How do You Organize, Manage, and Present Your iTunes?

ham city

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Kind of an all inclusive thread.

I've been up keeping my library for almost six years and I'm pretty obsessive and meticulous. About it. I'm curious what yours looks like.

For an example what kind of playlist do you make? One of my oldest playlist is titled "Winter GRIME Egchk." Its about two thousand songs deep and is filled with gritty street rap, mostly NY influenced.

Basically my favorite songs by artist like Mobb Deep, Nas, LOX, etc but also stuff like Freddie Gibbs, Mob Figaz, and Clipse.

On the other end of the spectrum I got an equally old and equally expansive playlist titled SUmmer Ride (smh at never coming up with a better name than that) that's much more mainstream/production focused.

One of my favorite playlist is titled "Hood Rat Stuff" and has ALL my favorite contemporary Gangsta rap. Stuff like Boosie, Gucci, Livewire, Cam, etc. I got another one that's entirely classic Gangsta Rap.

I also still practice the forgotten art of compiling dope Mix CD's, just with out the actual pysical disc. I've got a playlist folder titled just that with hundreds of mixes that I always try to cap at 17-21 tracks. They all have a date in the title, some are themed some are just what ever I happened to be feeling on 3/11/2007 or whatever.

I've got lots of best of playlist, these are usually pretty big depending on the artist and tend to span an entire Discography. For example my best of Wiz is like 70 songs deep, Nasir's is +175, Clipse's is 50 something.

I also got Essentials playlist inspired by the old ones we used to do in the music forum. All time greats only, strictly capped at 20 tracks.

I just went off about playlist but I'm really interested to hear anything you have to say about your iTunes.

Some more info about my own, every piece of music in my library is properly tagged with the same format including album art. If none was ever published, I make my own in photoshop if I can't find something suitable on google images. I like to include producer information in the notes if I know it off the top of my head too.
 
Kind of an all inclusive thread.

I've been up keeping my library for almost six years and I'm pretty obsessive and meticulous. About it. I'm curious what yours looks like.

For an example what kind of playlist do you make? One of my oldest playlist is titled "Winter GRIME Egchk." Its about two thousand songs deep and is filled with gritty street rap, mostly NY influenced.

Basically my favorite songs by artist like Mobb Deep, Nas, LOX, etc but also stuff like Freddie Gibbs, Mob Figaz, and Clipse.

On the other end of the spectrum I got an equally old and equally expansive playlist titled SUmmer Ride (smh at never coming up with a better name than that) that's much more mainstream/production focused.

One of my favorite playlist is titled "Hood Rat Stuff" and has ALL my favorite contemporary Gangsta rap. Stuff like Boosie, Gucci, Livewire, Cam, etc. I got another one that's entirely classic Gangsta Rap.

I also still practice the forgotten art of compiling dope Mix CD's, just with out the actual pysical disc. I've got a playlist folder titled just that with hundreds of mixes that I always try to cap at 17-21 tracks. They all have a date in the title, some are themed some are just what ever I happened to be feeling on 3/11/2007 or whatever.

I've got lots of best of playlist, these are usually pretty big depending on the artist and tend to span an entire Discography. For example my best of Wiz is like 70 songs deep, Nasir's is +175, Clipse's is 50 something.

I also got Essentials playlist inspired by the old ones we used to do in the music forum. All time greats only, strictly capped at 20 tracks.

I just went off about playlist but I'm really interested to hear anything you have to say about your iTunes.

Some more info about my own, every piece of music in my library is properly tagged with the same format including album art. If none was ever published, I make my own in photoshop if I can't find something suitable on google images. I like to include producer information in the notes if I know it off the top of my head too.
 
I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?
 
I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?
 
I now use the Zune player as I feel its much better, and in my opinion it's a lot easier to manage/organize. I also make sure I dont have "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." and make sure I have album art for everything because I love how my Zune HD 64gb will go into a screensaver for each song it looks great in my car mount.
 
I now use the Zune player as I feel its much better, and in my opinion it's a lot easier to manage/organize. I also make sure I dont have "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." and make sure I have album art for everything because I love how my Zune HD 64gb will go into a screensaver for each song it looks great in my car mount.
 
