Music file & folder recommendations? (Combination of tracks and single-file albums.)

General Discussions
1

I’m looking for advice on setting up my PMS music library where I have most albums are in the recommended folder structures, but I have hundreds which are stored as single files, currently contained in a single folder with each file having a name structure of:

{group} {year} {albumTitle}[( {optionalNotes})].{fileExtension}

square brackets indicate optional content

2

If the single-file albums are flac/cue, Plex won’t support that. Those albums will be represented as a single track.

3

Bummer. Not for the last time, I’m sure, but I wish PMS weren’t so danged ■■■■ with its file structure. {mad}

4

@LloydGM said:
{group} {year} {albumTitle}[( {optionalNotes})].{fileExtension}

I am pretty sure, you can coerce mp3tag to use this file naming pattern to update your files’ embedded metatags.
If the embedded tags are in perfect condition, you can get away with such a file name.

Or use it to restructure your collection.

5

Pursuant to Otto’s suggestion, in order for Plex to get artist, album, and track names from the folder/filename structure, that structure has to be in a predictable format. If the embedded ID3 tags are in good shape, and Plex is configured to use the ID3 tags, the folder/filename structure isn’t nearly as important.

6

Ok, I’ve been playing with Emby–running alongside Plex–and am back to seeing if I can improve my Plex installation.

So I’ve sampled some of my music library files and ID3 tags are all correct. One thing I recall someone saying was to set the ID3 tags the same for title and album…would that be best?

7

@LloydGM said:
So I’ve sampled some of my music library files and ID3 tags are all correct. One thing I recall someone saying was to set the ID3 tags the same for title and album…would that be best?

Title of what?

In order to have Plex recognise a bunch of files to belong to the same album, these files need to have the following embedded metadata to be identical:

  • Album Title (no indication of ‘disc number’ must be included)
  • Album Artist

The following meta tags should be present:

  • Track number
  • Track Title
  • TrackArtist

It helps if all tracks of an album are in a folder structure which follows
Music / Artist / Album / Tracks

8

Singles. I was told Plex only recognizes albums as if every piece of music ever created was on an album. I’m wondering if Plex could recognize singles, maybe if I set the album tag to the same value of the track title? Or something? (Using metadata, that is.)

9

@LloydGM said:
I’m wondering if Plex could recognize singles, maybe if I set the album tag to the same value of the track title?

Yes that is a good way, actually. It “simulates” a Single-type release.