Organizing Music Collection on SSD in Windows 11

I have a moderate size music collection which I'm recording from CD to SSD. I've created a Primary folder and set it up with the information required. All CDs are copied to their own folder. Modifying the look of the folders is no problem, however, when I try to get all folders to conform to the primary with the information in the primary folder some will and some won't. Each folder requires 8 columns. I can go down about 8 folders and they are all the same, yet I can go to the ninth and there are 3 columns. I've used the OPTIONS>VIEW>APPLY TO ALL FOLDERS using the primary folder but with no luck. Am I assuming that the look of the primary folder should apply to all folders or is it done manually. I am using Windows 11, VERSION 23H2, 11/28/2023. Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

Do all the files have the tag info to fill each the columns?

For clarity as to recording or copying, I do it by using Windows Media Player and Ripping from CD. An example of what I get:


Looking at a CD in File Explorer only gives a list of .cda files of 1KB size, are only pointers to the actual tracks on the disc.

Could you not use something like this for your library ?

If you ripped them all personally and used the same software with the same settings then it has to be an issue with explorer.

Perhaps you found explorers limits. You may need to rethink your method of organizing to reduce the depth of the folder structure.

Personally my music library is only 2 levels deep, artist and album. I have Winamp Pro 5.623 and use that for ripping then because a lot of the files end up on mobile devices I use Mp3Tag connected to my discogs account (discogs is free btw) to create id3 tags that play nice on windows and android phones.

^^^^THIS^^^^
I used it years ago to organize and tag hundred of albums

By "down about 8 folders" do you mean down the list alphabetically or down deeper into the folder structure?

I was looking around I read the maximun path string in windows is 260 characters. If you mean sub folders then you might be exceeding that.

I'm seeing different versions of Winamp for downloading, 5.9.2 and 5.666.3516

Depending on what the OP is using to rip, it could be the list of attributes in rip settings...,
WMP, for example, will apply rip attribute settings to subsequent folders, regardless of the pervious folder view settings.

I don't understand why people kill themselves messing with folders when you could simply let the media player organize your music.

For me, I simply rip my music to PC, with the files going to my music directory where each ripped album gets it's own folder under the artist name. That's default based on the ripper I use (dBpoweramp).

Regardless, I don't bother fiddling with the folders, I simply organize the music via the media player (JRiver Media Center).

That's me.

Dru2 said:

I don't bother fiddling with the folders

Click to expand...

I prefer viewing, picking and playing music via folder structure, provided the functionality is available within the app, not from File Explorer.

I let the older Windows Media Player or Win11's Media Player determine how the Ripped music is stored. What takes more time is the music I've gotten from other people that usually is not organized.

Berton said:

I'm seeing different versions of Winamp for downloading, 5.9.2 and 5.666.3516

Click to expand...

@Berton

V.5.666 was the last, free release of the original from 2013. It does not have the ripping tools.

V.5.9.x is a new release from late 2022. I don't know what capabilities it has.

I'm using the last paid version of Winamp from back in 2013. It can rip cd's.

Edwin said:

I prefer viewing, picking and playing music via folder structure, provided the functionality is available within the app, not from File Explorer.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I prefer viewing and playing files from a media player. I never view music files from Windows Explorer.

With JRiver Media Center, when I need to play an album, I do it via artist or album shown in the app. Files are organized by tags and accessed from the left side of the pane...



Its why I don't even bother with music file organization in Explorer. There's no need for it. It was the same when I was using iTunes as well.

Anyway, this is how dBpoweramp organizes ripped albums in Explorer. Left side shows Root folder (Music Collection) where a folder is created for the album artist, on the right the albums of the artist, and inside those folders are the tracks listed in track order...



Track listing by track order as organized by the dBpoweramp ripping program...



If you use a media player, I see zero reason to fiddle with the Windows Explorer folders. But that's me.

We are getting off topic guys.

@xpac5896 I'd like to suggest you post your question in the following thread.

