Music Naming Conventions - fcmendoza/Howtos GitHub Wiki

Naming conventions for music files, songs and albums.

Artist              - Album                         - ## Song Title

Nightwish           - Century Child                 - 03 Dead To The World.mp3  
Avril Lavigne       - Let Go                        - 04 - I'm With You.mp3  
Queen               - A Kind Of Magic               - 09 Princes Of The Universe (Highl.mp3  
Hoobastank          - Every Man For Himself         - 04 Inside Of You.mp3  
Theatre Of Tragedy  - Musique                       - 02 City Of Light.mp3  
Panic At The Disco  - A Fever You Cant Sweat Out    - 10 I Write Sins Not Tragedies.mp3

FOR FOLDER NAMES

If we only have one disk of an artist then:
Artist Name - Album Name

Example:

A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms  
Disturbed - The Sickness

If we have more than one disk for a given artist then:
Create a folder for such artist then put its albums inside of it, following the previous convention.

Example:

Apocalyptica  
   Apocalyptica - Cult  
   Apocalyptica - Inquisition Symphony  
   Apocalyptica - Plays Metallica by Four Cellos  
   ...  
The Gathering  
    The Gathering - If_Then_Else  
    The Gathering - Souvenirs

FOR SONG NAMES

When we only have a disk of an artist:
XX - Artist Name - Song Name.mp3

Example:

04 - A perfect circle - Judith.mp3  
04 - Aesma Daeva - The Eros Of Frigid Beauty .mp3  
02 - Audioslave - Show Me How To Live.mp3  
11 - SG Wannabe - Happy!.mp3  
06 - Flyleaf - Im Sorry.mp3

This is also valid:
Artist Name - XX - Song Name.mp3

Epik High - 03 - Fan.mp3  
Sirenia - 04 - Euphoria.mp3

And if the songs are already named following the conventions as when we have more than one disc for an artist then just leave them like that, for example:

Hoobastank - Every Man For Himself - 03 Moving Forward.mp3

When we have more than one disc for an artist:
Artist Name - Album Name - XX - Song Name.mp3

Example:

Apocalyptica - Inquisition Symphony - 04 - Nothing Else Matters.mp3  
Apocalyptica - Plays Metallica by Four Cellos - 04 - The Unforgiven.mp3  
Apocalyptica - Worlds Collide - 06 - Stroke.mp3  
Avril Lavigne - Let Go - 01 - Losing Grip.mp3  
Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin - 06 - My Happy Ending.mp3

This is also valid:
Artist Name - Album Name - XX Song Name.mp3

Apocalyptica - Apocalyptica - 11 Deathzone.mp3

INDIVIDUAL OR INCOMPLETE SONGS

When we have just a few songs of an artist from various of its albums we could name the folder where those songs are contained like Artist Name. This way I could tell them apart from the ones like Nightwish or Lacuna Coil.

And apparently the convention to name the audio files is Artist Name - Song Name.mp3. This convention was developed by accident but I think I should keep following it.

Some already fixed following such convention are:

Artist Name - Song Name.mp3

  • Aerosmith
  • Rammstein
  • Static X
  • Slipknot
  • The Smashing Pumpkins
  • The Doors*
  • Stratovarious

*(this one does not follow the convention mentioned above as the files were already named under a different convention that looks ok to me. in fact it's using the multiple albums convention)

Notes