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How do YOU organize your files?

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  • November 15, 2014 at 8:18 am #2090111
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    It really is up to you. In the Masterclass, there is an entire chapter on collection building and management. With all it’s flaws, iTunes is still recommended, but used in a DJ way. This differs somewhat from “regular” iTunes use.

    Obviously we are not gonna rehash the entire course here, but you have several options. You can import all your collection tracks into iTunes and allow iTunes to stick them in folders for you. You can opt to get them into iTunes but leave them in the place they are now. You can stick them in folders per artist, per genre, per … fill in the blank.

    If you use DJ software, most searching is painless. With 256 available characters, filenames are not usually an issue, unless you go sub-sub-sub-sub folder. If you go one or two sublevel you should have plenty of space.

    The things is, do you need to be able to quickly locate files on your disk without iTunes, DJ software or other indexing software? If so, it pays to organize it a bit. Also if they are organized, it may be easier to do maintenance.

    So, mostly personal preference really. You might want to look into iTunes for collection and playlist management though.

    November 15, 2014 at 10:50 am #2090131
    Marco Solo
    Participant

    I have a folder structure like this (by the way, I’ve used this since the time when EDM still meant electronic dance music):
    -EDM
    >Breaks
    >Electronica
    >Chemical Brothers
    >Hardcore
    >House
    >Soft
    >Hard
    -Rock
    >Led Zeppelin
    >Muse
    >Porcupine Tree

    I’ve used this since the days of my iRiver H120 mp3 player. So I have folders of genres with folders in them of subgenres and when I have a lot of tracks from one artist I put that in another folder. This means there are a lot of folders, but I’m able to find anything I want without using the amazingly slow search function in windows. If I have 400 tracks or more in one folder, it’s time to create another subfolder in my book. I don’t tend to create artist folders for electronic dance music as it tends to create duplicates. I’d rather create subgenres instead.

    But don’t spend too much time thinking about these things. Just try something. If it doesn’t work, ditch it. It’s that simple. I didn’t think of my system in a day, it simply grew over multiple years.

    November 15, 2014 at 10:52 am #2090141
    Marco Solo
    Participant

    Damn, the spaces didn’t come through. Read it like this: Chemical Brothers is under Electronica and soft and hard are under House. EDM and Rock are the two highest folders.

    November 17, 2014 at 6:21 am #2090541
    siddharth.jha.email@gmail.com
    Participant

    Hmmm…

    I’ve got it this way:

    >Acapellas

    >Instrumentals
    -Trance
    -House
    -Others

    >Floor-Fillers
    -Trance
    -House
    -Others

    >With Vocals
    -Trance
    -House
    -Others

    >Cheeku [ 🙂 ]
    -Mashups
    -Remixes
    -Edits
    -Intro Mixes
    -Outro Mixes
    -Idents

    >Scratch Sounds and Beats

    >Loops and Samples

    November 17, 2014 at 1:28 pm #2091081
    deathy
    Participant

    My folder structure is currently more complicated than it needs to be, as I was still nailing down what I’d be playing before I set it up.

    Right now, it mirrors Wikipedia’s “List of electronic music genres,” but that is complete overkill since most of those folders are empty.

    I intend to change it up to probably just a handful of folders for the different genres that I play, which is a much smaller list.

    November 17, 2014 at 4:29 pm #2091091
    Nathan Kelly
    Participant

    Thanks for all the input!

    I used to put my files in specific genre/energy level folders (don’t like having iTunes organize it for me), but I found that I’d often change my mind about a track (maybe it’s straight-up techno not tech house, maybe it’s a starter not a closer, etc.) and end up changing that folder in the software and then it wouldn’t match with the file.

    I’m thinking of just organizing based on purchase/download date. So by year, then month and so on. That way there’s some organization and I can easily go through and trim the collection down a bit. (And track my buying habits!)

    November 21, 2014 at 10:00 am #2095881
    Lamid45G
    Participant

    I have a folder structure like this (by the way, I’ve used this since the time when EDM still meant electronic dance music):

    LIEES !!! ALLL LIEEESS !!!! <insert evil laugh>

    November 25, 2014 at 12:39 am #2097491
    dannyboyex@gmail.com
    Participant

    I organize my music by genres that I understand (I have a folder name “Rachet” for example) in one big “Approved music folder. Any new music I get I put it in a “New Music” folder which is divided into party type stuff and background music type stuff. Then i can organize them into the approved folder if they make the cut. Having them in folders makes it easier for me to back up my music onto a different device like my tablet. I have Cross DJ on my tablet which has only so much space so i can bring specific crates (folders) if I need to and know what I’m getting into.

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