How to organise double (or more) albums as single entities

General Discussion
1

I have an issue with the way that double albums are typically organised. If I'm recording Quadrophenia, say, it will put it into two separate folders, named something like Quadrophenia Disk 1 and Quadrophenia Disk 2. In each folder the tracks will start from 01.

This is never what I want. I want to just play the album as if it were a single entity. With Tommy, for example, it's on one CD, so it's in one folder, in spite of it being originally released on two vinyl discs, a total of four sides. That's pretty well irrelevant. I want to just play the whole thing.

My solution is as follows. I have written a C# program which allows me to select Quadrophenia Disc 1. It then finds Quadrophenia Disc 2 (Or Disc Two, or whatever other labelling scheme Windows Media Audio or other ripper uses) and moves them as sub-folders of a folder called Quadrophenia.

I then go to MP3Tag and select Quadrophenia. I display the files by folder - so they are in the correct order. I rename the Album from Quadrophenia Disk 1/2 to just Quadrophenia. Then I autocorrect the track numbers so that they run in the correct order. Then, because my car relies on file names rather than track numbers, I rename all the files with the track number as a prefix.

Then I go back to my C# program which copies the files from the subfolders and gives me a single folder with correctly named tracks in order, and deletes the subfolders.

This sounds complicated and difficult, but I can get it done in about a minute, which isn't long for an album.

I'm interested to learn if

Does anyone else find this is an issue?
Has anyone else a cleaner, simpler solution (e.g. better ripping software)?
Would it be possible to do this entirely within MP3Tag?
If it isn't, would it be worth adding the capacity to do it?

I find this particularly an issue with audiobooks, where you can have literally dozens of CDs, and having multiple folders is an annoyance.

2

Consider to first set all the track numbers right as well as the disc numbers.
Then modiy the track number by adding the discnumber to the track number.
E.g. track 1 from disc 1 becomes 101, track 2 = 102, track 10 =110 etc.
The same applies to disc 2 track 1 of disc 2 becomes 201, 202 ... 210.
MP3tag would also list only files with "Quadrophenia" in ALBUM if you use a corresponding filter.
you could sort filtered files by more or less any criteria.
There are functions in MP3tag to rename files and folders, please see the documentation:

The folder structure
Any player that uses the field TRACK should now be able to play the files in the correct order.
If you rename the files, you could easily use TRACK as leading information and the car player should swallow that format.

3

Yes, unfortunately there are still a lot of car players which don't use the TRACK field. Renaming the files is the workaround that I use - tag to filename with $num(%track%,2) - %title% - %artist% - %album%. This gives me a file which is pretty much self identifying, though the filename is a bit excessively long for some tastes.

4

I don't see an easy way to combine files into a single directory using MP3Tag, but that might be just my own lack of familiarity.

5

To move complete folders to a different location, use Convert>Tag-Tag for _DIRECTORY with an partially qualified path.
This also avoids left-behind empty folders.

6

You could expand this slightly to get both the disc and track number ahead of the title in the filename. This would let you flatten the album folder to a single set of files in the correct song order.
%discnumber%$num(%track%,2) - %title% - %artist% - %album%

This is very similar to what @ohrenkino was suggesting. I would use the Albumartist and Album in the folder structure and not put it in the filename to shorten the name.

7

EAC (Exact Audio Copy) has the feature "Continue from last track number" which lets you continue from the latest disc you ripped. So if a double-CD has 8+9 tracks they will be numbered 1-17 in the filename (but also as TRACK metadata if you set it up). The downside is losing the official sorting number on the second disc, meaning it's harder to find the track looking at the scans or updating from online metadatabases or just searching track info online.

I remember trying this method many years ago, but didn't like the downsides so I ditched the idea.

There is also the sister program Easy Audio Copy which is easier to setup, and of course dBpoweramp CD Ripper and CUERipper - all great rippers but I don't know if they have this specific feature.

But I would fix this with Mp3tag post-ripping - you have viable solutions already given above. I personally use the "adding the disc number to the track number" method.

8

That looks like a good solution, though not precisely to my taste. I prefer to leave out the information as to which disc I've recorded the track from, as it's not really relevant for listening to the album.

We all have our quirky ways of organising our music, and the great thing about MP3Tag is that it allows for a multiplicity of approaches.

And I agree that the folder structure is (or should be) sufficient to identify the album and artist, but I tend to prefer to have each file self-identifying. As I've accumulated music from multiple sources, this isn't always something I've consistently implemented. Indeed, the lack of consistency is why I'm working through my files at the moment.

9

And when you're used to how one ripper works, you're less inclined to switch to another, unless there's some significant advantage.

I'm chiefly interested to hear if there's some trick that I'm missing that would streamline the process, but it doesn't seem as if there's anything obvious. And as I can process an album fairly quickly as it stands, I'm not too worried.

10

I will give that a go. It seems like a good option.

11

Gonna chime in with the solution I use for this situation. I also like to have the files self-identifying. I have five main filename formats that I use:

  1. %artist% - %album% - %track% - %title%
  2. %artist% - %album% CDx - %track% - %title%
  3. %albumartist% - %album% - %track% - %artist% - %title%
  4. %albumartist% - %album% CDx - %track% - %artist% - %title%
  5. %artist% - %title%

1 and 2 are my standard format, for single and multiple CDs respectively.
3 and 4 are my Various Artist format, again for single and multiple CDs respectively.
5 is for singles.

1 through 4 put the songs in the correct order in my car player; since the first two parameters are the same, it orders them by track, while also keeping the album's tracklist order.

What I do in the situation you described is select the multiple album directories, hit Ctrl K to bring up the numbering wizard, and check "Reset disc counter on change of _DIRECTORY". This will keep the disc-specific track numbers, and number the discs. Then I make sure all files have the same album name, as you do, and then run my "Move and Rename" actions. This automatically, uh, moves and renames the files.

Here's my multidisc standard action group:
image
The first line creates the directory for the albumartist, then the album with the year in front of it and the file format. (If there are multiple file formats, this will result in multiple album directories.) As ohrenkino indicates above, this avoids empty folders left behind.

The second line renames the file as desired. I think the one thing you might not like is that it does include the disc number, which you see as irrelevant. You could get around this by unchecking "Reset track counter on next disc" in the track numbering wizard, but you'd end up with different track numbers than the official release, as 7stones describes. Like that person, I dislike that, so my solution to add 4 characters (C, D, #, [space) is my compromise.

Finally, I have the keyboard shortcuts set up so that I can:
Select the files, hit Ctrl K, enter, and it's numbered
Hit Alt A M M and my multidisc tracks are moved and renamed (or Alt A M S for single discs). Takes a few seconds.

IMO, one of the key strengths of MP3tag is the ability to set up the keyboard shortcuts. Once you've got them the way you like them, it's a matter of muscle memory to process 20-30 artists' worth of albums in an hour or two.

12

Thanks, this is really useful. I've been using MP3tag for some years now, but clearly I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities. I will certainly try it out, and tinker with it to sort out my own particular quirky requirements. I think we all have a particular way of sorting our music, and it's never any better than anyone else's, but we feel that it is.

There's a wealth of information in your reply - and I will certainly give it a go.