Im not big on playlists... I think I have like 2. My iTunes stays real organized though. Album, genre, year, disc #, song #, etc all have to be filled out. The producer is too much work to fill out for every song, but I tag my favorite producers work. Album art has to be there as well. If there's a random track I label it under "misc." & some sort of pic has to be there.
laugh.gif


Every word starts with a cap too & features go next to the song name saying "Feat."

I have major OCD with my iTunes.
roll.gif
 
Im not big on playlists... I think I have like 2. My iTunes stays real organized though. Album, genre, year, disc #, song #, etc all have to be filled out. The producer is too much work to fill out for every song, but I tag my favorite producers work. Album art has to be there as well. If there's a random track I label it under "misc." & some sort of pic has to be there.
laugh.gif


Every word starts with a cap too & features go next to the song name saying "Feat."

I have major OCD with my iTunes.
roll.gif
 
Originally Posted by zube42

I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?




Yea definitely can't have that
laugh.gif


I'm sittin at about 145GB, 29,000 songs, 684 Artist so I gotta make compromises with my OCD.

My track title format is "_____ ft. ______, _______ & _______ (Prod. by _____)

It's gotta be exactly like that, "f." "feat." or "featuring", wont do. Neither will "and" it has to be "&"

The production credit is one of the compromise I make, if I can't recognize the producer by ear or remember it off the top of my head it's most likely not listed.

Every once in a while I purge my library of anything I don't listen to or don't ever see myself listening to again.
 
Originally Posted by zube42

I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?




Yea definitely can't have that
laugh.gif


I'm sittin at about 145GB, 29,000 songs, 684 Artist so I gotta make compromises with my OCD.

My track title format is "_____ ft. ______, _______ & _______ (Prod. by _____)

It's gotta be exactly like that, "f." "feat." or "featuring", wont do. Neither will "and" it has to be "&"

The production credit is one of the compromise I make, if I can't recognize the producer by ear or remember it off the top of my head it's most likely not listed.

Every once in a while I purge my library of anything I don't listen to or don't ever see myself listening to again.
 
Yeah i'm ridiculously meticulous with my library as well. I don't use playlists at all, but every single album is tagged with every piece of metadata possible. I really wish there was another option besides iTunes to sync with iPods because i hate the way iTunes is so finicky with organization. The more data you add to a song/album the more likely it is to fall out of place...some people may know what i mean...like when you batch an album and you have a few outliers just because of how it was uploaded? When you get up to 30K/40K songs those get mad annoying. Even singles are tagged by full album. If it's an LP i keep it organized as A/B sides (basically separate albums). 
Featured artists go in the song title, but every feature has to be labeled as "(ft. ___)." If there is more than one feature, i use &s instead of the word "and." featured artists go in parentheses but if its a remix or something, the word Remix goes in brackets. Except "I" and in the case of short titles, indefinite articles are always lowercase in titles. I've gone through my entire library multiple times to ensure consistency. 
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853157e596ab25e1e6f076e431e417ee8471782.gif
 
Yeah i'm ridiculously meticulous with my library as well. I don't use playlists at all, but every single album is tagged with every piece of metadata possible. I really wish there was another option besides iTunes to sync with iPods because i hate the way iTunes is so finicky with organization. The more data you add to a song/album the more likely it is to fall out of place...some people may know what i mean...like when you batch an album and you have a few outliers just because of how it was uploaded? When you get up to 30K/40K songs those get mad annoying. Even singles are tagged by full album. If it's an LP i keep it organized as A/B sides (basically separate albums). 
Featured artists go in the song title, but every feature has to be labeled as "(ft. ___)." If there is more than one feature, i use &s instead of the word "and." featured artists go in parentheses but if its a remix or something, the word Remix goes in brackets. Except "I" and in the case of short titles, indefinite articles are always lowercase in titles. I've gone through my entire library multiple times to ensure consistency. 
03e15cef99a12ee6bbd03219196dd61dd9b05d1.gif
853157e596ab25e1e6f076e431e417ee8471782.gif
 
I got my first ipod a few months ago (yeah, i know) and due to the size of my library and my ocd, its been a pain in the *@#. Having to cut and paste all the features took forever. Now im adding art to all the songs w/o. Is there an easier way than going song by song?
 
Originally Posted by HAM CITY

Originally Posted by zube42

I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?




Yea definitely can't have that
laugh.gif


I'm sittin at about 145GB, 29,000 songs, 684 Artist so I gotta make compromises with my OCD.

