database for your classical music collection

[Mirror Image]

I have posted on this subject elsewhere in the past as I am even now still looking for a dedicated Classical Music database programme which will list my stuffs, etc.  It may be some of us (me included) are much more nerdy about our collections, and require statistics, facts and figures on its ever changing status and the ability to reference a work in our collections for replaying, reviewing, etc.  I very much admire the way of not wanting or bothering to have a database of the collection, there is something of a free spirit in that attitude, to be applauded.  But folk like me can't hack it, we must have some form of reference for the works we have collected if only to reassure ourselves that all is in order, lol.
Anyway, I cannot stand i-tunes and will have nothing to do with it....and there's no point in asking what third party programmes people use to catalogue their collection as I keep hitting brick walls with the question.  I have used and tried many different programs, but absoloutely none of them have brought any long term satisfaction and end up ditched - most probably because nothing is ever DEDICATED to the classical mjusic collection, and are festooned with features which are useless to me - maybe ok for other collections, but not classical.   
Ach, any suggestions anyway?

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, there needs to be a CD catalog program that is image-based and that is linked with Amazon and other sites that allows use of their artwork/information. All you have to do is type in the name of the composer and then all of the recordings that are available and out-of-print will appear and all you have to do is select that recording and it will be added to your database. It beats having to type in all of this information! After you've located every recording by the specific composer you were finding recordings for you can then choose how you want this to be organized (date of performances, year of release, genre, etc.). Nobody seems to understand that this is the best way to organize a collection. Forget Excel, Word, etc., these are not proper programs for a CD catalog. Like I said, everything really needs to be image based, so after you've found all the recordings you own under x composer, you can locate the work you're looking for in no time.

[mahler10th]

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, there needs to be a CD catalog program that is image-based and that is linked with Amazon and other sites that allows use of their artwork. All you have to do is type in the name of the composer and then all of the recordings that are available and out-of-print will appear and all you have to do is select that recording and it will be added to your database. It beats having to type in all of this information! After you've located every recording by the specific composer you were finding recordings for you can then choose how you want this to be organized (date of performances, year of release, genre, etc.). Nobody seems to understand that this is the best way to organize a collection. Forget Excel, Word, etc., these are not proper programs for a CD catalog. Like I said, everything really needs to be image based, so after you've found all the recordings you own under x composer, you can locate the work you're looking for in no time.

We are most definitely on the same wavelength.  Exactly what I have in mind too.   

[Mirror Image]

We are most definitely on the same wavelength.  Exactly what I have in mind too.   

You know what they say, great minds think alike. Anyway, I don't see why a company couldn't develop this idea and instead of bringing out a new version every year or so, they should just offer upgrades through their website. I think programs that aren't image-based are a waste of time. Many people are visual and remember a recording just by it's front cover. I don't think CD catalogging should be a complex or difficult thing to do. It should be something that's fun to do and not something that's a chore or hassle to fool with.

[raduneo]

I use Excel as well. Although I also added a section for Period, Country, Period in the composer's career, title, type of work, interpreter's 1, 2, 3 and 4 (in case I like more than 1). This way, I can arrange the compositions using filters!

I also reccomend the Add Comment feature of Excel where (when you scroll over a cell, a text appears where you could have for example the program of the work, or comments on a particular interpretation!!).

[bumtz]

I have been using Music Collector (MuC) by Collectorz (http://www.collectorz.com/music/) for many years now. I found the software to be very easy to use, and the input is fast (they use a few online, as well as propitiatory databases for entry, and nearly all classical CDs I have bought are there, so it loads all the tracklist data and credits). In case you are interested, the information I catalog is: CD title, label, catalog number, bar code, composer, performer, conductor, orchestra, release year, recording date, cover scan, track list with timing, amazon links, purchase year, in-print status, store I bought it from and a couple of other parameters. With MuC it takes me less than one minute (including my editing) to input a new CD (although these multi-artist / multi-composer box sets can be a pain in the ass), even less for non-classical music (where you don't need to separate composers from performers, etc.). It is not entirely perfect for classical music, although it has got better with upgrades (they introduced fields for Orchestra, Choir, Conductor, etc.).

Let's say I am 90% satisfied with it, and it is good enough for me.   

