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.

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