Music Library Convention

  1. Author folders go into the "music" root folder, where this convention file is located as well.

1.1. Path to this music convention: /music/music-convention.txt

1.2. This convention does not work well with discographies containing multiple copies of the same recording but different country of origin or pressing. It would work via attributes, but will get overloaded with hundreds of folders in view pretty quickly.

  1. Each author's folder contains all of their recording subfolders, i.e. albums, singles, live, etc.

2.1. Sample path to an author folder: /music/Author Name/

  1. Each author's folder should contain its own cover called "folder.png" for visual navigation clarity.

3.1. Sample path to an author's folder cover image: /music/Author Name/folder.png

  1. Author's recording folders (singles, albums, live, etc.) go into the root of author's folder. Their folder's name has to be strictly in the same format as shown below.

4.1. Sample path to an author's recording folder: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/

4.2. Attributes are essentially used to distinct one recording from the other with the same exact name, and to clarify to which group one recording belongs (e.g. Single, Album, Live) - which is the first attribute inside parentheses (if used). Year always goes as the last (or single) info inside parentheses. Any optional attributes (e.g. country) go in between the group and the year attributes. All attributes are separated by a comma and a single space after that comma.

4.3. Sample folder attributes in a recording folder name: (Album, 2000) (Single, 2000) (Single, Japan, 2000)

4.4. In some rare cases when a name of the folder is too long, or when recording is named exactly as its author, hence looks a bit hideous, it is allowed to drop the author's name and leave only recording's name with attributes.

4.5. Sample path to a shortened author's recording folder: /music/Author Name/Album Name (Attributes, Year)/

  1. Only one level deeper from an author folder is allowed, i.e. a subfolder with recordings inside an author folder is the maximum hierarchical depth.

5.1. Sample path to a recording folder where creating other folders is not allowed anymore for simplicity: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/*

  1. Inside recording's subfolder there are high-fidelity audio files, playlist files, and a cover art called "cover.png" or "cover.jpg".

6.1. Sample path to a cover image: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/cover.png

  1. If an audio file contains multiple songs in it, it should be named exactly as the recording folder. However, if there are multiple audio files that contain multiple songs (multiple CDs), they should also be named exactly as their recording folder, with an extra attribute "CD" with the corresponding number of CD the audio file belongs to (e.g. "CD1", "CD2", etc.).

7.1. Sample path to an audio file containing multiple songs: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year).flac

7.2. Sample path to an audio files containing multiple songs (in case of multiple CDs): /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, CD1, Year).flac /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, CD2, Year).flac

7.3. In case if recording folder contains multiple song files, that are essentially simple songs split in each of their own audio file, their naming differs. Their name has to start from their corresponding track number (with number formatted as 00, or 000 depending on the amount of total digits in the songs count), author name, and after the " - " separator, there should be that track's name with attributes from its recording folder. Consider not mentioning the "Album" or "Compilation" part in the beginning of attributes, as this would be unrelated to a single song information.

7.4. Sample path to an audio file that is essentially an individual song file from a playlist: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/01 Author Name - Track Name (Attributes, Year).flac

  1. Recording folder must contain playlist file, either .cue sheet if there are multiple songs inside a single audio file, or .m3u playlist if there are multiple audio files. It is necessary to create an .m3u even if there is only one song in the folder.

8.1. If there is only one playlist inside a folder, it should be named exactly the same name as the recording folder itself.

8.2. Sample path to a single playlist inside a recording folder: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year).cue /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year).m3u

8.3. If there are multiple CDs inside a recording folder, there has to be multiple playlists per each CD, and their name should also be exactly the same as their parent recording folder, with extra attribute in the middle called "CD1", "CD2", etc. depending onto which CD this playlist belongs to.

8.4. Sample path to multi-CD playlists: /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, CD1, Year).cue /music/Author Name/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, Year)/Author Name - Album Name (Attributes, CD2, Year).cue

8.5. In case of .m3u playlists, ensure that their internal text format is set to UTF-8 for compatibility. Or use Mp3Tag to generate playlists to never worry about text encodings.

  1. Both artist "folder.png" or "folder.jpg" thumbnail and their recording's subfolder "cover.png" or "cover.jpg" should be kept in the same format that respects compatibility with music players (especially foobar2000).

9.1. Choose the following settings when formatting images for folder or cover art:

  • PNG (compression level from 6 to 9), 1000x1000px (or 1500x1500px);
  • sRGB color profile, remove ICC embeddings;
  • 8-bit depth (24-bit RGB) without alpha channel;
  • Strip all metadata from the image (EXIF, XMP, etc.);

9.2. For audio files, set the exported cover art as front cover type (picture type 3) in Mp3Tag software, or simply drag and drop the image into the cover field at the bottom left.

  1. For this particular convention and setup, anything else besides audio files, playlists and cover arts is not important and can be deleted (e.g. rip log files, booklets, other attached files that don't affect listening experience at all).

10.1. Besides unnecessary files, this convention is made to lower the storage size of the music library and make it convenient to listen to any songs on a daily basis. For this purpose, any duplicate recordings should be deleted and only one of them kept in the music library.

10.2. General rules of thumb on how to choose the best recording to keep while removing other duplicates recorded in different time and place:

  • Recording year as early as possible, especially before year 2000, because of the Loudness War that pushed music to it's loud peaks and made details worse for listening on high-end audio systems;
  • Quieter is better than louder (simplified assumption of dynamic range);
  • Best countries where recording is made, by their priority are: Japan, Germany, USA, home country of an author;
  • Remastered album is generally always worse tier than original pressings, apply the same country priority within remasters but consider them as always below original pressings quality (although, consider exceptions for modern ages, in some rare cases remastered may actually have exceptional high fidelity audio).

10.3. But consider your opinion first on what recordings to keep. The purpose of this convention is not in making a music library, it is to make your own personal music library where each recording is genuinely yours and played each time fulfilling your own taste and your unique preferences.