iPod album organization question

[slwiser]

I have all my albums organized in folders under their genre on my computer.

This allows to me get to the type of music I want to listen to fast by driving down through the folders.

Under Celtic I may have 20 albums.
Under Classical I may 10 or more composers and under them each composer may have multiple pieces.

Etc for all the genre of music I have.

What is the best way to organize a large library so that I don't get a listing of 500+ albums to search for using the iPod?

Under artist their appears to be no way to distinguish which album a track comes from, they are randomly thrown together using iTunes.

iTunes Playlist appear to be track centric instead of album or artist centrix. I do not understand how to make since of large sets of tracks or albums. iTunes seems to disintegrate them into non-artist, non-album oriented lists of 100s of items.

Is this the real advantage of Rockbox that it allows folder type music selection instead of track selections?

My top folder is Lossless, below this are Celtic, Classical, etc. within each one of these for example with Classical I have Bach, Beethoven, etc and under them I have different albums that I have for each.

Under iTunes I only get one level using playlists. I can have one of these as a top level: albums (hundreds in list), artists (hundreds in lists), etc.

I would like to be able to drive down and see a reasonable set to select from.

Maybe I just don't understand anything about iTunes yet.

Thanks

 

[Digitalbath3737]

Why don't you just tag them with the genre and then go to your Genre on the iPod.

 

[Coltrane]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif Under artist their appears to be no way to distinguish which album a track comes from, they are randomly thrown together using iTunes.

Not sure I understand this. Itunes organizes all songs by artist>album. Are they all labeled correctly?

I browse by genre all the time, just make sure it is an option in the main menu, and after selecting a genre everything will still be organized by Album>Artist.

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coltrane /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not sure I understand this. Itunes organizes all songs by artist>album. Are they all labeled correctly? I browse by genre all the time, just make sure it is an option in the main menu, and after selecting a genre everything will still be organized by Album>Artist.

When I click genre for Celic I get all the celtic music in one list, hundreds of tracks. I can't further select a single album under that genre as I see it.

Same here for the genre of classical, under classical I get 1000s of tracks and that is very hard to get to a particular album under that.

I have many compilations where artists are on many different albums. When I select artist I get all songs by that artist not further defining it by album or am I not seeing that it further categorizes those?

The labeling may very well be a problem since I wanted things label my way as I noted in the first post. Genre is the folder type on my computer. With album compilations iTunes does not sort using the natrual album genre type but selects some other.

No more thing about iTunes. When I attempt to change the default browser column selections and close iTuens it then when I reopen it goes back to what was iTune's default and not what I set up. Why should I attempt to customize anything in iTunes when it just goes back to what it does in default?

This give me the impression that iTunes was designed for far fewer albums, artists and tracks than now be one an iPod.

 

[Digitalbath3737]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif When I click genre for Celic I get all the celtic music in one list, hundreds of tracks. I can't further select a single album under that genre as I see it. Same here for the genre of classical, under classical I get 1000s of tracks and that is very hard to get to a particular album under that. I have many compilations where artists are on many different albums. When I select artist I get all songs by that artist not further defining it by album or am I not seeing that it further categorizes those? The labeling may very well be a problem since I wanted things label my way as I noted in the first post. Genre is the folder type on my computer. With album compilations iTunes does not sort using the natrual album genre type but selects some other. No more thing about iTunes. When I attempt to change the default browser column selections and close iTuens it then when I reopen it goes back to what was iTune's default and not what I set up. Why should I attempt to customize anything in iTunes when it just goes back to what it does in default? This give me the impression that iTunes was designed for far fewer albums, artists and tracks than now be one an iPod.

You have to turn the compilation on. The problem is your iTunes isn't properly tagged. Select the compilation album. Then right click and turn the compilation to a yes. On your iPod go to settings and turn compilations on.

I manage hundreds of albums on my iTunes because they are tagged properly. I have multiple albums by many artist and many compilations. I can search by album, artist, genre, composer... all with no problem. You need to stop worrying about your file structure and focus on tags.

