Once your digital music collection starts to grow in size it’s a good idea to keep it organised. By that I mean that you tag your music files properly and organise them in a meaningful folder structure. A lot of people I know just rip their CDs, or download tracks, and then simply dump all the files into one big ‘music’ folder. This will make it a nightmare to find anything, especially if tags are missing. Luckily there’s great software available that will make your life easier.
My favourite music player is Amarok. Amarok has got a good tag editor built-in to help you get your collection up to scratch. But I prefer to use EasyTAG, especially for batch editing (it’s available for Windows as well). It doesn’t look very impressive but it’s very configurable. You can fill tags based on folder/file names, look up tags online, create any kind of folder structure you want based on file tags, and it supports all common music file formats.
Before you start decide on a folder/file structure. You can organise your music by genre, artist, artist – album, etc… My preferred method is to organise them as follows: artist/album/track# – title.mp3. Or more visually:
artist name
|
+ album name 1
| |
| + 01 - title 1.mp3
| 02 - title 2.mp3
| 03 - title 3.mp3
+ album name 2
| |
| + 01 - title 1.mp3
| 02 - title 2.mp3
.
.
.
For a chronological order you can also include the release year at the beginnig of the album folder name. I don’t bother with this as I let Amarok take charge of any other organising.
Using EasyTAG is rather straight-forward. The window is divided into 3 panes:
- the folder browser on the left
- the file list in the middle
- the tag editor on the right
To get started select the folder containing the files you want to tag in the left pane. EasyTAG scans it, lists any music files inside it, and selects the first track ready for editing.
Manually fill tags
To edit a single track just type the information into the tag fields. To move on to the next/previous track you can click on it in the file list, but I find it faster to use the PageUp/PageDown keys. You don’t need to save the changes until you finish editing all the files.
To batch edit select all the tracks using CTRL+A. Or use CTRL+click/SHIFT+click to select just some of the tracks. Update the tags and click the little square button at the end of each tag field. If you don’t do this it will only update the last file in your selection!
You can also add album art to your files. You can find most album art on Amazon, or use Google Images. The album art has to be PNG or JPG, so convert it if you can only find a GIF. You might also want to reduce the image size. Save the changes.
Fill tags based on folder/file names
I often convert flac to mp3, and the tags don’t carry over during the conversion. This is where EasyTAG can save you a lot of tedious work and time – as long as your files are properly named. Let’s say you have the following folder/file structure after converting Les Sexareenos’ 14 Frenzied Shakers from flac to mp3:
Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/01 - Ruby D..mp3
Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/02 - We Gonna Ball.mp3
Les Sexareenos/14 Frenzied Shakers/03 - Don't You Know Kokomo.mp3
...
Open the folder in EasyTAG, select all the files (CTRL+A) and open Scanner > Fill Tag(s). Enter the mask based on your folder/file names. For this example you would use
%a/%b/%n - %t
(%a = artist, %b = album, %n = track#, %t = track)
Make sure the scanner window displays the correct tag information below the mask. If you have problems identifying the correct placeholders for the mask then click the Legend button. Click the (green) Scan button and the tags are filled for the selected files. Close the Scanner window and save the changes.
Rename files and folders
Once your files are tagged the way you want them it’s time to rename them. This is very similar to what we did in the previous step. Select all your files and open Scanner > Rename File(s) and Directory. Create your folder/file mask the way you want to rename the tracks and click the Scan button. Close the Scanner window and save to rename.
You can use this as well to automatically move your files into your music folder. For example, I store my music collection in /media/sda1/audio. To get EasyTAG to move the files there whilst renaming them I use the following mask:
/media/sda1/audio/%a/%b/%n - %t
Other useful renaming masks
Album with more than one disk (uses the disk# tag): %a/%b/%d%n - %t
Various artists compilation: Various/%b/%n - %a - %t
And have a look around EasyTAG’s Preferences window as well. There are many useful options like automatically changing the case of filenames and extensions, or converting spaces to underscores.
The Bonevilles , purveyors of fine punk blues from Lurgan, Northern Ireland are coming to 
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