Do you keep your record/CD collection in a database?

surface noise: yes, an online one skivsamling.nu
How does one access it? I used the "search for collectors" field and its sez "Oops. There were no such collectors." to the name "the surface noise"

(some of the features on the website don't work, as you've already discovered)

Which would be the best program to use?

I set the old one up

Artist | Release | Year | Type (single/EP/LP) | Format (7"/12"/CD)

I wanted to be able to graph & sort by the last three catalogues, but couldn't work out how. Any help?

I'm not very PC-literate.

I'd suggest you start off by sorting the whole database by date (or type or format) first (Data > Sort), then count up the number of entries in each year, put the results from that into a table, e.g.:

1969: 27
1970: 36
1971: 31
1972: 24

Then try creating your graph from that.

http://www.collectorz.com/music/

If you're using Excel XP or 2003, there's the fantastic function Data/Filter/AutoFilter - try it.

Dude, do you not know the wonder of PIVOT TABLES?!?!?

(Not that I have a database for my CDs, that would be ridiculous. But I'm making pivot tables for a living at the moment.)

I quickly gave up, when I got sick of inserting all fields each time I bought a cd... not to mention the whole 1100 cd's that I already had when I started the database.

Sure it's pretty dorky, but I just started one last night. It's only an Excel file. Working in a library for the past year motivated me to do it.

It's been pretty fun, and I'm in no rush so I think I'll just go pretty slowly, adding maybe 10 albums at a time. I've found it's a pretty good way of refreshing albums in my head as a I enter the data (especially since I created some fields for "date of acquisition" and "source of acquisition", so I really have to reflect back and think about where I was in my life when I bought the album. I was already more motivated to listen to albums that I've had for years but have only played a few times. Plus, typing in album data is good mindless stuff, interesting enough not to get boring, but really ideal work to have music going on in the background because it's not a complicated task.

thread started by a sandwich

mark, add your collection into a site like rateyourmusic.com(i'm sure there's others, and no you don't have to rate anything if you don't want) and then you can export as an excel file if need be. since you just started i think it will be MUCH easier than what you're contemplating, unless you just want to be old school like that.

Thanks, and you're right, it would be a lot easier. I didn't know rateyourmusic had that option (I'm not too familiar with it), but I've been going to Discogs a lot for certain information and I noticed you can do the same thing there. I did it at first (it was definitely convenient) but there were a few other fields that I wanted to include as well as some tweaks of the fields Discogs already included, to the extent that I figured I'd just create the database myself. I'll look into the rateyourmusic, perhaps their fields are more similar to what I kind of have in mind.

You might want to use a proper database program instead of Excel... Google is offering StarOffice for free, which includes a pretty impressive database program. You can probably import data from Excel.

I keep my collection in an Excel file with the following columns:

• AMG Rating
• Favorite Album (designated with stars; given to personal top 20% for each year, i.e. if there are 50 albums in 2001, then my personal top 10 get stars here; i know it's ridiculous)
• Artist (by Last, First of course)
• Album
• Genre (top genre on AMG usually)
• Year
• Label (the version i own, obv.)
• Catalog #
• Setting (studio, live, both)
• Format (album, compilation, EP)
• # Discs
• Notes (import, reissue, out of print)
• Status (owned or wanted; owned albums are in black text, wanted albums in light gray so i can skim over them visually, then change them to black once owned)

• Year (of original release) ^^^

i do RYM but still maintain a simple artist/title/label/format Excel sheet. i've found color-coding the title column by genre to be really helpful, but i've just about exhausted the supplied palette of 40 colors and will need to start mixing up my own soon.

no offense but i've never understood some people's need to color-code such a database. i would feel like a middle-schooler again, playing with MS Paint or something. just looks unclean, messy. use words not colors.

Basically, I'm working these these fields, though I might add more if I think of any:

Artist
Title
Label (label of the copy I've got, though sometimes I'll put original label)
Release Date (re-issue dates included if my copy is a re-issued one)
Format (cd, lp, mp3, cd-r, etc.)
Genre (extremely general, e.g. jazz, pop, electronic, etc.)
Subgenre (this is where I go nuts with tags, it's a lot of fun. mostly I go by what subgenres/ideas I tend to hear in a particular album, though I'll sometimes check out AMG or Discogs just to see how those folks tagged it)
Catalog #
Date of Acquisition (approximate if I can't remember)
Source of Acquisition (also a lot of fun. I'm surprising myself at how well I'm remembering when and where I got stuff, and it's great because it helps me remember what I was going through during a particular time, obv. b/c that's always been so tied up with music)

I wouldn't dare include price/cost as a field, lest I become horrified by the thousands and thousands of dollars I've spent on music over the years.