Apply Folder View to All Folders of Same Template Type in Windows 11​

I want to thank all of you for your comments.
I'm very particular as to how data is stored, especially music files. I, believe it or not, found that WAV is much better than MP3, you would think I would already know that, but MP3 is how most people listen to music so, needless to say, I'm in the process of re-ripping all my CDs. But getting back to the structure of the folder, the following columns are used in order - YEAR (the record was released), NAME, TITLE, CONTRIBUTING ARTIST, #(in which the track is found on the Album), LENGTH, COMMENTS (To identify what album the song was ripped from), and TYPE (This is used to identify which songs need to be ripped to WAVE format). To SQRLY, I've read and done all that but, maybe, I have reached the limit of Explorer. There is one column that may be eliminated and that is TITLE as you already have a NAME column. I myself believe that the TITLE column is used to ensure the MAME and TITLE are identical and nothing more as I have come across some songs with different NAMES and the TITLES are different. I use the same program to rip but I play with WINAMP. I mentioned that I can go down 9 folders and the 10th will not be formatted as the first 9 and this is in alphabetical order. The above columns may be a bit much, but it does give you all the info on each song as most, if not all, of my library are old songs as I love oldies, at least you can understand what the singer is saying compared to today's music.

I can understand the desire for the .wav format but it does result in larger file sizes. Also involved is the quality of the playback equipment including the speakers. After going into the Navy and working around aircraft we had to protect our hearing so work muffs made for that, even when on the pistol team and shooting .22s and .45s indoors. Then my career involved radio communication so yearly physicals were required. All that to say that most times I don't hear much difference between .wav and .mp3 except sometimes when using a quality headset.

xpac5896 said:

I mentioned that I can go down 9 folders and the 10th will not be formatted as the first 9

Click to expand...

Could it be a matter of this:
At the 9th folder stage, you've set the aforementioned folder view, while the 10th folder, being a fresh rip, is applying rip settings as opposed to folder view settings?
If so, you have 2 options:
• make rip settings match folder view settings, or,
• set folder view settings/Customize to General Items
I'm not sure what app you're using to rip, so, perhaps none of this applies.

I've a tougher project, daughter gave me a folder containing 403 files saved in 13 folders. They are untitled but she did give me a printout of the titles in each folder and now I get to do the renaming. Won't have any other details, whoever provided the songs for some party didn't rip them which would have gotten the data.

xpac5896 said:

I want to thank all of you for your comments.
I'm very particular as to how data is stored, especially music files. I, believe it or not, found that WAV is much better than MP3, you would think I would already know that, but MP3 is how most people listen to music so, needless to say, I'm in the process of re-ripping all my CDs.

Click to expand...

You are a million percent right about mp3 vs WAV, but what you might not realize (not mentioned) is the reason WAV (also FLAC, and Apple's ALAC) sound better is mp3 is a lossy format (meaning audio data is sacrificed to keep files small) whereas WAV, FLAC, ALAC, and lossless files - that means no sonic information is lost.

And no, you do not need a premium system to hear a difference. All you need to know is what to look for, in this case, what's not there.... weight of music. MP3's tend to sound light and tinny compared to the heft of sound lossless files bring.

I myself rip in FLAC, which as said, is also lossless like WAV, but FLAC files are more popular these days as they can also be compressed for a smaller size, unlike a WAV file, and STILL remain lossless. Its tagging (metadata) is also more consistent across a myriad of platforms.

All that said, that still has zero to do with organizing files... that is whether the file is mp3, WAV, FLAC, or ALAC, it's not going mean a hill of beans when it comes to organizing.... unless organizing by file types... WAV, FLAC, ALAC.

xpac5896 said:

But getting back to the structure of the folder, the following columns are used in order - YEAR (the record was released), NAME, TITLE, CONTRIBUTING ARTIST, #(in which the track is found on the Album), LENGTH, COMMENTS (To identify what album the song was ripped from), and TYPE (This is used to identify which songs need to be ripped to WAVE format). To SQRLY, I've read and done all that but, maybe, I have reached the limit of Explorer. ....

Click to expand...

And why I see no reason to get a headache trying to do this in Windows Explorer, when all you list is right there in a decent media player. I've never used Winamp, but I'm quite sure that info will be there.

But hey, if that's what you desire, good luck to you. Do let us know how it goes