Organizing music question!
I just moved a ton of poorly organized music files, that I've collected over 15 years, onto my new MacBook pro; and then I told iTunes to "add to library." The end result is that iTunes has a very confusing assortment of music because music file names (for, say, the same artist) are structured differently and folders are structured differently (some have artist name, some have album title, some have both, some have only year album released, etc.), there are multiple folders for same artist with different variations of the artist name (first name first, last name first, slight misspelling of name) and there are folders that have a name like, "08_Song name" and compilation albums have resulted in folders for EACH artist on the album and only one song in each! Even when I look in iTunes, I see an album listed (on the far left column) but only one song showing; but if I scroll down, I will find the album again with ANOTHER song, from another artist!
How can I organize these better? What I would LIKE is to have all the music within the iTunes music folder to be, first, organized by genre and then by artist except in the case of compilations which I would like to put in a "compilations" folder within the proper genre- with ALL the songs on a single compilation within a single folder!
I can manually go through iTunes and correct variations in artist names to get all the files/ albums to group together- like, change "THE Bob Seeger Band" to "Bob Seeger Band" instead of having some albums listed one way and some the other- but how do I deal with compilation albums that seem to be all split up even though the all show the album name in the same way?
Should I just delete the entire music collection from iTunes and start adding small chunks (one album folder at a time) and trying to organize it a little at a time instead of sticking with the mess that I have from adding my entire music collection at one time?
This is SO confusing!! WHY? I know my music wasn't organized well in the original folders but iTunes seems to have made the music it imported EVEN MORE disorganized!
I hope someone can help!!
How can I organize these better? What I would LIKE is to have all the music within the iTunes music folder to be, first, organized by genre and then by artist except in the case of compilations which I would like to put in a "compilations" folder within the proper genre- with ALL the songs on a single compilation within a single folder!
I can manually go through iTunes and correct variations in artist names to get all the files/ albums to group together- like, change "THE Bob Seeger Band" to "Bob Seeger Band" instead of having some albums listed one way and some the other- but how do I deal with compilation albums that seem to be all split up even though the all show the album name in the same way?
Should I just delete the entire music collection from iTunes and start adding small chunks (one album folder at a time) and trying to organize it a little at a time instead of sticking with the mess that I have from adding my entire music collection at one time?
This is SO confusing!! WHY? I know my music wasn't organized well in the original folders but iTunes seems to have made the music it imported EVEN MORE disorganized!
I hope someone can help!!
MacBook Pro (2011), Mac OS X (10.6.7)