I wouldn't dare include price/cost as a field, lest I my family, friends and significant other become horrified by the thousands and thousands of dollars I've spent on music over the years.
-- Mark Clemente, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:50 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

fixed ^^

i personally cannot think of a better use for money!

haha you're probably right.

Was also thinking about including condition, though that might get a little tedious (for an already tedious project, of course). I might end up doing that though, it would help me, at least, in seeing if I need to replace anything. Man, I really treated CDs like shit until I was about 20.

i'll worry about condition of older stuff once i've bought everything else i want (yeah, right). i can think of a bunch of CDs i acquired during my highschool years that i've treated like shit: my copy of Siamese Dream comes immediately to mind; Blonde Redhead's Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons; more than a couple Radiohead discs; a bunch of Cure stuff, most obviously my copy of Disintegration which is beyond fucked, but I have it on mp3 (ripped years ago to my hard drive) so i'll manage for now.

my sister also tends to throw stuff around in her car without a case, which annoys me. can't really play my copy of the New Pornographers' Mass Romantic without a bunch of skips now. gah.

I wish there was a way to just borrow a UPC code scanner and scan all my CDs.

Does anyone know why most record stores do not have their used stock in their databases? Why can't they just scan the codes?

re: color, MSPaint, middle-schoolers. i don't know, it can be more functional than ornmantal. i like being able to pick out albums at a glance when looking for something in a particular style, to suit a listening mood or a mixtape slot, etc. scrolling through 10,000+ titles can be futile without visual aids.

ornamental, even

I have a local HTML-file that I edit by hand whenever I add or remove something. Generally just artist and title, sometimes with notes about conductors etc.
The biggest advantage of having the file is for those days when I feel geeky.
Cf these stats I made last month:

MOST POPULAR LETTER-SEQUENCES OF N LENGTH IN MY CD COLLECTION (artist names only)

6 letters
Sequence: ORCHES (6 instances):
Andre Popp & His Orchestra
Disharmonic Orchestra
Kusturica, Emir and The No Smoking Orchestra
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Peter Thomas Sound Orchester
Russell, George and His Orchestra

4 letters
Sequence: TION (9 instances):
Catasexual Urge Motivation
Destruction
Dissection
Immolation
Incantation
Malevolent Creation
National Health
Suffocation
Zappa, Frank/The Mothers of Invention

etc

See? This is important, people! (Betcha can't guess what letter-sequence was most popular for 3 letters)

I started entering my stuff into rateyourmusic.com sometime last year, but lost interest after the Q's. Recently decided to take it up again, but haven't really gotten to work in filling in the rest. It seems an OK enough simple online DB. It's not really set up well for handling classical releases, though.

if your database is in Excel, then why not sort your database according to the Genre column and pick from the block you've created of power-pop or no-wave or shoegaze, etc.?

(xxpost)

i can think of a bunch of CDs i acquired during my highschool years that i've treated like shit: my copy of Siamese Dream comes immediately to mind; Blonde Redhead's Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons; more than a couple Radiohead discs; a bunch of Cure stuff, most obviously my copy of Disintegration which is beyond fucked

Wow, until recently, this mirrored almost exactly my assortment of beat-up discs. My copy of Disintegration is utter crap, basically the first two songs are all that play. Fortunately I've found enough used copies, in great shape, for decent prices that I've been able to replace most of Radiohead, Cure, and mostly recently, Sonic Youth discs. Dylan and the Beatles, though, will probably have to wait. They're not too fucked to be unplayable, and I can't see getting around to replacing those ones at the expense of new music.

Sequence: TION (9 instances):
Destruction
Dissection
Immolation
Incantation
Malevolent Creation
Suffocation

jeez! i hope we never meet in a dark alley...

