Pros and cons of file-name choices (e.g. whether to include track#s, etc)

This is just to share some experience and ideas on what style of file-names to use

when creating (e.g. ripping) tracks from commercial music-CDs.

(I happen to use “Windows Media Player” to rip tracks from music-CDs.  But, other ripping

software also often allows you to specify a naming style layout that you want it to use/generate.)

One suggestion is NOT to use the (default) naming convention in Windows Media Player (aka “WMP”).

If I recall, the default is to BEGIN the filename with the track NUMBER.  I suggest this this can confuse

SanDisk (as well as other players) as to what ORDER to playback tracks.

[If you DO like having the track# present in the name, just don’t put it up front in the name.]

A suggested layout (that I now USE) came about because I have the need to put the resulting

MP3 files on multiple devices.  For example, I now also ‘burn’ a series of my MP3 files onto

a blank CD (or better yet, DVD-media, since it has MUCH more room and most CD-players

can also play DVD media).

So, for example, in my car’s newer-fangled touch-screen based player, it has a ‘list’ touch-button

that displays the long list of every MP3 file that’s on that disk.  I finally figured out that to more

easily be able to find songs is to just put the artist-name first, e.g. followed by, say, a dash, followed

by the song’s name.  This works out great, because the ‘list’ that it creates is sorted alphabetically,

and thus all songs from all of, say Dylan’s albums, will get grouped TOGETHER in the ‘list’, thus

making it easy to visibly find some given song that you’re look for to play.  (Note: At first, I tried

also including ‘album-name-field’, but that made some of the resulting file-names too long.)

Ok, here’s how to set the pattern style of the generated ripped-names, in Windows Media Player (WMP):

     go to  "Organize->Options->Rip Music (tab)-> and click on button labeled “Filename…”, which should

pop up a dialog, where you can choose each data-field to include into the resulting filename, along

with what sort of separator (I like ‘dash’) to use between each field.

I am suggesting to try “Long Path Tool” program.