Your Collection

[MishaK]

Yes.  It costs about £30.
Yes.  It makes allowance for recording dates.  It also makes allowance for 'Classical' collections, with "composer" fields etc.  But it is still not exclusively Classical.  Nice easy interface, the best exporting to Excel I've found.  I don't recommend it, but I don't not recommend it.   

Thanks. Not willing to spend that kind of money at this time. I would need separate fields for ensemble, conductor and vocal and instrumental performers as well. Otherwise it's useless for my purposes.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes Gurn, I agree it is an outstanding program, it is what I have used since 2008 for all my music.  But it doesn't have advanced cataloging features.   

True enough, but what it has can be used for that purpose if one desires. Especially if you totally don't use IDv1 tags. Anyway, I only use MP3 and FLAC, so I can do things that Apple files, for example, wouldn't allow.

Yes.  It costs about £30.
Yes.  It makes allowance for recording dates.  It also makes allowance for 'Classical' collections, with "composer" fields etc.  But it is still not exclusively Classical.  Nice easy interface, the best exporting to Excel I've found.  I don't recommend it, but I don't not recommend it.   

They aren't specific, really, about what I can do. Can I point it at a folder on my hard drive and it well read and catalog via the IDv2 tags?  That's what I would want, not just reading the ID tags on my CD's. I suspect it will do that, but their blurb is non-specific about it.

[Opus106]

Anyway, I only use MP3 and FLAC, so I can do things that Apple files, for example, wouldn't allow.

I rip my CDs to ALAC, and mp3tag, despite what its name might suggest, handles those files well.

[DavidRoss]

I have about 2000 CDs, 90% classical.  Probably more than half of them have been purchased since joining CMG & GMG several years ago.  The great majority rarely if ever get played and it's probably foolish of me to have so many, but I sold most of my books and LPs 20 years ago and have often regretted it.

They are stored in CD-depth shelving units on the wall of our music room, and I have a small shelving unit in my office where I temporarily store items I listen to via computer while working/playing.  They're shelved alphabetically by composer, with a separate section by performer for compilation albums.  Subsections are shelved by type of composition (symphonies, quartets, etc) and within each by performer/conductor.

I keep a simple catalog in Excel, sequenced identically to the shelving sequence.

For iPod/Sansa portable listening I have ripped a couple of hundred favorites in LAME, mostly at 320 CBR but with my recent hearing losses (getting older!) I can't hear the difference between that and 256 VBR with most music.  I keep thinking someday I might rip everything to FLAC and go with a server feeding my DAC, but CDs are so darned convenient it's unlikely I'll ever feel compelled to. 

[Sadko]

Since I'm listening to my music via the computer and a DA converter I found it useful to rip all CDs to an external hard disk, and to secure all the work I also use a second backup disk.

For the collection (and listening) management I wrote my own software (in Perl) which reads cuesheets and other information from the folders. I put all information into the cuesheets, including keywords, and different symbols. E. g. special remarkable recordings get a "star", the ones that give me special joy get a "heart", which helps me to remember how I liked some rarely played things, when I'm looking for something to play. I have a printed list, and one in HTML on the computer, so one can easily search for keywords etc.

I like to have a system I can adapt to my personal wishes, and also it is a nice programming project, which motivates me to dive deeper into the programming language.

The software also turned out useful for cleanup and formatting of the track information I get from the Internet when ripping (with EAC), I can have the English and French names of keys etc. translated into German, extract the the composition name out of multi track compositions, recognise and remove pre-emphasis, do the lossless compression into my preferred format (ape), etc.

[Szykneij]

As someone who was at one time employed in the collectibles field, I'm the first to admit what I have is not a collection. It is an accumulation.
When I got home from work today, two CDs I ordered were waiting for me with the mail -- Joshua Bell/West Side Story Suite because I like Joshua Bell and the tunes from West Side Story and Mercury Living Presence/Balalaika Favorites because I was curious to hear what authentic balalaika music sounds like. I also won last night a vinyl lot of David Oistrakh recordings, some of which I already had but well worth the total price for the records I wanted.
  I have a couple of thousand CDs in my house upstairs in my music room on shelves in alphabetical order by composer, by performer, or by genre, depending upon what makes the most sense to me. I can't always find what I'm looking for right away, but I can usually put my finger on it pretty quickly. My vinyl is in my luxurious office garage where I actually spend more time these days, arranged pretty much in the same manner. My CD recorder is out there too, so when I listen to a record I don't have on CD, I routinely burn a copy as I listen. My computer that has itunes on it is in a third location, and any recording I might want to listen to again or, especially in my car, I download and burn travel CDs that I don't have to worry about scratching or losing.
  I've purchased many large lots of both CDs and LPs so I've acquired a mish-mash of stuff and duplicates along with the recordings I was actually interested in and I've made a lot of great discoveries that way. I don't try to keep any kind of an inventory, although it certainly would be helpful. Maybe some day.