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digitalbath3737 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You have to turn the compilation on. The problem is your iTunes isn't properly tagged. Select the compilation album. Then right click and turn the compilation to a yes. On your iPod go to settings and turn compilations on. I manage hundreds of albums on my iTunes because they are tagged properly. I have multiple albums by many artist and many compilations. I can search by album, artist, genre, composer... all with no problem. You need to stop worrying about your file structure and focus on tags.

Thanks for refocusing me. Yes, I have had that focus. I will work on getting my tags straight now. Time to study tagging I guess.

 

[Digitalbath3737]

As requested here's an example of my itunes:


I usually like different styles of a genre so I label it with the Genre first (Rock) then the Style (Indie, Folk, Garage...etc). I find it helpful when browsing. That solved my searching by genre problem.

Here's what a compilation album looks like


Part of a Compilation is checked. That way that particular song by that artist shows up in the compilation you want it to. Instead of it only showing up under that artist name. That will really clean up your iTunes. You'll be able to see your Compilation Album under Genre and not just a list of songs.

 

[slwiser]

Please further explain "compilations". I am not sure that I understand how they are used. In the help it always associates this word with a playlist. I want to make sure that if I have four albums of 101 Strings that those tracks associate with each album remain with the other tracks of its particular album.

Thanks again.

 

[zip22]

101 Strings is the artist?

are you just looking in itunes? in itunes, the songs can be sorted by any of the columns, just click on the column title. if you want a bit more an interface, click the button that looks like an eye in the lower right corner and you will get menus at the top where you can select the genre, then each artist in the genre, then each album by that artist. click the eye again to remove the extra interface.

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zip22 /img/forum/go_quote.gif 101 Strings is the artist? are you just looking in itunes? in itunes, the songs can be sorted by any of the columns, just click on the column title. if you want a bit more an interface, click the button that looks like an eye in the lower right corner and you will get menus at the top where you can select the genre, then each artist in the genre, then each album by that artist. click the eye again to remove the extra interface.

I have about five albums by 101 Strings. I don't want to listen to all 100 tracks shuffled. I would like to keep each track in an album associated with those tracks from that album in the iPod. How does compilations help me with this if it does?

 

[tk3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have about five albums by 101 Strings. I don't want to listen to all 100 tracks shuffled. I would like to keep each track in an album associated with those tracks from that album in the iPod. How does compilations help me with this if it does?

There shouldn't be any problem with that if your files are tagged properly (by album + artist), if you browse by genre or artist it should bring up a list of the albums of that artist, and you can select the tracks from there.

 

[nc8000]

I got my iTunes setup like this.
All songs are tagged with genre, artist (for classical I use the composer as artist) and album. I never use the compilation setting.
As I understand it this is more or less what you want.

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nc8000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I got my iTunes setup like this. All songs are tagged with genre, artist (for classical I use the composer as artist) and album. I never use the compilation setting. As I understand it this is more or less what you want.

Please have some patience with me. Thanks.

I think I have the iTunes side of it understood. Now I am asking next about the translation of the iTunes arrangement into the iPod.

Now when you go into your iPod and want to select a single album under genre does it come up or all the tracks in that genre?

Now when you go into your iPod and want to select a single album under an artist does a set of albums come up to be selected or all the tracks under that artists?

 

[nc8000]

On the iPod, again asuming that you have the tags right, you will get the same effect as in iTunes, ie. select genre and you get a list of artists, select an artist and you get a list of albums, select an album and you get the tracks. Or you can start with artist and you get a list of all albums regardless of genre by that artist then select the album and you get the tracks. In the Menu setup on the iPod you can select wich levels you want to be available straigt from the top menu.

 

[nc8000]

Oh, and if you ask iTunes to manage your library and telle it to use the right structure you will still get a usefull directory structure on your disk for browsing using explorer