I've been taking a liking to just nixing specific, individual tracks I never listen to, from my collection...

For example,

I nixed the tracks from the Atelier Iris and Atelier Iris 2 OSTs that're covered on the Arrange albums, since the Arrange album versions are so much superior,

I've nixed the battle tracks from the Final Fantasy VII ~ Crisis Core OST, since they're just really sloppy, noisy hard rock/heavy metal, and they gave me a headache last time I TRIED listening to them,

and in general, I'm just nixing a track here-and-there, wherever it occurs to me.

Until recently, I've always kept all pieces from a soundtrack, if only for reference or archive purposes, so I can say I have the whole set, especially just in case I can pay a person a favor by offering a full set to them, but lately, it's becoming a strain on my hard drive, and I've become rather happy with just letting go of things...

How about you, do you like keeping a full set of tracks from a soundtrack, or do you only keep the ones you listen to at least occasionally?

I often uncheck tracks I don't think are worth listening to from my iTunes library to make my own favorite list and I believe that's a pretty common manner among VGM fans. For example, I'd also uncheck pretty much every battle tracks from Crisis Core because of their overall low quality. I'll mention the tracks I'd omit even when I want to hear the OSTs as a whole.

- The last two bonus tracks from Vagrant Story
- Voice collections from many Cave soundtracks
- Pretty much every J-pop ED theme that appears at the end of OSTs and prevents me from basking in the afterglow.

Ditto on the Crisis Core battle tracks.
I've nixed a huge number of tracks from my collection as well. At first I didn't want to let anything go, but the issue of space forced me to reconsider, and I asked myself why exactly I wanted to keep those tracks I never listened to. Now, after thinning some of the more lukewarm soundtracks, I find that I enjoy playing them more.

It's like with video games; I used to have to do everything in a game, wasting multiple hours to get that ultimate sword which is essentially useless at that point (unless it carries over to a new game + I suppose). Now I play strictly for fun.

Just nixed all, and I do mean ALL of the cinema scene BGMs from the Dawn of Mana soundtrack...that was a good hour of them - about a full disc's worth they could've omitted, of absolutely uninspired orchestral DRONING.

Chalk up Capcom and SEGA soundtracks for having to include every last bloody uninspired cinema scene BGM as well - Devil May or May Not Cry, Okami, Bayonetta, and every Sonic the Hedgehog OST from 2006 and on...

Yeesh...waste of disc...!

Ah, but then people will complain that their favorite cinematic background track is missing...

I don't do that all that often, but I DID make a CD for the car of Crisis Core that omitted... well, at least half of the OST.  Ishimoto is so very very hit or miss for me (like Hamauzu, actually...).

Touche!

Although, how often has that ever happened when that was actually the case, e.g., people complaining when cinematic music is omitted?

I don't understand how people can possibly miss the stuff, when it hardly ever strikes an impression to begin with.

There are exceptions, but that's when the cinematic music is actually MELODIC, is in the case of Iwadare (Grandia 1), and Mitsuda (Xenogears); in the cases of those soundtracks, I actually like some of the cinematic-backing BGMs better than some of the stuff that actually backs the gameplay (e.g., some of their town themes), but in both soundtracks, the battle themes WERE absolutely stellar.

I weep for all the Crisis Core battle tracks hate

But then, usually I don't nix tracks, unless they're drama tracks. They're removed from playlists always, and voice/sfx collections, otherwise I tend to listen albums to the full if I even start listening my playlists on Foobar with shuffle folders option on.

"Gutting" soundtracks has become more or less the usual for me. I can count on one hand the number of multi-disc RPG soundtracks I can leave completely intact (FFVI, CT, Suikoden 1...even those can get a slight trimming) and even my favorite one disc-ers can always stand to lose a couple pounds off their folder size. Usually it is either event themes (especially sad ones), but openers and endings tend to be the usual culprits as well. But really, it makes sense for me...When I used to make tapes, I never recorded the WHOLE soundtrack, just the tracks I wanted that really stood out while playing. It makes no sense keeping tracks that are basically a waste of time and space to keep (especially FLAC's...With only a limited amount of space, no sense keeping a 20 MB+ file of something that I'm going to flip past anyway). Yet another reason the CD format is quickly becoming obsolete.