[mahler10th]

For the collection (and listening) management I wrote my own software (in Perl) which reads cuesheets and other information from the folders. I put all information into the cuesheets, including keywords, and different symbols. E. g. special remarkable recordings get a "star", the ones that give me special joy get a "heart", which helps me to remember how I liked some rarely played things, when I'm looking for something to play. I have a printed list, and one in HTML on the computer, so one can easily search for keywords etc.
The software also turned out useful for cleanup and formatting of the track information I get from the Internet when ripping (with EAC), I can have the English and French names of keys etc. translated into German, extract the the composition name out of multi track compositions, recognise and remove pre-emphasis, do the lossless compression into my preferred format (ape), etc.

Very interesting.  Is your program available commercially, on the public domain, or is it just for you  (lol).   

[Sadko]

Very interesting.  Is your program available commercially, on the public domain, or is it just for you  (lol).   

The software is tailormade for me (you even can - but need not - write little temporary progam scriptlets within a cuesheet you are working on to automate certain tasks), and that means also the usage might not be so easy for someone else.

If there was a wider interest I might think about making a public version, but that would take some more programming time.

[Lethevich]

Sadko - I didn't think that anybody had an interest in this other than myself. I am planning a similar little app with a friend which will transfer the track titles from a cue file into either the cue or tags of a second recording. Ideally it will have an off-set feature to factor in whether another work comes first, such as on this disc, where the Partita would disrupt the attempt to auto-tag the Goldbergs.

This became essential when I began to collect Bach and Chopin, as tagging multiple Sonatas & Partitas, Goldbergs, Well-Tempered Claviers or Preludes/Etudes is a recipe for repetetive strain injury.

[marvinbrown]

Wee collections.  Big collections.  Ten discs.  Ten thousand discs.  An LP collection.  A tape collection.  An Mp3 extravaganza.  A collection nearing Harry-gantuan proportions.  Or just a 1976 BASF tape of Verdis Requiem from a radio.  
This thread is about our precious collections.  
Anything about our collections, because we all have them to a greater or lesser extent; mixed media, CD's only, Digital, DVD's etc...how do we keep them, catalogue them and store them?  What are the most precious in our collectons?  How many have we 'borrowed' and 'lended'?  What kind of cataloging system do you use?  How often do you add to it?  WHAT do you add to it?  Do you take stuff away from it over time?  Do you give a flying furtwangler about your collection at all?   How do you clean your collection?  Are things in sleeves, cases or what, and are your covernotes kept separte?  If you have something of a Digital collection, what about it?  Do you press labels?  What do you keep it on?  Do you have boxes, shelves, racks or what?  Do you group by year, composer or what?  What else is in your collection? And why does the Sun roate the Earth at curious angles?   
Well, this is just to get things going, selfishly, because today I just completed the task of cataloging everything, printing collection sheets from Excel, re-organising in order, etc...and I am very satisfied that my wee collection is as fine as it had been before the Great Fire of Glasgow.  It took me all day to do it, and with such yearly frothing my collection has grown.  It's contents, cleaning and cataloging and stuff I will reveal as things go on...

MODERATORS:  Eh...I seem to have put this 'sub-thread' in the wrong 'thread.'  Can it be moved to 'Genereal Classical Music Discussion' ?

  Well  I give a flying furtwangler about this:

 

  Just ask Sarge he'll tell you all about it!

I too have a huge prick....oh wait...are you guys talking about the same thing I am? Anyway, since links to older threads on this topic have been posted, I don't know if John's thread will take off. I will wait then before saying anything more about my collection.

Sarge

LOL!!!  Sarge your post above has got to be the funniest one this year!!  LOL!!!

  marvin

[Mirror Image]

I've got a large classical collection around 7,000 CDs.

[mahler10th]

I've got a large classical collection around 7,000 CDs.

The way this thread has gone, I have to say that mine is smaller than yours.   

[Superhorn]

   My collection isn't particularly large.I'm not sure how many I have;probably about 500 or so.
   It's a rather quirky collection, and very eclectic.  There are quite a few great masterpieces I don't have,not because I don't love them,but because there are so many interesting rarities available that I have tended to get these
instead of standard masterpieces I've already heard zillions of times.
   I have everything from music by Palestrina,Lassus, Dufay, Byrd, Gesualdo and other early masters to
things by Carter,Boulez, Henze,Berio, Rouse and other contemporary composers.
  My collection has all manner of interesting rarities by the likes of Anton Rubinstein, Arnold Bax, Charles Koechlin,
  Franz Berwald, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Franz Schmidt, Pavel Haas, Walter Braunfels, Franz Schreker,
  Alexander von Zemlinsky,  Zdenek Fibich, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Taneyev, Ernst Krenek,
  Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Albert Roussel, Antonio Carlos Gomes, Eugen D'Albert, Riccardo Zandonai,
  Albert Lortzing, Gheorghe Enescu, Alexander Glazunov, Reinhold Gliere,Bohuslav Martinu, John Alden Carpenter,
   Paul Creston, Carl Ruggles, Carlos Chavez,
  Havergal Brian, E.J. Moeran, Johan Svendsen, Mily Balakirev, and others.
    No one could ever accuse me of having an uninteresting CD collection !