But I just want to be loved

As far as I can tell RYM doesn't really get you very far. Fields are: RYM Album (this is an arbitrary identifier string for their database), (Artist)First Name,Last Name,Title,Release_Date,Rating,Ownership (not necessary for a database of stuff you own),Purchase Date,Media Type,Review.

The time you'd spend searching for the album on RYM is not much less than you'd spend entering this data, and then you'd still have to export and import the data anyway. If it had track listings, that'd save a lot of labor, or if you were writing reviews on RYM and wanted to include them on your local file.

I started a spreadsheet almost twenty years ago when i thought my collection was getting a little out of hand and at a time when measuring one's own schwanz might have been more apropos. I spent a boat-load of time getting all the info together (serial number, format, condition, etc.) knowing that eventually they'd have nifty little barcode readers that would assemble all the details automatically. My old format worked, i guess, but as with all databases - they aren't really any use unitl you get to a point where you can start making queries (insert snarkified comment *here*). I've never really considered the insurance aspects of protecting my collection because if i had a total loss, i'd just die. Totally. Besides, all the detail the requisite database holds can never compare to the fun of flipping through one's own stax. I mean, would you rather travel or just look at maps?

would the contributors to this thread want to try and explain why they do this? i can understand the general sense of OCD satisfaction that comes from this kind of organization, but is it useful beyond this? i am honestly racking my brains to try and figure out what one would DO with a database containing all the information about your music collection.

xpost - ah, insurance! i never thought of that.

the protagonists in the first story of duncan maclean's "bucket of tongues" could have used such a database, i suppose.

xpost. but there isn't any "genre" column. too murky. i only color-code the titles, since artists work in different styles. i've find color to be a very effective visual signifier - so long as i don't forget the key, which has become rather elaborate and is now helpfully built into the worksheet for reference purposes.

yeah - put on red ochre!

Besides, all the detail the requisite database holds can never compare to the fun of flipping through one's own stax. I mean, would you rather travel or just look at maps?

I totally agree. I don't really plan on using my database to pick something out to hear. I'll always prefer to look through my shelves at all the nice colored spines, or thumb through a stack, etc.

would the contributors to this thread want to try and explain why they do this? i can understand the general sense of OCD satisfaction that comes from this kind of organization, but is it useful beyond this?

A couple reasons. First, I'm having a great time doing it -- as I mentioned upthread, it's a great way to re-familiarize myself with albums I haven't listened to in years or hardly ever listen to. It really refreshes my perspectives of a hell of a lot of albums that sit on my shelves. It gives me a better sense of my collection, and kind of enables me to get more out of it rather than just listen to whatever new album I just bought.

Second, and I kind of mentioned this too, is that it's an introspective project -- I think back about when I bought the album, where I bought it, and it triggers all kinds of memories about what kind of stuff was going on in my life at that time - relationships, states of mind, moods, general periods of my life are all so closely tied up with what music I was listening to at that time. This kind of navel-gazing is a lot of fun for me, since I don't always reflect very much on the past and tend to just keep plugging away. It's a good way to refresh a lot of memories.

But you're right, there's also an OCD satisfaction to the organization (I already work in a library and I love it), and there's nothing terribly useful about it apart from the fun and sentimentality attached to it. I guess that insurance stuff is useful, so that's good. Didn't really think about that one until someone mentioned it upthread.

thanks mark! yeah what i mean is reading something like what Hal Jam said:

i've find color to be a very effective visual signifier - so long as i don't forget the key, which has become rather elaborate and is now helpfully built into the worksheet for reference purposes.

gives the impression that Hal refers to this spreadsheet from time to time, or even frequently. and my question is - why? is this simply the main way you decide what you're going to put on next, Hal? or do you refer to your database for other reasons?

very perceptive. i do refer to the file frequently, if not even daily (which is the filename), because one of the workbook pages is an acquisition log, also color-coded (i'm hopeless) to track what has/hasn't been listened to. because so much of the music i like comes in slim packaging that could slip all too easily through the cracks, the log is an invaluable tool. i also have an OCD tendency to file stuff before i've listened to it, whenever the in-shelves become too cluttered.

Hal Jam, Mark, Oystein - anyone wanna trade databases/swap ideas, perchance?

sure - i gotta fill mine up a little bit first, though. (unless you want a database of a couple Air, Allman Brothers, Aphex Twin, Apples in Stereo, and Autechre albums)

i'm game. PM me.

