Music-- Capture it, Organize it and Enjoy it - Part 2
by Phil Sorrentino
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Last month we discussed the History of digital music and how it is created. Now it’s time to organize that Music and create a Music Folder so that it can be the repository of all the music you Rip, purchase, or convert from analog sources; basically your Music Library. There are many ways of organizing the Music folder with sub folders. Before we do that it is probably worth a review of the data that is kept with each music file to see if it can be of any use in determining the organization of these folders. What data? you say. Well along with the actual music, in each music file, there is data that describes the music part of the file. This type of data is called metadata. 
So, metadata is data that describes other data (in this case the music). The music metadata is called ID3 Tag Data and is defined by the ID3v2 specification. ID3 Tag Data includes descriptive items such as: title, artist, album, track number, genre, year, copyright, stereo, length, composer, rating, etc., as well as album cover art graphics. ID3 Tag Data is created when the original MP3 data file is created. The ID3 Tag Data is not easily modified unless you use an ID3 Tag Editor like MP3Tag, which was discussed in the March 2010 issue of the Monitor. (In short, MP3Tag allows the user to modify the ID3 Tag Data that is created along with the MP3 file when a tune is initially created, or ripped from a CD.) The reason that ID3 Tag Data is important is because Music players, like Windows Media Player (WMP) and iTunes use the ID3 Tag Data to organize and present your music library. A music tune will show up according to the ID3 Tag Data, which may not be where you think it should show up if you are only looking at the file name. This will probably not be a problem if all of your tunes come from CDs or are downloaded, but if you convert any from vinyl or tape to MP3, the ID3 Tag Data may not be what you think it should be. Also, if you want to change where particular artists show up, you might have to change the ID3 Tag Data for that artist. Some CD compilations of tunes have the artist as “Various Artists”, which will put that tune under “V”, probably not where you would expect to find it. So, it’s good to have an ID3 Tag Editor so you can make any changes to the ID Tag Data to put the tunes in the places you want them. Once the tunes that need changes to the ID3 Tag Data are changed, the library will be presented as you expected, typically artists or songs alphabetically arranged, although, you can also view the library based on other items such as Genre, Album, Year, or even Rating. Rating is a number that you give to a tune, typically one to five. The Rating can then help you find a tune or present a specific view of your music library. (For example, you could show all the tunes with a rating of 4 or better.) 
So the ID3 Tag Data determines how the music library will be presented, but we still may want to organize the under-lying folders for convenience. This is not necessary, but it might allow the music to be viewed easily (using Windows Explorer), without using a Music Player. When CDs are Ripped, they are put into folders for the Artist, with the Album being a sub-folder. You might continue this and just put all the Artist folders into a Music folder. Then, it would be easy to find any tune with just the Artist and Album names. This is in general a very good way to organize your Music Folder. The only difficulties that might arise are those associated with converted tapes and disks, but you will just have to see how best they can each fit into your overall scheme. A simpler, but less desirable scheme might be just one Music Folder with every tune included. The tunes would then be alphabetically arranged by the file name. This can lead to one very big file, but for small Music Libraries, this may be acceptable. You could even create separate music Folders for specific music genres, like Music-Big Band, Music-Country, Music-Pop; it’s really your choice.
Playlists are next. Now that we have a Folder organization for our Music Folder, we can take advantage of that organization to find tunes to include in Playlists. Playlists are just as you would expect, they are lists of tunes to Play, without any manual intervention. Playlists can include as many tunes as you would like, only limited by the number of tunes in your library. You could easily create a playlist that would last all day. Playlist files are another file type. The original playlist file type is M3U. WMP can be set to use M3U but prefers another Microsoft file type, WPL. M3U has a very simple file structure which is just a text list of files. WPL is a little more complex and probably a little more capable and written in HTML. Both work fine and it is impossible to tell which is being used without looking at the file types. If you have no reason to prefer one over the other, use your Music Player’s default type. (Either file can be modified using Notepad, not Wordpad or Word, if necessary. Notepad is a simple text editor that does not include any formatting information.) This should not be undertaken lightly. Modifying a file with a text editor should only be done with great caution, and only by a person who is confident of the file structure. An error in the file structure may make the file non-useable, so do this only if absolutely necessary. Once you have decided on the Playlist file type, or just accepted to use the default, you can start to create Playlists. Just think of a theme and then find all the tunes that support that theme. Using WMP, playlists are easily created by showing the Library in any view, such as by Artist, and then dragging-and-dropping the tunes for the Playlist over to the Playlist pane on the right side of the screen. After you have all the tunes in the list, give it a name and save it and that’s all there is to it. While you’re at it you might want to create a Playlist for each Artist so that you can review all of the tunes for that specific artist. In this case, the artist is the theme. You might even like this playlist for “an evening with a Sinatra, or Elvis, or the Beatles”.
Now you’re ready to take advantage of all that music entertainment, laboriously stored in the Music Folders. One last item to consider is using your music on other machines on your network. If you don’t have a home network now, you probably will in the future. For simplicity and convenience it makes sense to have only one Music Folder, kept on your main computer (acting as a Music Server), and to use it on every other machine on your network. This way there is only one Music Folder to be backed-up. WMP can easily be set up for Sharing Media. Select Tools-Library-Configure Sharing…, and check the Share Media check box. Then choose the devices, on the network, to Allow sharing of music. This will allow other machines to use the media in the Server’s Music Library. By the way, all of the music in your Music Library can also be used on any of the portable MP3 music players, like Apple’s iPod or SanDisk’s Clip. WMP provides the ability to “Sync” your music to a portable device. Briefly, to share a Playlist, plug your device into a USB port and choose Sync on the Selection Bar, choose the playlist and select Sync. (Obviously, the memory in the portable device must be large enough to hold all the tuned in the playlist.)

Recorded music is only about 133 years old if we consider Edison’s invention in 1877 as its practical beginning. (There were earlier patents on devices that could record but not playback the recording.) Recorded music has come a long way from Edison’s time to the present when almost any recorded music can be obtained and stored indefinitely on our personal computers, and then played and shared almost effortlessly. The computer, besides all of its other jobs, can be a great music entertainment center. If you haven’t started yet, what are you waiting for? Get started creating your own Music Library so you and your family can enjoy the fruits of the past 133 years and your current efforts. :
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This article is from the August 2010 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org//  Web: http://www.spcug.org/