How do you set up your MP3's?

[Similitude]

So while trying to switch albums out on my iPhone today, I realized I have a few albums on there just for one song. I am a completist I guess you would say so to me its odd just to have one song on there If I have the whole Album. However asking friends and people online it appears I might be in the minority. So put simply, do you just put whole Albums on your MP3 Players, or just songs you like, even if that means partial albums.

 

[Mike Farley]

When I first started ripping music onto my computer I was doing whole albums, but then when I realized that I was just filling up my hard-drive and iPod with shit I'll NEVER listen to I got more selective.

 

[Peacemaker]

I listen to music mixed by dj's more often than not, so I arrange mine my album. Most of it comes from a close friend of mine (see my sig), so I pretty much know what I'm getting. There's rarely a loser in what he does.

 

[Captain Ice]

How I sort my MP3s depends on how well I like the artist/album. Where I purchase an album, I generally rip everything to the hard drive and transfer the album whole to my MP3 player. When i find songs I don't care for, I erase them from both.

Where I know I only like one or two songs from an album, I try to just obtain the songs I like without buying the whole album.

 

[Similitude]

Interesting. I'm torn. I feel like I must have the entire album, but I hate having songs I don't like take up all that space.

 

[nevermore]

On the computer I have full albums, organized with artist folder, sub folder by album; hard drive space is not an issue. My iPod was an old 1 gig deal, so I switched out the playlist regularly, songs only, no albums because I don't listen to albums the whole way through with a few exceptions. Of course, that was stolen last year, so I don't have an MP3 player anymore. I do have a car stereo that plays MP3s from disk, and those are burned by playlist, not album. I like to mix it up.

 

[tomalak301]

Pick and choose mostly. If there is an artist who I really like, I'll get their album.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I put entire albums on there if it's one of my favorite artists - for example, I have every single one of Bruce Springsteen's albums on there in their entirety. Same with The Tragically Hip, Pearl Jam, Dan Fogelberg, Alanis Morissette, Journey, Matchbox 20, The Police/Sting, Fleetwood Mac, and a few others.

I also have some 60's & 70's musicians where I don't necessarily have all their albums, but I put on the entirety of what I do have - Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin, for example...or mixed 'temporary' groups like Blind Faith.

I also have a ton of classical music on my iPod, and of course I put entire albums on there in those cases.

But in the case of most other artists, I have only the songs I like. Or in a very few cases, I've downloaded a single song by an artist because of particular memories I have attached to that song. There are about 10 - 12 songs I have that no matter how much time goes by, these particular memories always pop into my head whenever I hear the song. Might not own the entire album...but I have these songs.

 

[Pingfah]

The only time I use my MP3 player is when I am snowboarding or riding, I still tend to put whole albums on there but miss out the less energetic pieces as snowboarding to a ballad doesn't tend to pump you up too much.

At home, I only ever listen to whole albums and hardly ever even skip tracks, if people can't get it together to release an entire albums worth of good music they are not worth my time, but I do not use MP3s at home.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I go by individual songs. I'm more likely to create a list based on a time period or mood than by an artist or album.

 

[backstept]

whole albums mostly . . .
on the occasion that I have loose tracks they're usually from someplace where I go to find new(to me) music such as rcrdlbl.com with their mp3 of the day newsletter etc

 

[trekkiedane]

Operas, concerts, Concept albums and Original SoundTracks I usually listen to on an album by album basis - But I also have a couple of 'playlists' containing either something for bicycling fast/vacuum cleaning -or something meditative to keep the heart rate down while in a supermarket or when I'm in a similarly stressing environment.
I also carry a couple of 'funny'-playlists with TV theme tunes, cartoon clips, comedy routines (who's on first?) and other weird/unusual/downright crazy stuff.

I can not make myself delete music, and with HD space being as cheap as it it now I don't need to burn to optical discs in order to keep everything readily available. In fact I still have many CDs I haven't yet made into mp3s or FLACs to keep on HD that I haven't heard in ages, but every time one of those is on my mind I also transfer it to HD.

My Chinese mp4 player ( ) holds 8 Gb, but I rarely use more than about 3 Gb...

I currently have about 40 Gb of music on my computer.

 

[The Habs Fan]

On my computer, I just rip the singles/radio singles. I like rock music and I am a completist, so for example I have every single by Rush and every single by Stone Temple Pilots plus hundreds more bands and all their singles.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

On my computer, I generally have whole albums, but I don't only have whole albums (I have enough 90s one-hit wonders where I don't give a crap about the rest of their album aside from one song). I have a 2 gig iPod, so I have to be brutal with trying to fit as much variety of music in as I can, so I cut it down. I think Nevermind was my last complete album and now that's down to about half the songs. Sometimes albums get cut down to either my favorite song off the album or to just the singles.

 

[trekkiedane]

The last couple of weeks the only things I've had on my portable device are the Star Trek OST, the sound from the three official trailers to Star Trek, the original music (without voice overs) to the third Star Trek trailer and some horrible recording of the sounds of an entire movie -you know which one.

 

[Crusher Disciple]

To me, songs are like a buffet. I bought one artist's album, and that was because it was about $5.99 that week at Amazon. For most artists in my playlist, I only have 2-3 of their songs.

I only have complete albums of soundtracks, like the Dark Knight and ST XI. With instrumental soundtracks, I never know which track is my favorite one from the movie.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Some albums are just impossible to break up, though. Could you imagine breaking up Darkside of the Moon and only have a song or two off of it?

 

[msbae]

I just upload the track I want and delete all info, save for artist name, song title and genre. It makes navigation on my iPod Touch much easier.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Really? I ensure everything is accurate (including album, album artwork, year the album was produced, and track order).

 

[ITL]

I don't have an mp3 player/iPod, so I just use Winamp on the computer for playing them. I like to get as complete a discography as possible for my favourite bands/artists, and I'll get the odd loose track by others as and when.

So I have artist folders with album folders inside, and one "Various Artists" folder for the odd tracks. I always run albums through an mp3tag program as well - I use artist, song, album, year, track number and genre tags. And I like to have the album cover in there.

I do like making playlists based on mood or genre, as well.