> (unless you want a database of a couple Air, Allman Brothers, Aphex Twin, Apples in Stereo, and Autechre albums)

ha, seems familiar.

started typing mine into my amiga back in the day. and during some slack time a couple of years ago wrote something to import that into a normalised mysql db with a php frontend to let me input new stuff (basically an excuse to improve my LAMP stuff). got up to about 15,000 tracks. and then i lost the will to live so i haven't input anything into it for over a year (2006/05/01 actually - have a backup on my mp3 player). the idea now is to grep through my filesystem and get the tags from flac / ogg / mp3 files - no point in typing in all that data again.

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS track;
CREATE TABLE track (
id int(11) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
name varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
artist_id int(11) unsigned default NULL,
media_id int(11) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
length varchar(5) default NULL,
trackno int(2) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
remixer_id int(11) unsigned default NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id),
UNIQUE KEY TrackNoUnique (id,trackno),
KEY TrackNameIndex (name)
)

INSERT INTO track VALUES (14286,'Heat',99,2969,'00:00',2,NULL);

"PM me Strongo Hulkington"

When I have a free day, thinking maybe 11/19, I'll be doing this.

BIG HOOS you don't have a database yet?? wtf buddy.

I do not.

I think I tried once and gave up halfway through because I couldn't be bothered to figure out what MP3s I had on that stack of unlabeled CDs on the coffee table.

i personally didn't go to RYM to enter my collection, it's just a byproduct of being there and eventually entering everything cuz why not? i went to the RYM message boards(i know, lol) as part of an exodus of music nuts from IMDB message boards; I wouldn't be doing a database from scratch, i don't care that much. The last 'spreadsheet' I attempted (handwritten) was of music videos taped off of Rap City strewn across 20+ vhs tapes, would have been handy before the videos degraded all to hell but youtube makes me happy i didn't finish.

i've wanted to do this on discogs but it takes years for release sumittals to even show up as 'pending'.

I used to have a db of all my music using MSworks on my old Mac IIvx. Started it in like 1992. Then I could never get the data over to my G4 when I upgraded, so I gave up. If I could find something like the old MSworks for Macs maybe I might try again.

I keep two word processing docs going: one a list alphetized by artists, chronological within, and the other an albums by year list. Mine is distinguished by the use of symbols that indicate how much I've played an album (to the best of my recollection: a • for 5-9 plays, a ∆ for 10 or more plays. Yes, these are my versions of the RIAA's gold and platinum certificates! (It's also visually a bit akin to Trouser Press.) An example:

SONIC YOUTH
Sonic Youth EP (1982; CD, Geffen, 2006) •
Confusion is Sex (1983; CD, DGC, 1995) ∆
Bad Moon Rising (1985; CD, DGC, 1995) •
EVOL (1986; CD, DGC, 1994) •
“Hallowed Be Thy Name”/“Come and Smash Me” (7”, no label, ca. 1986) •
Sister (CD, SST, 1987) ∆
Master-Dik = Mik Beat on the Brat (EP, SST, 1988)
Daydream Nation (CD, Blast First UK, 1989) ∆
Goo (1990; 2CD, DGC, 2005) ∆
Dirty (1992; 2CD, DGC, 2003) ∆
Experimental Jet-Set, Trash and No Star (LP/CD, DGC, 1994) ∆
Made in U.S.A. (LP, Rhino, 1995) ∆
Washing Machine (2LP/CD, DGC, 1995) ∆
SYR 1: Anagrama (CDEP, SYR, 1998)
SYR 2: Slaapkamers met Klagroom (EP, SYR, 1998)
A Thousand Leaves (2LP/CD, DGC, 1998) ∆
SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century (2CD, SYR, 2000)
NYC Ghosts and Flowers (LP, DGC, 2000) •
Murray Street (LP, Goofin’, 2002) •
Sonic Nurse (CD, DGC, 2004; 2LP, Goofin’, 2004) ∆
Rather Ripped (CD, Geffen, 2006) •
The Destroyed Room: B-Sides and Rarities (CD, Geffen, 2006)
LEE RENALDO
From Here to Infinity (LP, SST, 1987)
CICCONE YOUTH
The Whitey Album (CT, Blast First/Enigma, 1988; CD, Geffen, 2006)
THURSTON MOORE
Psychic Hearts (2LP, DGC, 1995; CD, Geffen, 2006) ∆
Trees Outside the Academy (CD, Ecstatic Peace!, 2007)
SONIC YOUTH/JIM O’ROURKE
SYR 3: Invito Al Cielo (CD, SYR, 1998)
KIM GORDON, IKUE MORI, DJ OLIVE
SYR 5: Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori, DJ Olive (CD, SYR, 2000) •

