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[bmp]

ok, this isn't a technical help question at all, but more or me looking for advice.  

While i should've been doing this since day 1, i've realized the awesome potential of smartlists (especially with an ipod) and now wish to embark on categorizing my collection.

The problem is, short of year, artist, album, i have nothing.  20,000 virtually unclassified mp3s.

So I'm basically wondering what you all use kind of as your guidelines, because i see myself getting way too specific and thus making it a waste of time.

The genre of music is pretty varied, most of the relevant stuff fitting into the incredibly broad "indie" or "pop" or "rock" or "electronic" genres, which so much crossover and specialization that it makes my head hurt.

Then there's also what the songs evoke, i guess that'd be mood, this is easier.  you've got calm, chill, agressive, fun, sad, weird that kind of stuff, again with crossover but not so much specific categories.

So what systems do you use that are both a.) easy enough to implement and b.) thorough enough to give you kickass smartlists.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[rocketsauce]

Well, asking that question here, you will probably get answers from two different groups of people.  Those that feel you should only use "standard" or "universal" genre categories, and those, like me, who use more "personal" catgories.

I agree, though, getting too specific can be a real headache.  When I first started I had way too many genres.  It took me a month or two of playing around before I finally got a handle on how I wanted my genres to breakdown.  Also, I found that using genres that make sense to me rather than trying to fit everything into the "standard" genres was easier.  If you feel that categorizing your music by mood would be easier for you, that's what you should do.  Or, you could use "standard" genres and then use smartlists to combine various genres for different moods.

What happened for me is that some types of music ended up being broken down more specfically than others.  For example, for me, Rock is a pretty broad category, but Electronica and Dance are broken down into categories more specifically by style and decade.

Rob

[Scronch]

The standard genre list was written by morons.  I suppose you could label every song Booty Bass.

Scronch

[KellerDH]

My view is that this business of building a collection is a labor of love; a life-long project.  So, I tend toward excess; More is definitely better.  I'm in it for the long run.  Though, I'm the type that loves to fiddle with stuff as I'm listening to music, so ...

At allmusic.com they have a very professional categorization setup, and they even have short essays on how to tell the various types of music apart.  I also found helpful their "mood" labelling system, and I now have around 30 different, what I call, "flavors".

Enjoy.

[faisal]

this wouldn't be a problem if MJ supported Encoding and tagging .AIFF

[faisal]

sorry i posted in the wrong thread

[Scronch]

No, I hate the ruffles and velcro underwear.

Oops wrong thread.  Sorry...

Scronch

[KingSparta]

Where am I?

What Room Is This And Where Are All The Colors? I Only See Black And White.

I Love Velcro!