I'm actually working on getting all of my longer RPG soundtracks down to "Greatest Hits" versions now. It makes them easier to pick up and listen to the meat while avoiding a lot of the filler. I mean, I love the FFVII OST and always will, but the star of that album for me has always been the battle themes. I pick out all the battle themes, then kind of build around them.

I rate all my tracks from one to five stars in my media software (J. River Media Center).

The ones that by default get synced to my iPod Touch, and are included in the smart folders I usually browse from at home, are the four and five-star tracks.  I've become quite fond of browsing by genre or album and only hearing stuff I like.

New albums and older ones I want to review or refresh my memory on I will sync and listen to in full for a while.

Even the crappy one and two-star tracks I leave in my PC music library though.  It'd feel strange removing them altogether.

Yes.

I've sometimes thought of doing this with Foobar but I probably would need somekind of usb plugin with five buttons so I could easily rate stuff when I hear them, without any needless clicking or popping Foobar up.

I've always considered the battle themes of FFVII a very small part of the soundtrack...and there aren't even all that many dungeon themes, either, but many of those ARE good pieces.

I usually hit up the FFVII OST for all the different town themes, especially the themes pertaining to Midgar, when I'm in the city. Those Midgar tracks, I get the most use out of those. "Cosmo Canyon," "Wutai," "Cid," and "You Can Hear the Cries of the Planet," I listen to a lot as well.

I often play music just to have some noise in the background without really listening to the music, so filler tracks are valuable to me.  If I only ever played the good tracks, they'd wear out quickly.

A user on the foobar forums posted this set of instructions for setting up global keyboard shortcuts to rate the currently playing track.  This would allow you to rate a track by pressing a combination of keys without bringing foobar to the foreground.

I love the way foobar empowers users to customize it to suit their music-listening needs.

if i have to nix alot of tracks, the composers didn't meet my quality standard and i just ignore the OST completely. if i'm in the mood to listen to a OST, i have no problems listening to a few mediocre tracks in between, sometimes i might spot something i like after a while. drama tracks get skipped of course, since i don't speak japanese

same goes for regular band music.

Not when you have 240 hours of good tracks.

It's a valid point though.  Though I wouldn't go so far as to say my favorite tracks have worn out, I have perhaps lost a little appreciation for them when not weighing them against more "normal" efforts.  That and the fact that I'm trying to appreciate the whole "album as an art form" concept (which I think clearly applies less to game OSTs than it does typical album releases) has me listening to albums in their entirety a bit more than I had been.

Still I highly recommend the track-rating approach for those that have the patience for it.

When I used my iPod, I was really into the ratings thing...I'd listen at work, rate on the go, then next sync in iTunes, it would read all the ratings I had done. The player I use now can't rate on the go and it uses drag and drop instead of syncing. But really, I haven't missed the feature and has been sort of a hidden blessing. I've jumped over to the J.River Media Jukebox to rate stuff, but I do it all manually. I tend to find really good tracks (5 stars), I can usually remember when I get home (instead of letting the sync remind me) and bad ones (1-2 stars), I compile a list and manually delete on my home computer.

It's those 3 star buggers I usually have trouble with. It's like...they're usually skippable, but not bad enough to delete. I tend to leave them in limbo on my home computer and not take them on the go with me. Good enough to be on the album, not good enough to listen to more than once in a blue moon. 5 stars generally is something great that I can listen to a lot, 4 star tracks are good but they still have room to grow on me or is a 5-star track that has worn out its' welcome or stylistically appeals to me but doesn't stand out. 1-2 stars...*flush*

Overall, I'm more interested in evolving my overall pool of 4-5 star tracks than individual album appreciation. Since my favorite albums/franchises/bands tend to dominate my 5-star rankings, it's always nice pulling fresh faces into the mix that can hang with the big boys.

I constantly re-evaluate what I have on my computer/iPod whenever I listen to it. If something comes up that I have no use for (short tracks, a crappy tune from a usually not-crappy artist, filler BGM) I give it a one-star rating. Every time I sync up my iPod to my computer I just delete all of the one-star tracks and then resync.

My friend James gave me great advice: "Life's too short to listen to shitty music." And every time something less than great comes up on my list, I just one-star it and listen to other tunes.