And a year list:

1982
1. Security ∆
2. Chronic Town ∆
3. English Settlement ∆
4. Hex Enduction Hour ∆
5. Room to Live ∆
6. Pornography ∆
7. Sulk ∆
8. Angst in My Pants ∆
9. Plastic Surgery Disasters •
10. The Nylon Curtain •
11. Sonic Youth •
12. Combat Rock •
13. Lone Rhino •
14. On Land •
15. 1999 •
16. Tropical Gangsters •
17. Suite Sixteen •
18. The Blue Mask
19. Hello, I Must Be Going!
20. A Kiss in the Dreamhouse
21. Avalon
22. Thriller
23. Junkyard
24. Homotopy to Marie
25. The Days of Wine and Roses
26. The Luxury Gap
27. Abacab

(the ∆s and •s line up in a column in the doc.)

skivsamling disappeared and took my days upon days of work with them :(

I gave up, and I don't think I'll ever have time to. I ought to though.

ok, so we've got two uses:

- insurance
- and as Hal says, "to track what has/hasn't been listened to"

as for the latter, surely you can remember what you've heard or not?? and if not - put it on again! that's my system anyway.

any other uses, besides insurance, and remembering what you've heard? before i decide that you are all certifiably insane?

Ha - I've just started entering stuff on discogs.com, but have no idea why.

I suppose there, part of the fun is working out which pressing you've actually got, then seeing whether it's worth anything.

It does mean you can't enter anything without the record or CD in front of you, though, to check the matrix numbers or what-have-you.

I think I will get bored long before I finish.

I sometimes daydream of a database of all my CDs telling me which rack/box/drawer I last saw them in, since they aren't in any kind of order. But obviously if I were organised enough to fill them in on a database I'd be organised enough not to lose them in the first place.

Still kind of tempting though since I guess an alphabetical collection makes more sense if they're all in one block together, which I don't have the space for. And I really ought to get round to selling a lot of stuff, and it sounds easier to go through a list working out whether I could bear to part with enough to bother than to round them all up.

(I did have a text file of my 7"s many years ago, since most of them don't have a spine so I can't tell what they are without pulling them out of the box they're pretty tightly wedged into, and since for me it's a lot easier to remember what full albums I have by a band than what 8-minutes of vinyl I bought when I hardly knew who the band were, listened to once and then shoved in a box. I haven't updated it since about 2000, but then I've been buying a lot less vinyl since then.)

I used to have a db of all my music using MSworks on my old Mac IIvx. Started it in like 1992. Then I could never get the data over to my G4 when I upgraded, so I gave up. If I could find something like the old MSworks for Macs maybe I might try again.

The EXACT same thing happen to me - i'd forgotten how ticked-off i was that i couldn't open that file less than five years after i started it - and now i doubt i could find the diskette it's on. Ah yes, the days when filling a 1.44MB disc took months.

If discogs were an open system, it'd probably be the best option. It looks like MusicBrainz is open, with a published XML schema, but I can't tell if anyone really uses it, or really what you can do with their data.

I wish there was a way to just borrow a UPC code scanner and scan all my CDs.

I use this program which uses my laptop camera to scan barcodes.

When you're reporting your CDs for insurance, how much is each worth? Is an Animal Collective CD worth more than Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em?

Is, say, a Warp Records promo in a cardboard sleeve with the album cover on it worth anything?

that's a good question, wish I could answer it

I started keeping a database of my records about 20 years ago because my college roommate had a party and some of my stuf disappeared and I got paranoid. I kept up the habit, it's pretty easy to do as I update it just once a year. I just track format/artist/title basically.

These days I can carry it along with my wantlist on my Treo, comes in handy now and then.

I really want to do this on Discogs but I cant even find out where and how I can add releases on the damn thing

http://www.discogs.com/help/contributing.html

Unless you're talking about marking something already there as owned by you.

