How do you organize your physical music collection? (soundtrack, itunes, albums, beatles)

Automatic Slim · 10-14-2009, 11:40 AM

The options given are kind of vague, as they leave out many options. For example, I organize my CD collection rather broadly by genre. (My vinyls are in a box, horribly unorganized. They will eventually be replaced by CDs.) There's 4 sections:

metal/classic rock/grunge
jazz/blues
classical/ambient
miscellaneous

Within those broad sections, I sort by artist alphabetically. However, I don't organize the albums further. The advantage is that I can find roughly similar sounds easily, yet still retain the advantages of alphabetical organization.

However, I almost never use the original CD. I make a physical backup and a digital backup after purchase and use those.

On my PC, I have several ways to organize my collection in I-Tunes. There's by genre and artist, of course. I love using Smart Playlists. Using Smart Playlists, I can keep Agalloch, Reverend Bizarre, and Judas Priest in separate metal subgenres, yet conglomerate them into just 'metal'. Same with jazz subgenres. I also use Smart Playlists to organize by time period as well.

sidewinder · 10-14-2009, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Automatic Slim

There's 4 sections:

metal/classic rock/grunge
jazz/blues
classical/ambient
miscellaneous

Within those broad sections, I sort by artist alphabetically. However, I don't organize the albums further. The advantage is that I can find roughly similar sounds easily, yet still retain the advantages of alphabetical organization.

That's a good idea...mine are by genre for the most part but then I try to group them by label or sub-genre and it's gotten too confusing in the last 10 years, and as my tastes expand. I like your idea. Once I get more space (who knows when that will be) I'll consider this method. I'm sure it'll still be tricky trying to classify things. Might just go full alphabetical...who knows. Maybe my current system isn't so bad, I just need space to clean it up.

View Poll Results: How do you organize your music?
Alphabetically	57	55.34%
Genre	15	14.56%
Other (elaborate in post)	31	30.10%
Voters: 103. You may not vote on this poll

10-14-2009, 11:40 AM	#1 (permalink)
Automatic Slim Music Addict Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 92	The options given are kind of vague, as they leave out many options. For example, I organize my CD collection rather broadly by genre. (My vinyls are in a box, horribly unorganized. They will eventually be replaced by CDs.) There's 4 sections: metal/classic rock/grunge jazz/blues classical/ambient miscellaneous Within those broad sections, I sort by artist alphabetically. However, I don't organize the albums further. The advantage is that I can find roughly similar sounds easily, yet still retain the advantages of alphabetical organization. However, I almost never use the original CD. I make a physical backup and a digital backup after purchase and use those. On my PC, I have several ways to organize my collection in I-Tunes. There's by genre and artist, of course. I love using Smart Playlists. Using Smart Playlists, I can keep Agalloch, Reverend Bizarre, and Judas Priest in separate metal subgenres, yet conglomerate them into just 'metal'. Same with jazz subgenres. I also use Smart Playlists to organize by time period as well. __________________ "I say I can't but I really mean I won't."