Organizing Tracks

[Bill]

I'm just curious how the rest of you organize your tracks. I just started a database to log the individual tracks and on which CDs they appear. I've tried separating the parks, but come to an impasse when dealing with the OA tracks. Do you leave the multi-park tracks neutral? Do you assign them to one or the other? What if they say "Disneyland Band" on the OA, but the source is the WDW Musical Souvenir LP? Are there definitive answers to which parks the band tracks belong? What if the tracks never played in the parks but are on the OAs or are assigned to one park or the other?

signed,

One Track Mind

 

[dreamfinder]

Wow. Nothing that fancy on this end. I just use a tree hierarchy. Five upper folders are Albums, Disney Tokyo, DIsneyland Paris, Disneyland Resort, WDW. Each resort is then broken down into park and then lands and then attractions. Albums is still a little un organized, but I'm gonna do Unofficial, Official. Then in each of those, Parks, Other. In Parks, break it down to each of the four. If it falls in more than one, I just leave it in the highest common. So an OA that covers both WDW and DL would be in Disney -> Albums -> Official -> Parks where one specific to DCA would be in Disney -> Albums -> Official -> Parks -> Disneyland Resort.
Hope that helps ya,

Dreamfinder

 

[CPNHOOK15]

It's too bad we can't come up with some system of labeling the tracks so that it is consistant. I too have have some troubles not only in organizing my tracks but how to best label them all consistantly and correctly.

Tim

 

[Tannerman]

I have similar challenges. My rule for multi-park tracks is to stick them in the park that first had the attraction. Not always easy to remember, but it's all I could come up with.

 

[diegorivera2]

Like Tannerman, I *try* to stay true to the park that first featured the attraction. In cases where the same loop appears in two separate parks and attractions, such as the Plaza Inn and Crystal Palace loops, I have a .txt file in my directory that indicates as such. As far as OA tracks go, I keep them in a separate higher taxonomy, just like Dreamfinder, so they're separate from the parks tracks. The overall naming convention I use is as follows: Geographic Location - Park - Park Area - Attraction - file name. (e.g., WDW - Epcot - World Showcase - Canda - Canada Background Music Loop.mp3 or WDW - MK - Adventureland - Pirates of the Caribbean - Oh Susanna.mp3. Thank goodness for 256.3 file names!). This gets a little bit tricky for Parades, Fireworks, Resorts, and Restaurants, (I try to use the name of the parade or fireworks show for the attraction name WDW - MK - Fireworks - Fantasy in the Sky, etc.) but it tends to help keep me organized.

 

[X-S Tech]

I do the same; putting tracks under the park where the attraction first premiered. The most important thing is that you can easily navigate your list. Regardless of accuracy if theres a track you know you have but you can't find it, it doesn't do much good. So if it helps you to put the Country Bear Christmas Show under Magic Kingdom instead of Disneyland (where this particular version debuted) go ahead and do it, and just make a note to yourself in the Disneyland section.

To clarify, your collection is on CD right? Sounds like a lot of folks here have theirs all on their computer, which I know makes organization and list making a lot easier.

 

[dreamfinder]

As far as I convention goes, I use the one that Steamboat Willie came up with for naming the files from the WDWF project on the newsgroup. Unfortunately, he took it off of his website sometime recently. So I can't point it out, but it is pretty much the same as diegorivera2.
If you are putting stuff on CD, there is a program call WhereIsIt which will list stuff by cd, so you then just have to label the cd. Not sure what type of database you were designing or if that helps ya any, but I thought I would share.

Dreamfinder

 

[X-S Tech]

Here's a small sample of the way my list is organized


Disneyland
Main St. USA
Atmosphere
Dentists Office (4:14) Disc 24
Great Moments with Mr Lincoln
Opening (1:06) Disc 26


Makes it very easy to navigate the list, and all I have to put on the Disc itself is a number. I then have seperate pages for each CD with the track list for that disc.

 

[Gurgitoy2]

I'm going through a similar situation myself. I need to burn stuff to CD to free up space on my hard drive. I really don't know what program to use for a database though. I tried Microsoft Access, but it was not a fun thing, and it's extremely tedious (also not terribly effective).

I do try to label each CD I burn with a fairly descriptive title, to help me remember what's on each CD, but I can't remember everything. The files I have on my PC are much better organized, but I will need to burn them to disc soon...

 

[dreamfinder]

As I mentioned earlier, WhereIsIt might help ya there Ben. I haven't personally used it (I tend to just buy another hard drive) but I know several people who have and they seem to like it. http://www.whereisit-soft.com/ is the site, there is a free demo so you can try it out. If you are on a Mac, it won't help you as it is for Windows. Hope that helps,

Dreamfinder

 

[Aaron Ulmer]

I've had similar problems. Since I'm using a Mac and iTunes, it automatically organizes them first by Artist, then by Album.

My solution was use Disney Parks as the Artist and then "Tomorrowland - Star Tours" as the Album. That way, all my Disney tracks are in the folder "Disney Parks" in one folder. Inside that folder are MANY other folders for each attraction.

When it comes to commercially released albums, I leave them in a separate directory, keeping the artist name as Disney Parks. It works for me.

If you're using a Mac, iTunes will export a track listing which can be imported into Excel or AppleWorks. I would guess you could do something similar on a PC.