Oh, so it turns out you can export data from Discogs to Excel, but it only gives you a small fraction of the fields contained in the record. Not really any better than RYM. It's a shame, because this is so clearly something that needs to be done collaboratively.

When you're reporting your CDs for insurance, how much is each worth? Is an Animal Collective CD worth more than Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em?

Is, say, a Warp Records promo in a cardboard sleeve with the album cover on it worth anything?

Depends on the insurance policy (and how hardassed your insurer is). If you're covered for full replacement value, they ought to cut a check for the going price. One time a guy came into the record store where I worked with a list of the CDs he'd lost in a flooded basement situation, and he was writing down the sticker prices so he could give the insurer an itemized list. For out of print stuff would you have to rely on ebay? That's where subjective aspects of value would come into play.

For out of print stuff would you have to rely on ebay? That's where subjective aspects of value would come into play.
-- dad a, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 5:13 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

god that would be messy. i have probably a few hundred out of print cds. although...i guess the payout would be nice too. i could, like, put a down payment on a house or something, finally.

Okay, boring (and probably really elementary) Excel question -- somehow I escaped high school/college without ever having to use Excel (yea I took an equivalent of Gay Literary Theory instead of Statistics.....see joke on some other thread), so this database file is my first ever time using it.

So far I've been adding stuff to the file as the albums appear on my shelf -- alphabetically. But yesterday, I just bought some stuff that'll alphabetically precede some of the things I've already entered into the file. I don't want to go and individually re-arrange cells, moving single cells down to make room for newer stuff, etc.

So my question: is there some kind of function that allows you to order a column in a certain way (in this case alphabetically)? I'd want it to appear alphabetically by artist.

I imagine this is probably one of the easiest problems to solve, but I just don't know shit about Excel.

nevermind, just figured it out... the little "a-->z" button on the tool bar....

Too late now, but:

To rearrange your spreadsheet permanently to be sorted in order of a column, select all your data (even the columns you're not sorting by), go to the Data menu, pick Sort, and tell it the letter of the column(s) you want to sort by, telling it whether you've got a header column or not
(don't do this if each entry is on more than one line)
(be careful sorting, if you don't select everything first then it'll only sort the columns you've selected, and anything else will be in the wrong place)

A handy feature if you just want to glance at it sorted by some other column or look for something specific and then put it back: select any columns you might want to sort/filter by, go to the Data menu, choose Filter, and turn on Autofilter. This will turn each column heading into a dropdown list which will let you sort/filter and then go back to how it was before.

If it's just one or two though I'd probably just right-click on the grey area to the left of the row where they should've gone and choose "insert rows" to move everything below that point down.

Surely instead of putting all this effort it, you could all just import everything into itunes and then there you go, intsa-database of all your stuff.

effort in

Well, to some extent it might be easier. But it'd entail sitting there importing about 650 or so cds, which would still take a pretty long time, and wouldn't be as interesting, I think (see reasons upthread why I'm interested in making a database in the first place). Plus I don't have any equipment to import all my vinyl into iTunes, so it would only catalog my CDs. I'd wanna have my vinyl in the database.

iTunes/Gracenotes also has really crappy genre tags (Merzbow's 1930 is tagged as "jazz"), so I'd want to go through and change just about all of them. Plus there are a bunch of other fields that I'd want added that iTunes doesn't include. Lastly, I don't think my girlfriend would want the iTunes library/hard drive (we share a computer) jammed with all my obnoxious music.

Mark, how's that database coming along? what letter are you on?

honestly, i'm quite curious to see what all's in your collection. already noticed we're gonna overlap on Air/Apples in Stereo, and now that you've picked up a bunch of Swans/Angels of Light stuff i'm just interested to see what else is there.

and yes, Tracer, my original purpose was insurance, but heavy geekiness was probably also a factor. I loved being able to sort my whole collection by date or label.

xpost - haha I'm still working on the A's, not because my collection is so big, but that I haven't had too much time to work on since starting it. I should have a decent amount of time this weekend, however.

But yea as mentioned I'd love to swap databases, as we do seem to have a bit of overlap. I'll be sure to revive this thread when it's a bit fuller.