[Bulldog]

   My collection isn't particularly large.I'm not sure how many I have;probably about 500 or so.
   It's a rather quirky collection, and very eclectic.  There are quite a few great masterpieces I don't have,not because I don't love them,but because there are so many interesting rarities available that I have tended to get these
instead of standard masterpieces I've already heard zillions of times.
   I have everything from music by Palestrina,Lassus, Dufay, Byrd, Gesualdo and other early masters to
things by Carter,Boulez, Henze,Berio, Rouse and other contemporary composers.
  My collection has all manner of interesting rarities by the likes of Anton Rubinstein, Arnold Bax, Charles Koechlin,
  Franz Berwald, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Franz Schmidt, Pavel Haas, Walter Braunfels, Franz Schreker,
  Alexander von Zemlinsky,  Zdenek Fibich, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Taneyev, Ernst Krenek,
  Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Albert Roussel, Antonio Carlos Gomes, Eugen D'Albert, Riccardo Zandonai,
  Albert Lortzing, Gheorghe Enescu, Alexander Glazunov, Reinhold Gliere,Bohuslav Martinu, John Alden Carpenter,
   Paul Creston, Carl Ruggles, Carlos Chavez,
  Havergal Brian, E.J. Moeran, Johan Svendsen, Mily Balakirev, and others.
    No one could ever accuse me of having an uninteresting CD collection !

You have quite an uninteresting CD collection - just had to say it.

As for my CD collection, I have many thousands but decided that counting them up is a waste of time.  I don't catalog them either, just keep them in alphabetical order by composer.  Also, no listening log - I'm not interested in what I heard but what I'm hearing and will hear in the future.  I do have a few downloads, but they're not important to me.  Overall, my collection is perfect.

Storage can be a pain.  Many of my cds are in a large entertainment center that also houses my audio equipment; remaining cds are in closets.  As you all know, a well-decorated home does not show musical products or equipment.  That's why I kept my clarinet and sold my piano; it wouldn't fit in any of the closets.

[DavidRoss]

Yes, how tacky rooms look with a musical instrument on display!



Perhaps this chair would improve the decor?

[SonicMan46]

You have quite an uninteresting CD collection - just had to say it.

As for my CD collection, I have many thousands but decided that counting them up is a waste of time.  I don't catalog them either, just keep them in alphabetical order by composer.  Also, no listening log - I'm not interested in what I heard but what I'm hearing and will hear in the future.  I do have a few downloads, but they're not important to me.  Overall, my collection is perfect.

Storage can be a pain.  Many of my cds are in a large entertainment center that also houses my audio equipment; remaining cds are in closets.  As you all know, a well-decorated home does not show musical products or equipment.  That's why I kept my clarinet and sold my piano; it wouldn't fit in any of the closets.

Don - LOL!     I have a large collection also but have it on a computer database, so could definitely give a pretty exact amount of CDs owned (into the thousands); plus the variety is quite varied to  my satisfaction; storage is always an issue for me (I've been in the same house for 34 years and it does not get bigger!) - so, I'll continue to add & cull my collection to fit into the space available but possibly obtain recordings that I prefer - BUT, isn't that the fun of enjoying and participating in this forum?   Dave 

[Bulldog]

Yes, how tacky rooms look with a musical instrument on display!



Perhaps this chair would improve the decor?

Yes, a delightful enhancement.  Glad to see that you're on my side.

[listener]

Catlog in Word format...
Entry by work,let the computer sort it.     Sort priority can be changed.
I had ClassicCat, which was  great, but has disappeared and old program won't carry over to this computer.     
copied mid-edit     Cyrano de Bergerac is by Alfano

[Lethevich]

Also, no listening log - I'm not interested in what I heard but what I'm hearing and will hear in the future.

I tend to be horrified whenever I read what the me-of-several-years-ago has been saying

[Brian]

I tend to be horrified whenever I read what the me-of-several-years-ago has been saying

That's why I try never to read my GMG posts from more than, say, a month ago: it's really scary. That's also why my listening log (see attached photo) is absolutely bare-bones: just enough to track what I'm hearing and who's playing it. I use Microsoft Word, but only because I'm too dumb to have figured out what program would be better.

As for my collection: before moving to London in September, I had to digitize my entire pre-existing collection, or at least anything I thought there was the slightest chance I'd want to listen to while here. iTunes informs me that I have 120.95 GB of music, that is to say, "13844 songs" or 58 days, 7 hours, 30 minutes, and 17 seconds. I've bought about 20 CDs here in England, though, and received slightly more than that from MusicWeb, so the collection's gotten even larger.

I guess an average of 1 CD = 1 hour would put me at 1450 CDs, plus the undigitized CDs back in Texas.