[bumtz]

As I have mentioned in an earlier post, there needs to be a CD catalog program that is image-based and that is linked with Amazon and other sites that allows use of their artwork/information. All you have to do is type in the name of the composer and then all of the recordings that are available and out-of-print will appear and all you have to do is select that recording and it will be added to your database. It beats having to type in all of this information! After you've located every recording by the specific composer you were finding recordings for you can then choose how you want this to be organized (date of performances, year of release, genre, etc.). Nobody seems to understand that this is the best way to organize a collection. Forget Excel, Word, etc., these are not proper programs for a CD catalog. Like I said, everything really needs to be image based, so after you've found all the recordings you own under x composer, you can locate the work you're looking for in no time.

This is a good idea, and this is more or less how most of the commercial CD database software solutions work for the last 10 years , except that amazon does not seem to allow using the artwork from their websites (they used to but not anymore), but there are other online CD/Vynil databases available. 

[fridden]

I guess there are different needs depending on whether or not your collection is in digital form, or consists of actual CD, Vinyl and cassettes etc. etc.

I have digitalized my entire collection and have since last fall been using J. River Media Center which I am very pleased with. It is flexible enough to allow me to enter the details I want about each and every piece. They have their own database of music to fetch tags from (as well as freedb I think), but I usually want to tag them my way, so I usually end up rewriting any tags found.

I have more than 1.5 TB of music and J.River is one of the few programs I have used that is capable of handling the amount of data without choking.

On another forum I saw a reference to a program called Musichi (http://www.musichi.eu/) which is designed for classical collections. It uses Freedb and Amazon to look up information about music.
It looks kind of nice, but since I am feeling quite comfortable with J.River I will not make a switch.

There is also Sonata (http://www.sonataserver.com/), which is a spin-off from J.River
/fridden

[coffee]

I don't have an up-to-date listing of all my CDs but I have a complete listing of my Naxos CDs. I might make lists for other labels too.

Years ago I started to use html files for documenting things. In other words, I am creating a "personet" for myself with the content that I want. Because it all is in hypertext format, accessing various listings etc. is very easy and fast. My web starting page is a listing of links to favorite internet pages and to my own html files.

Also, I am not dependant of specific software. A web browser (with source code editor) is all I need and html files work in any system. I experienced these benefits when I changed from pc to Mac (mini). My "personet" worked instantly after transfering my html folders to my new Mac. All I needed to do was to make my starting page the default starting page of the web browsers (Safari and Opera). OSX is somewhat different OS than Windows but editing my html files is pretty identical in both operating systems when using Opera for that.

I like that fact that with html files it is easy to handle visual things; background colors, tables, pictures etc. Listings look the way I want. 

I like this idea a lot. I'll put some thought into doing something like this.

[Gurn Blanston]

I have been using Music Collector (MuC) by Collectorz (http://www.collectorz.com/music/) for many years now. I found the software to be very easy to use, and the input is fast (they use a few online, as well as propitiatory databases for entry, and nearly all classical CDs I have bought are there, so it loads all the tracklist data and credits). In case you are interested, the information I catalog is: CD title, label, catalog number, bar code, composer, performer, conductor, orchestra, release year, recording date, cover scan, track list with timing, amazon links, purchase year, in-print status, store I bought it from and a couple of other parameters. With MuC it takes me less than one minute (including my editing) to input a new CD (although these multi-artist / multi-composer box sets can be a pain in the ass), even less for non-classical music (where you don't need to separate composers from performers, etc.). It is not entirely perfect for classical music, although it has got better with upgrades (they introduced fields for Orchestra, Choir, Conductor, etc.).

Let's say I am 90% satisfied with it, and it is good enough for me.   

From your link, I downloaded the trial version of this software to see if it worked for me. After an hour or two of playing around with it, I think so far that it seems to work pretty well. With only 100 database entries in the trial I couldn't check out how it worked with big chunks of data, but I cataloged 3 or 4 disks and a couple of folders of MP3's and FLAC's. It was fast and easy, and the CD's were in their database already, which was nice. The album art search feature worked well too. I'll probably go ahead and buy the $30 version and have at it. Thanks for that,

[71 dB]

I like this idea a lot. I'll put some thought into doing something like this.

I hope the concept works for you. 