So upthread Elvis mentioned Delicious Monster, which I'm considering (having just used LibraryThing to catalog the books) -- basically something where I can use the basic barcode scanner I have and let the Net do the rest, as with LibraryThing. Is there any other option offhand?

itunes. ;-)

YAWN

hey Mark, how's that database coming along? :D

I really wanna make this happen still, but I'm booked for the forseeable future.

it's not difficult.

start it with your new purchases, from today forward, and add your back catalogue as you feel like it. just don't force it on yourself, and you'll be done in a few months and really have enjoyed it.

<img src=Http://www.dickdestiny.com/nomorepeas.jpg />

<I>Please Mommy, don't make me be a list-making machine!</i>

Mark...?

hey Mark, how's that database coming along? :D

hey stephen! lol i haven't been very diligent about it. i'm still on C right now, Leonard Cohen to be exact, so that tells you how far i've come (which is not very far). i think the problem is that i bought some new stuff that i had to file into the letters i've already done and it was kind of a hassle.

i was actually thinking about working on it tonight, though. i always meant it to be an ongoing project, but not to this extent. i thought i'd have most of it wrapped up by now.

CDs are easy. there's usually only one or two versions of stuff floating around, so finding out which one i've got isn't too bad (a few exceptions though).

the vinyl is the real pain in the ass - finding out which edition on which label, whether it's an original or not, etc. even finding out the original release year can be a pain in the ass. it amazes me how so many record labels failed to put the bloody date on the sleeve.

so that's where i'm at now. how's yours coming along?

I started this tonight.

Very basic to start: Artist, Album Title, Genre (loosely defined).

40 down so far.

don't go up the genre route

Yeah I've heard that. So far I've got

Ambient
Blues
Classical (lol)
Country
Country Pop
Country Rock
Dub
Free Jazz
Funk
Fusion (lol)
"Modern Jazz"
Pop
Postpunk
Prog
Psych
Rap
Soul
Soul Jazz
Swing
Vocal Jazz

Thinking of doing Jazz like I do it on iTunes: "Jazz (Swing)," "Jazz (Free)," etc.

i r 2 lazy 4 this

so that's where i'm at now. how's yours coming along?

sorry, missed your reply :/

mine's finished, has been that way for quite a while. i keep it pretty up to date, filing new things as i buy em. one thing that helps is keeping my most wanted stuff in there, too, in a light gray color (as opposed to black) - when i buy something i've been wanting for a while, i just change the color, and the wanted/owned field - which allows me to sort the two from each other. when i mix em though, i get to see how "completist" i am getting with certain artists. which is insane, sometimes.

Classical (lol)
Fusion (lol)

and BIG HOOS, this would be awesome if the (lol) was actually part of the genre, on yr sheet! also i thought you were into hip-hop mostly/primarily - where's the related genres??

just haven't gotten to those bags yet

lol you keep your music in bags...?

"bags"

when i moved in with the gf she announced that the cardboard boxes that'd been housing the records weren't gonna cut it. i needed to find a better way to store them. haven't ponied up the cash for shelving yet (and even if i did we totally don't have the room), so right now my records are actually distributed among 12 bags from Whole Foods. they made moving really easy! shocked at how sturdy they were.

oh nice

hey did you get my email the other night

umm don't think so?

damn, sec.

"Your email has been successfully sent."

oh you know what it is dude

i need to get the mods on this.

i don't even use the email add i use to log into ilx anymore lol.

ju5t1n5m1th1986 AT gmail DOT com

lol way to go
i just sent it to yr facebook

record database.xls is complete. 204 records. doing this has been fun, totally forgotten i had a madness album, for example. was jamming "the prince" @ 2 am last night.

i think i bought 204 records in the last three months

oh had i the funds

srsly you have no idea how much i envy you dudes who update the rolling vinyl thread on the daily

i have a problem

in the process of databasizing

i'm running outta room for lps

My purchasing has slowed significantly since the summer. Early 07 I was easily buying 6-10/month, now I'm lucky if I buy 2-3.

What database do people use (on a Mac)?

I really like this guy's setup. Obviously the point of it is not that you should use his system but that should you make your own. Reading about it is kind of fun, though. It's another world.

Is anyone else still OCD enough to do this, or does everyone just do Discogs or Rate Your Music these days?

I still use Catraxx and have the web front end on it (feel free to peruse).

