I want to create a Premium Music Library, however, I don’t want to freeze my server adding all my music at the same time.
Question: is there a good naming convention to use to do this?
Plex recommends:
/Plex Media/Artist/Album Title/Track
I have over 4,500 artist folders. Is there a better way?
Could I use:
/Plex Media/Artist (A)/Artist/Album Title/Track
This would divide the artists and add them by letter instead of at the same time.
Help is appreciated. Thank you.
Yes, Grouping artists alphabetically like that is good.
When you build your music library initially,
The folders listed in your music library will appear as, for example /music/A and /music/B.
Under each of these grouping blocks will be the normal Artist/Album/Track structure
@ChuckPA said:
Yes, Grouping artists alphabetically like that is good.
When you build your music library initially,
- Add Artist block “A” as the first folder to include in the library
- Upon completion, “Optimize Database”
- Edit the library section and add Artist block “B”.
- Repeat Optimization - Add next loop until done
The folders listed in your music library will appear as, for example
/music/Aand/music/B.
Under each of these grouping blocks will be the normal Artist/Album/Track structure
So I could do:
/Plex Media/Music/Artists (A)/Artist/Album/Track
Or
/Plex Media/Music/A/Artist/Album/Track
Whichever works?
@trumpy81 said:
If you want Plex to work as intended, then you need to follow the recommendations given by Plex.You do not have to add just one Music library. You may add several if it helps you to organise your Music more efiieciently.
I have My Music split into several libraries:
Albums
Flac
Singles
Various ArtistsIf you use
/Plex Media/Music/Artist (A)/Artist/Album Title/Trackit would have no effect unless you point a library at/Plex Media/Music/Artist (A)instead of/Plex Media/Music. Then only Artist (A) and it’s contents would be added to the library.Your media should be organised like so, where possible:
Media
…|_ Movies
…|_ Music
…|_ Artist
…|_ Album
…|_ Tracks
…|_ TV Shows
…Also, you should make sure your Music is properly tagged. Minimum tags for Plex:
Artist
Album Artist … (Leave blank for Various Artist albums only, all other tracks MUST contain this tag)+
Album
Title
Year
Genre
Track Number
Cover ArtI recommend that you only use the above tags, but that is your choice. Other tags may not be used by Plex. And don’t forget to enable ‘Use embedded tags’ in your library settings.
I recommend that your file names should include the Artist, Track number and Track Title as a minimum.
EG: Pink Floyd - 04 - Time.flac
This is quite helpful, thank you.
So any various artists albums I have, I would leave the album artist field completely blank, for instance
Name: This Is Me
Artist: Keala Settle
Album Artist: Blank (even though it’s various artists)
Album: The Greatest Showman
Year: 2017
Does it matter to have music files names like the one you have for Pink Floyd or would in your example: 04 Time.flac work?
Otherwise my music is correctly tagged.
@SanchezHouse said:
@ChuckPA said:
Yes, Grouping artists alphabetically like that is good.
When you build your music library initially,
- Add Artist block “A” as the first folder to include in the library
- Upon completion, “Optimize Database”
- Edit the library section and add Artist block “B”.
- Repeat Optimization - Add next loop until done
The folders listed in your music library will appear as, for example
/music/Aand/music/B.
Under each of these grouping blocks will be the normal Artist/Album/Track structureSo I could do:
/Plex Media/Music/Artists (A)/Artist/Album/Track
Or
/Plex Media/Music/A/Artist/Album/Track
Whichever works?
PMS keeps the top level directory name, whatever you give it, as a static string.
You could call it anything you want so whatever makes it the most convenient to you is completely ok
@ChuckPA said:
@SanchezHouse said:
@ChuckPA said:
Yes, Grouping artists alphabetically like that is good.
When you build your music library initially,
- Add Artist block “A” as the first folder to include in the library
- Upon completion, “Optimize Database”
- Edit the library section and add Artist block “B”.
- Repeat Optimization - Add next loop until done
The folders listed in your music library will appear as, for example
/music/Aand/music/B.
Under each of these grouping blocks will be the normal Artist/Album/Track structureSo I could do:
/Plex Media/Music/Artists (A)/Artist/Album/Track
Or
/Plex Media/Music/A/Artist/Album/Track
Whichever works?
