistAlbum. In practice though, you'd be having something like MusicAmbientArtistAlbum or otherwise it will be one big pile of undifferentiated music.

 

In this case (XXHighEnd) it can be done differently, and what you see below is a "Gallery" drawn from the physical music files, which can be anyhwere. In the bottom picture you can see the physical location of the selected album which is at E:WavNew... while the top picture shows a Gallery C:GalleriesAmbient... (a few not so much ambient is in there though :-).

 

In the right pane of the top picture you see all the coverart which was found belonging to the selected album (this is the topmost in the middle pane). This coverart can be anywhere in - or under the folder of the music data itself.

As you can see "coverart" can be anything and in this case there's also a log file from the rip, as well as a review file as taken (generated by XXHE) from all the Amazon sites. But it could be PDFs, Words, anything.

A file like such a review file as shown in the bottom picture can be asked for by just double clicking the icon concerned in the right pane, as can be done with the pictures which will then show in full size. The latter comes off handy when you'd have hires pictures of the booklet, so you can just read it from the screen.

 

The mechanism of "Galleries" is important, because it frees you from the physical structure which can take one structure only, whereas an album may be contained in as many Galleries as you like. The bottom of the first picture (right pane) shows that this album is contained in "C:GalleriesAmbient" only, or otherwise more of these icons would show.

The Galleries are just normal files and folders, but contain "metadata" only from the physical data.

 

Again, I'm not trying to be commercial, but it might be what you are looking for.

Peter

 

 

 

 

 

[BEEMB]

Peter,

You've been tweaking and improving again haven't you.

It's looking good.

How is the remote control going ?

 

 

[BEEMB]

Naturally I checked out the artist on your screen shots Abakus ...

 

I like it. And good sound quality too.

 

[BEEMB]

OOO...

deep bass ..

 

[paul_uxb]

Peter and others, thank you for you replies - much appreciated. It gets slightly embarrassing to find myself behind my father on this one but it serves me right for being picky about sound quality. To pursue the best possible sound quality and get all the nifty-ness of "coverflow-like" images and album lists is neat. I haven't been drawn to musical genre categories before but maybe downloading will change all that. Thanks again :-)