First of all a big thanks once again to the people taking the time to share their knowledge and experience, it really is appreciated.
Some top tips learned from people with a broader range of experience in JR than myself. My use of JR has evolved over time, I've researched and found ways of doing things that work for me, but the more times you have to repeat them you begin to realise that yes, they do work, but they aren't usually the best way to do things
I'm aware of the individual elements mentioned above, but don't always have the foresight/experience to link them all together to produce a really neat efficient solution. That takes more experience than I currently have; hence my appreciation of you taking the time to share.
In response to Glynor's valid points, my library is evolving and has evolved over time. I started with .mp3, I now have FLACs, then 24bit started to appear along with 48kHz and 96kHz and then DSF vinyl rips and 5.1 channel then there's non-music files such as audio books, radio recordings and podcasts. . . The 'new' formats sort of creep up on me, you start to add one or two in a way that seems to work, then as you get more you realise that it's not very efficient and could be done better. At a certain point you say I need to rework this and 'fix' the meta data and tagging to 'use the power' of the tags and the database to do things 'properly; this is exactly what people have been saying in this thread and what I'm trying to move towards. What I personally don't have the clarity of what the end game will be so my database/tagging evolves with some tinkering to get better and keep heading the right direction. Not the most efficient solution but something I just keep chipping away at without breaking anything
One of the hardest things for me is having an overview and clarity of the big picture of all the elements of JR so things aren't perfect from the start. As a consequence things evolve and improve over time as I gain knowledge, experience and understanding.
My file structure is pretty close to what I want but needs a bit of tweaking as I'm getting directory name clashes as I've got the same album in potentially CD, HD, vinyl, DVD, Blu-Ray, SACD, 2.0 and 5.1 formats. Not a massive problem, but as it's crept up on me it's now big enough to need tackling and resolving.
As for [Media Sub Type], I hold my hand up to under using those tags
Glynor's keen eye spotted that they would be an ideal way of improving the tagging/meta data. However, I do keep my radio/podcasts in a separate directory structure as those directories are backed up to different locations due space limitations on the backup drives. I do the same with my video files for the same reason.
Many thanks for you help.
Spike