Congratulations on taking the steps to having a music server. This has the potential to open up your collection to entirely new ways of enjoyment, and allows for the discovery of hidden gems you forgot about. In addition, it might make carrying your collection with you (on a smartphone) a reality.
I agree with the response from a prior poster that you should look at a general-purpose computer rather than a purpose-built music server. It is less expensive to use off-the-shelf computer hardware and software, and allows for maximum flexibility and future-proofing (and not to mention well-established mechanisms for making backups).
I’ve been evolving my media server over the past 15 years, and now have an “entry level” commercial-grade server running Linux. I use FLAC as my lossless format, and I wrote a simple program to automatically create 128k MP3 equivalents of all FLAC music files for use in iTunes, and subsequently for syncing with my iPhone. The lossless data is served using both Logitech Media Server and Plex Media Server, which allows arbitrarily streaming music to virtually anywhere in my house. I back up the data on locally-attached backup volumes, other computers in my home network, and remote offsite locations (Crashplan Central). (Yes – the data is backed up to at least 3 different locations.) It’s slick and works great, but it’s taken years to achieve this.
While Linux represents an excellent bang for the buck (it’s infinitely flexible, very stable, and completely free), it’s not the choice for everyone. I used to work in computers, so I have the necessary background to do this. For most other people, however, I recommend a Windows- or Mac OS – based solution. They will work fine, and most people will be much more familiar with using it.
Here are some of my takes on things you should think about up front to save you some hassle later:
1) Music file format. 12 years ago, I switched from WAV to FLAC. I have never looked back. It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made, as FLAC files are lossless yet more compact than WAV. Importantly, however, they fully support tagging, so you know what that particular song actually is, and how it fits into your collection, and therefore allows it to be played when you so desire. It’s also the most universal of the tagable lossless formats, supported on a wide variety of computers and devices (with the sole exception of iTunes) FLAC also supports high-resolution files, and many sites, such as Bandcamp and Magnatune, allow downloading music files in FLAC format.
2) Filesystem structure. Are you going to create directories, etc, to organize your music files, or put them into an application to automatically organize them? (There are pro’s and con’s to each.) Does your software know to avoid putting special characters (such as a slash) in filenames that are disallowed by the particular operating system?
3) Tagging.
a. You’ll need to be consistent here. Are you going to make a differentiation between Pop and Rock, for instance? Newgrass vs Bluegrass? Subtypes of Jazz? (Smooth Jazz, vocals, instrumental, etc). Rap vs Hip Hop? Ambient vs electronica?
b. Cover art. I’ve come to standardize on 600x600 pixel jpg files. iTunes (at least versions in the past) sometimes had a problem with large image files, so I scale all of those images down to 600x600 in Photoshop before adding the image to a music file. I feel that jpg is probably the most universal image format, and 99% of the cover art images you download form the Internet are already in that format.
c. Unicode support for accented characters, etc. Although my Linux-based programs had no problems using characters outside of American English, importing them into iTunes was always problematic. So now I tend to omit accented and special characters.
d. Compilation albums. Are you going to tag each music file with the actual artist, and then set the Album Artist to something like “Various Artists”? (That’s my recommendation, actually.)
e. Classical music. Oh goodness, where do I even begin here? Are you going to assign the composer to the Artist tag (since it’s more universally supported than the Composer tag), and then the soloist and/or orchestra to the Album Artist tag? Or put the soloist in the Artist tag and hope for the best with the Composer tag being recognized? Do you organize the different movements in a piece in a consistent fashion? Do you spell it Rachmaninov or Rachmaninoff? Do you just lump everything into the catch-all genre “Classical” or do you sub-divide them into “Chamber”, “Concerto”, etc? And how do you handle classical complilation albums? (One of the real challenges when it comes to tagging.)
4) Ripping CD’s. Software like EAC, dbPoweramp, and MediaMonkey can check rips against a database of known rips to assess whether it was successful or whether any of the tracks had errors. (This is especially important when buying used CD’s that have not been well taken care of.) I suggest using them. Do you have a “staging area” where you take newly-ripped music files, and then go over all of their tags to ensure they are consistent with your standards, and then add them to the collection?
5) High-resolution files. If you download a 24/96 FLAC file, are you able to use it on all of your devices? Do you also have a non-24/96 version (ie, straight Redbook CD) that you want to also keep? If so, how do you tell the difference? (Perhaps adding something like “24/96” to the album name?)
6) Data integrity. What are you plans for backups? You will need automated backups, as users can’t be trusted to reliably and consistently do this. It needs to be set-and-forget to make it really work, and you should have both local and online (offsite) backups, as they guard against different things. (Local backups defend against accidental deletion, hard drive crash, etc, while offsite backups defend against equipment theft or destruction from a fire, for instance.)
7) Future upgradeability. This is where using a general-purpose computer will greatly make your life easier. You can probably just add a newer/bigger hard drive, or upgrade the computer in several years to a faster/more capable machine, and have it be a straightforward upgrade.
I know, I know, that sounds like a lot. But the key to this process is consistency and appropriate planning. Ask yourself how you might want to utilize this. Do you want to have it play U2’s Joshua Tree album? Any random country music? Beethoven’s 5th conduced by Leonard Bernstein? Any cello music? Smooth jazz recorded before 1980? All music available in high-resolution format?
Once you delineate how you anticipate using your music collection, this will largely dictate how you tag and lay out your music for your media server.
Don’t fret, however. Having a functional media server loaded with your own music is one of the more rewarding experiences in audio. You can listen to your music anywhere, anytime, however you like. And don’t forget to occasionally tell it to just “have fun” (ie, randomly select any songs without any restrictions). You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Michael