Fastest Way to Organise Music Collection into Genres

[deepgc]

Hi,

I am looking to re-organise my music but wonder if there is a fast way to go about this. I've got around xxx mp3 files in xxx folders.

The end result I am looking for is for all of the music to be distributed into 20 folders, for every genre. Some tracks may belong to one genre.

Is there any software that do what I'm looking for? I suspect each mp3 will need to be scanned, tagged with genres. Once that is done, it's a case of building a library of the tracks and exporting them into the retrospective folders.

Thanks in advance

[Nakatomi]

I generally stick my music in folders by decade or in the case of big artist collections - just by artist name.

For everything else I use crates & playlists to categorise my music. This way I can have crates of decades, genres etc - and tracks can exist in multiple places at once without needing to duplicate files.

Edit: You may wonder how everything I have has an accurate year tag. Easy. I do them all myself. Not a very quick or pleasant job, but once done it's quite easy to keep on top of.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

It's one of those jobs where it can be very tiresome and laborious but once it's done properly and kept up to date then it is well worthwhile doing.
As some will say (and have said in the past on here), there are programs out there that will tag everything for you in bulk BUT I have tried a number of those programs and I find the best way is to do it yourself.

Like Justin above, I will have various folders. I don't tend to do decades as such (unless they are compilations) but an example of my folders would be as follows:

50's & Rock 'N Roll
Chart
Cheese
Complilations (loads of sub folders in there - 60's, 70's, 80's, Indie, Dance, Ska etc)
Dance
Depeche Mode (I'm a big fan and have all of their stuff)
Disco & Funk
Soul & Motown
DJ's
Drum & Bass
Jungle & Dubstep
EBM
Electronic
Full Albums A - Z
Garage
Gary Numan (I have all of his stuff too)
Hip Hop & Rap
Indie & Alternative
Jazz
Jingles
New Wave
Northern Soul
Punk
R&B
Reggae
Retro
Rock
Ska & Two Tone
Special Dances
Various Indie Rock Alternative
World Music

I find it much, much easier this way and everyone else will have their own way of doing things but another example would be this.
The Prodigy may appear under Electronic and also Dance.
Madness may appear in Ska & Two Tone but also Retro too. Yes, some tracks are duplicated but for me it is all about ease of access.

[Sapphire Disco]

I have decades folders then have a subfolder within those folders for what I consider the top 100/150 tunes for that decade then also have separate folders for things like soul/motown-reggae-swing-slow dances- country etc,etc I also keep the last 3 years in separate years.

[Nakatomi]

I think the key here is that there's no magic bullet. The usual suspects (iTunes, Picard, MediaMonkey etc) can auto tag which is generally fine for new material but for some reason they all lack the ability to set original release years for tracks. I mean who but the most nerdy nwants to know when a release was re-issued? Meh.

Some of my most recent purchases have year tags of this year but I know for a fact they first charted 30 or more years ago.

I see a possible way forward with this (think themoviedb for music DJs) but it's gonna be a lot of work ahead.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I like as much information as possible as it sometimes comes in handy....

"Hey Mr DJ, what year was this released?" - Most of the time I am pretty clued up but sometimes I'll have a look just to make sure.....

"Oh, it says 1999 here but I know it's 1982 because I bought it from a market stall that year!"

"Oh, and it actually says here that Musical Youth is Death Metal....... Does 'Pass The Dutchie' sound like Death Metal to you mate?"

Nah, didn't think so!

[Benny Smyth]

"Hey Mr DJ, what year was this released?"

"Unless your name is Ken Bruce and you're planning on offering me a prize for getting the answer right, may I suggest that you get your smartphone out and use Google like everybody else."

[Excalibur]

"Unless your name is Ken Bruce and you're planning on offering me a prize for getting the answer right, may I suggest that you get your smartphone out and use Google like everybody else."

Or for those of us with slightly less visual acuity, your tablet.

[mattydj50]

Or for those of us with slightly less visual acuity, your tablet.

Or those with even greater antiquity, the Guniess Book of Hit Singles.

Though I still use CD, there is no "one size fits all" solution. I file my discs is a way I have always done (similar to my vinyl collection previously). Best thing is to try a few ideas and go with the one you like the best, making track finding easier for you.

[ukpartydj]

Music sorting. A job that is somehow never complete.

When a client asks "can you play lots of 80s power ballads" a few might spring to mind but if you create a folder in your software it's a lot easier... I've not sorted by year. I will, like Benny, Google that on the night if needed.

I pop create a new folder on the hard drive every 50 tracks so I know what is "the latest music" and the rest is unsorted on the hard drive. The sorting is mainly done on my laptop and more often than not the play count is used to find the tracks I use the most... I then scroll down the list, think none of this will work and go back to the same old stuff