PMS keeps the top level directory name, whatever you give it, as a static string.
You could call it anything you want so whatever makes it the most convenient to you is completely ok
@trumpy81 said:
Your file name would work, but if you had another album with a track titled Time, you may not be able to distinguish between the two, especially if you copied both tracks to a compilation album or shared them with a friend.It can be very difficult to distinguish the correct artist from the recording alone. Tags do help in this situation, but you cannot always rely on the tags as they can become corrupt or may be incorrect to begin with. At least if you include the Artist name in the file name, you have some chance of verifying the artist/album it belongs to.
It is up to you though.
Leaving the Album Artist blank will place the album/track into a Various Artists folder in your Music library. So to locate that file/album in your library, you would look under the Various Artists artist in your Music library.
Thank you both for your advice. I will consider this in my rebuilding. Both of you have been amazing. Plex Forums are great.
I don’t get what you are trying to ask here. Even if you alphabetize your music library, you will still have to add the root music folder as a single library. That also means that it will still add all of the artists, albums, and tracks whether you have your album alphabetized or not. Also, Plex doesn’t add in the artists all at one. It may be fast, but it still goes one by one.
@aaronth07 said:
I don’t get what you are trying to ask here. Even if you alphabetize your music library, you will still have to add the root music folder as a single library. That also means that it will still add all of the artists, albums, and tracks whether you have your album alphabetized or not. Also, Plex doesn’t add in the artists all at one. It may be fast, but it still goes one by one.
I’m asking is there a better way to add a large music library other than doing:
/Media/Music/A
/Media/Music/Etc.
I organize my relatively large music library like this example and it works fine:
\Music\Artist\Album\Artist Name - Song Name
Here is another example:
\Music\Pink Floyd\The Dark Side Of The Moon\Pink Floyd - Time
When organizing my library like that, it lets me browse by the Artist name, but I can still search Albums and Songs. Because I have the Artist name before the Song name in the actual title of the file, I can always distinguish between duplicate songs. This method has worked pretty well for me, but it’s not like it will really matter once it gets into Plex.
Although, since Plex’s official naming scheme for music is TrackNumber - TrackName and you’re replacing the TrackNumber part with Artist Name, you will have to make sure all of your music has the proper metadata (if you’re looking for a good program to do this for you, I recommend MusicBrainz Picard). You might also have to manually match some music that didn’t get recognized, but that is just standard for any music naming scheme.
@trumpy81 said:
Leaving the Album Artist blank will place the album/track into a Various Artists folder in your Music library. So to locate that file/album in your library, you would look under the Various Artists artist in your Music library.
Wrong.
Leaving the Artist tag blank will get you in trouble.
Album Artist is most used for compilation (aka VA) albums as you want correct Artist pr. song and whom ever ‘made’ the compilation as Album Artist.
Or when a song or even album have several artist collaborating on a song, you need the Album Artist (to tag 'main artist) or you can guarantee your album will be split up into several “albums”.
And that is exactly how i have all my music tagged.
I wanted to update people as it regards to the complete and most simpliest way to add your music on Plex.
When you add media to Plex, you should always have the formation of your folders as
Plex Media/Music/
If you have a lot of A letter artists, create a naming scheme that will allow Plex to add your content with ease and zero confusion. If you had folders such as:
Plex Media/Music/A
This naming scheme could haywire if you have an album later in your additions that is titled ‘A’
Try:
Plex Media/Music/Artist (A)
This is secure and won’t confuse Plex.
The last thing with getting organized is make sure you add the most amount of music in a given artist first and go to least.
In other words, let’s say you have 200 A artists, 60 D artists, and 10 M artists. Don’t add D, A, and M. Add A, D, and M. This is will help you stay consistent with Plex as it attempts to acquire data.
Make sure after every single addition you make to your library you optimize. Without Optimizing Database, the database could get stuck on you and the database won’t run smoothly. Plex has this feature to ensure that everything goes well.
Create Plex Mixes, create mood based playlists. Explore everything Plex Music has to offer especially as a Plex Pass subscriber.
Last thing, make sure that if you run a cleaner software to keep your computer up to date to never delete data for Gracenote.
The files .gdb are responsible for making Plex Music work especially with Plex Mixes. These files are inside the cache folder within your install on your computer.
I hope this helps those adding a large library.
Thanks!