I've been using Delicious Library on my Mac for years (for books and dvds as well as cds).
After a certain point I wanted to be able to check what's in my collection while on the go so I built my own fully searchable database-backed web app that records everything I own at both album and at track level. It's not just my CDs now either - I also have all my digital purchases and magazine coverdiscs in there too.

For no other reason than I could it also uses the Spotify API to pull out nice artist images, album covers and links to play tracks in Spotify (if available).

I built my own as well as a programming exercise, or rather a series of programming exercises, so it's a bit cobbled together and not really code I'm proud of at this point (I wrote a lot of it over 5 years ago) but it works. It's really just a series of scripts. I rip all my music to folders on my laptop/NAS and a script scans for new/changed/deleted files, and adds the metadata to a SQL DB. I then have another script that will dump the relevant tables to a sqlite DB so I can put it on my phone and check my collection on the go, but I never got around to learning how to write android apps properly so it's just a python script for the front end on the sqlite DB that runs on a command prompt rather than a nice GUI app.

When I get round to it I'll tidy all this shit up and make a proper app for it but who knows when that will happen.

I wouldn't really recommend doing it this way if there are decent solutions already available, I just wanted to practice coding and handling mp3/flac metadata programmatically.

I have a database that I update annually and then export to Google Docs. There used to be a time when it helped to have access to this info but now I just keep it updated out of habit.

I broke down a few years ago and put it all into Discogs, now I am so glad I did it. I can pull up my collection on the phone so I can remember which ZZ Top or Fleetwood Mac album is "the one I'm still missing" or w/e.

Timing! A week or two ago I organized my records alphabetically, and recorded what I had while doing so. My winter break project was to create a database and a web frontend and that I can consult/add to on the fly. I've put it off for two weeks, but I'm going to start it today!

I've catalogued most of my CDs on discogs. Vinyl is a nightmare bcz of different pressings. I add things I buy as I buy them. Discogs isn't perfect by any stretch, but I find A LOT of great music just by seeing who else rated certain albums highly or left a really 'powerful' review.

shitty discogs trends:
- Putting every digital release alongside albums. So there's 50 live FLAC/MP3 albums to wade through between And Justice For All and Metallica

- people downrating records just because they're out of print and really expensive

- differentiating between CD pressing plants.. Still can't be arsed to catalog a few Led Zep reissues because I have differing SID codes etc.

i've done a few records on discogs but i just really have this immense distaste for cataloging things right now. i got a degree in library science and i have to do that shit at work all the time and i'm so burned out on it. also the stooping, pulling things out, setting things down, standing there kills my back for some reason. i need to sell some stuff so i can buy more but that is not enough motivation to overcome my essential laziness rn.

matt otm, I'm a librarian too and I have no problem with my collection being a fucking mess, used to be totally otherwise and many years ago I did have a a database but I can't muster the enthusiasm anymore. somehow I'm able to find what I need though for the most part

I buy new music so infrequently (sorry, I'm poor) that it's not a big deal. Discogs still has that Web 1.0 energy!

i've done a few records on discogs but i just really have this immense distaste for cataloging things right now. i got a degree in library science and i have to do that shit at work all the time and i'm so burned out on it. also the stooping, pulling things out, setting things down, standing there kills my back for some reason. i need to sell some stuff so i can buy more but that is not enough motivation to overcome my essential laziness rn.

― big Mahats (mattresslessness), Saturday, January 9, 2016 6:43 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is otm. Also, I've never been interested/invested in different pressings and such, and can't imagine being bothered to spend time cataloging things along those guidelines.

I've just managed to finish catalogging my cd collection on Discogs about two days ago. I did all the lps last year. I don't think I'll do the singles, somehow.

This means I am less likely to buy "Trout Mask Replica" again because I don't know where the cd(s) is/are. More likely to flick through and pick a random box and go, 'hey I haven't played that one for ages' or 'I've not played that enough' or 'forgot I bought that, not played it yet'

also, the chance to sell off stuff I will never play again, and also to get shot of all those crummy Uncut samplers with no redeeming tracks on them, and keep the ones that do.

its much better than having them all in alphabetical order around the house.

I'm pretty interested in various pressings when it comes to pre-mid70s stuff, thanks to Scott Seward

nope. nowhere. by this point i cant be arsed and its not gonna happen