The last update on my music computer system was just over two years ago; it is time for a new update.  The main music computer is still the same AMD Athlon in the TNN-500 case but the hard drives have been upgraded.  The sound I/O card is the Lynx Two.  The OS is Windows XP SP2 updated with the most recent patches.  The programs used are basically the same as reported earlier:

Exact Audio Copy - for ripping CDs
Sony Sound Forge 7 - for recording from records and for general sound editing
FLAC - for lossless compression
Ogg Drop - for lossy compression
Tag&Rename - for editing meta fields
Foobar2000 - for playing back files
Windows XP/Windows Explorer - for organizing and accessing sound files

As the number of sound files has grown, I’ve ended up using Windows Explorer and the Windows file system to organizing the files.  I use the hierarchical file system as follows:

  • Top level: Type of file (Books, Music, Lectures, etc.)
  • Music Category
  • Album Title
  • Resolution (for high-res files only)

The following screen shot shows the hierarchy in action:

I’ve drilled down to the individual tracks (each one a FLAC file) in the 96-24 folder under Scientist_…, under Reggae~dub, under Complete Albums.

Note that I have the Windows appearance set to the old Windows 2000 style.  I don’t like the default candy-colored, toy-style that comes with Windows XP.

Custom folder icons are used to differentiate different types of music: ripped CDs, music downloads, or LPs.  Folders with no custom icon mean that the meta-data editing is not yet complete.  For high-resolution recordings, I keep two sets of data: one for the original high-res recording, typically 96KHz/24bits, and a 44.1K/16bit version for use in my iPod. (I’ve discovered that my 5th-gen video iPod does a lousy sample-rate conversion if the file it plays is not already 44.1KHz.) Remember that I am using ROCKbox on my iPod, which plays the open-source formats.

As the music category folders get large, I plan to add another level to the hierarchy: composer for the classical categories, and artist for the others.

As some of you know, I now have a second house in Vietnam.  My main computer there is a Mac Mini that can dual boot into the Mac OS or Windows XP using “bootcamp”.    A Western Digital “Passport” drive holds all the music files, currently over 100GB.  When booted into Windows, I use Foobar2000 to play music, just like on my music computer.  However, I needed an equivalent player when booted up in the Mac OS.  After trying several, I’ve decided on “Cog”.  It is straightforward, simple, and like Foobar2000, it is free.

Notice that I am not using a database-type music player, such as iTunes.  This is because all the ones I’ve looked at either don’t support the formats I’m using or make it hard to sort by composer (the classical music problem).  Using Windows Explorer is clunky, but usable for now.  I’m keeping an eye on new software, but at the moment, my main task is to move my music to the computer and enjoy listening to it!