My track title format is "_____ ft. ______, _______ & _______ (Prod. by _____)

It's gotta be exactly like that, "f." "feat." or "featuring", wont do. Neither will "and" it has to be "&"

The production credit is one of the compromise I make, if I can't recognize the producer by ear or remember it off the top of my head it's most likely not listed.

Every once in a while I purge my library of anything I don't listen to or don't ever see myself listening to again.
Yeah I'm at 188 GB so it's a pain in the $%# I feel you
laugh.gif

I always use "&" instead of "and" too. I WISH I had my title track format with the Producer  in it but I thought of it when my library was way too big to do it.
 
I got my first ipod a few months ago (yeah, i know) and due to the size of my library and my ocd, its been a pain in the *@#. Having to cut and paste all the features took forever. Now im adding art to all the songs w/o. Is there an easier way than going song by song?
 
Originally Posted by HAM CITY

Originally Posted by zube42

I'm picky with how my music is tagged in my library. My cousin's *@@+ is all messed up, his artist will be like "Jay-Z, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z feat. Beanie Sigel & Memphis Bleek, etc." it hurts to look at
laugh.gif
. I make sure I got album art on everything too. I used to have hella playlists but when I forgot to save them when I got my new hard drive. How big's your library purp?




Yea definitely can't have that
laugh.gif


I'm sittin at about 145GB, 29,000 songs, 684 Artist so I gotta make compromises with my OCD.

My track title format is "_____ ft. ______, _______ & _______ (Prod. by _____)

It's gotta be exactly like that, "f." "feat." or "featuring", wont do. Neither will "and" it has to be "&"

The production credit is one of the compromise I make, if I can't recognize the producer by ear or remember it off the top of my head it's most likely not listed.

Every once in a while I purge my library of anything I don't listen to or don't ever see myself listening to again.
Yeah I'm at 188 GB so it's a pain in the $%# I feel you
laugh.gif

I always use "&" instead of "and" too. I WISH I had my title track format with the Producer  in it but I thought of it when my library was way too big to do it.
 
Originally Posted by SEND ONE

I got my first ipod a few months ago (yeah, i know) and due to the size of my library and my ocd, its been a pain in the *@#. Having to cut and paste all the features took forever. Now im adding art to all the songs w/o. Is there an easier way than going song by song?




There are programs like Media Monkey but I've never trusted them. They could be good money though.

If you want to edit artwork or anything else beside song title for more than one song just select all the tracks you want to edit by holding down command and then right click -> get info
 
Originally Posted by SEND ONE

I got my first ipod a few months ago (yeah, i know) and due to the size of my library and my ocd, its been a pain in the *@#. Having to cut and paste all the features took forever. Now im adding art to all the songs w/o. Is there an easier way than going song by song?




There are programs like Media Monkey but I've never trusted them. They could be good money though.

If you want to edit artwork or anything else beside song title for more than one song just select all the tracks you want to edit by holding down command and then right click -> get info
 
Artist cant be anything but the actual album's artist. If it's a collab album the artist field has both artists. Method Man & Redman, for example.
'Song Title Goes Here (Subtitle) [Feat. Artist]' so something like 'Elevators (Me & You) [Feat. Sleepy Brown]' if it has that much to be filled in. If anything is wrong I fix it as soon as I see it, then browse my library for more mistakes like that.
Song title, artist, year, track numbers, genre and album art are all filled in. I cant have any songs that dont have all that.
Artists under their real name like Miles Davis are sorted as 'Davis, Miles'

I have only a handful of playlists. But they're pretty standard I think (like 'favorite albums,' Top 30 played, or playlists of different decades, etc).
 
Artist cant be anything but the actual album's artist. If it's a collab album the artist field has both artists. Method Man & Redman, for example.
'Song Title Goes Here (Subtitle) [Feat. Artist]' so something like 'Elevators (Me & You) [Feat. Sleepy Brown]' if it has that much to be filled in. If anything is wrong I fix it as soon as I see it, then browse my library for more mistakes like that.
Song title, artist, year, track numbers, genre and album art are all filled in. I cant have any songs that dont have all that.
Artists under their real name like Miles Davis are sorted as 'Davis, Miles'

I have only a handful of playlists. But they're pretty standard I think (like 'favorite albums,' Top 30 played, or playlists of different decades, etc).
 
Media Monkey is my exclusive player for my FLAC albums, other than that I prefer iTunes.
 
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