iTunes & FS2

what is the best way to use iTunes to organize songs?

 

"best way" is really kind of subjective. What I consider the best way may not work for you, and vice versa.
As for some general guide lines I would say use the smart play lists feature to tailor how your tracks are organized and thus imported into TFS. Use the comments field and Genre field with the appropriate filters to really fine tune your sorting.
I would also make sure in the iTunes Prefs under Advanced, uncheck Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized and also uncheck Copy Files To iTunes Music Folder When Adding To Library.
Other than that it's really up to you how you organize.

 

thanks right now i'm organizing each song with a star rating, then i'll try and sort based on rating

 

is there any software that would automatically fill in the genre field from from an outside database by getting in the artists and song title from the file name?

 

yep, I know one for PC. Its called Tag&Rename (http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm) and its THE best organizer for PC (plz post if you have found a better one). It costs 29.95 USD.

Tag&Rename features:

Rename .mp3 .ogg .wma .m4a .mp4 .flac and .ape files: easily rename files individually or whole directories at a time, preview changes before renaming or undo the last renaming process, rename the folder (including sub folders) containing your music files, and manually edit files and folders names.

Multi-file or manual tag editors: edit tags for multiple or single mp3/wma/ogg/m4a/mp4/ flac/ape files, fill-in tag fields using the file name.

Freedb support: Gets tag information for full music albums in seconds using the freedb Internet server.

Amazon.com support: search and import album information and cover art from the amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and amazon.de servers to files tags.


Text case conversion functions: convert case or capitalize the first letter of each word within file names or tags.


Support for: mp3 (ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4 tags), MusePack mpc/mp+ (APEv1, APEv2 and ID3v1 tags), Windows Media wma, asf and wmv files, Ogg Vorbis and Flac (vorbis comments), Apple iTunes and iPod aac (m4a) files including mp4, lossless m4a and protected m4p files, most popular lossless codecs including monkey’s audio, wav pack, optim frog, flac, Apple and Windows Media lossless.

Rename music files folder according to it files tag information.

Tags synchronization wizard: you can synchronize ID3v1 and ID3v2 tag data .

Export wizard can export your music information into any format (csv, xml, html and tab delimited text).
M3u playlists: create m3u play lists using the unique Quick Save Playlist feature.

Play music files: listen to your music files using your favorite music player.

Full support for files drag and drop.

Explorer shell extensions: Tag&Rename can be added to the context menu of MS Explorer so that you can access T&R faster (right-click mouse) from the MS File Manager.

 

I'm the exact opposite. I like to keep everything organized on my itunes folder in my itunes folder.

 

Hmm not sure but if you need a free database:

freedb.freedb.org

 

I don't know why -- I use both those options and find them preferable.