[bumtz]

From your link, I downloaded the trial version of this software to see if it worked for me. After an hour or two of playing around with it, I think so far that it seems to work pretty well. With only 100 database entries in the trial I couldn't check out how it worked with big chunks of data, but I cataloged 3 or 4 disks and a couple of folders of MP3's and FLAC's. It was fast and easy, and the CD's were in their database already, which was nice. The album art search feature worked well too. I'll probably go ahead and buy the $30 version and have at it. Thanks for that,

Glad to be of help . PM me if you have any questions about it - I have been using it for 7 or 8 years already. 

[mc ukrneal]

Glad to be of help . PM me if you have any questions about it - I have been using it for 7 or 8 years already. 

I have a question - can you create lists like 1) Total discs per composer, 2) Total spent per composer, per label, etc., 3) Total spent by retail outlet, 4) Total discs per label. Etc. I like to perform statistical analyses around my collection. I haven't done a trial run, but this looks like one of the more interesting databases I have seen.

[Gurn Blanston]

Glad to be of help . PM me if you have any questions about it - I have been using it for 7 or 8 years already.

I'm sure I will end up having to take you up on that offer.   Especially as I get odd ideas sometimes about how to make a display report look. Anyway, I think that those who are clamoring for something workable would do well to at least try the free trial version. It might be just what they are looking for.

[bumtz]

See my responses in your post

I have a question - can you create lists like 1) Total discs per composer - yes, 2) Total spent per composer, per label, etc., - not sure. There is a field where you input the price of a CD, I never investigated its properties. I will take a look.  3) Total spent by retail outlet - same as above 4) Total discs per label - yes Etc. I like to perform statistical analyses around my collection. I haven't done a trial run, but this looks like one of the more interesting databases I have seen.

[classicalgeek]

I've been working with my system for about five years, but it's hardly ideal.  There's a lot of work that I'd like to automate or cut out all together.

If it's a CD, I'll rip it first (dbPowerAmp CD ripper is the software of choice.)  If it's a download, i'll skip this step.

Then I log each work (or collection of works) on the album in an Excel spreadsheet, including composer, work, performer(s), label, catalog number, format (CD or MP3), and location (L drive or M drive, my two external drives full of music).

Excel_Spreadsheet

Then I manually edit the tags and embed cover art using Tag&Rename (http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm).  I'm very particular about tagging, so i don't bother with getting the info from FreeDB or other resources - it's inconsistent and often incorrect.  Here's what one track looks like - I use my own genre tags and I put performer info in the 'composer' field, among other quirks...

TagRenameSample

I'm looking at the free trials from MusiCollector and MusiChi - both are impressive so far, especially the latter, which has the potential to combine the cataloging and tagging steps.  But at this point, I wonder if I should just stick with what I've been doing.  I'm the kind of collector who would have to go back and update everything in my existing collection just to make it consistent - no small feat with 78,000 music files (or 'songs', as iTunes likes to call them )

[Madiel]

Interesting topic! Looks there might be a couple of programs to check out.

I currently use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of things, although there's not that many fields.  Composer, title, 'opus' number, length, date last listened and performers.  I only keep track by the work, not by the CD it's on, as the latter is a highly artificial construct when it comes to classical music.

iTunes on the computer isn't too bad, thanks to the grouping function, but I really only add things to iTunes when I intend to listen to them on my iPhone, and the functionality on there is really poor for classical music - the grouping idea just disappears, and it expects you to play things by album (in other words, a CD) or by playlist.  I end up making a temporary playlist for any multi-movement work while I've got it on the iPhone.  Because of those issues, I don't put classical music on there all that often and stick to CDs.

[raduneo]

I've been working with my system for about five years, but it's hardly ideal.  There's a lot of work that I'd like to automate or cut out all together.

If it's a CD, I'll rip it first (dbPowerAmp CD ripper is the software of choice.)  If it's a download, i'll skip this step.

Then I log each work (or collection of works) on the album in an Excel spreadsheet, including composer, work, performer(s), label, catalog number, format (CD or MP3), and location (L drive or M drive, my two external drives full of music).

Excel_Spreadsheet

Then I manually edit the tags and embed cover art using Tag&Rename (http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm).  I'm very particular about tagging, so i don't bother with getting the info from FreeDB or other resources - it's inconsistent and often incorrect.  Here's what one track looks like - I use my own genre tags and I put performer info in the 'composer' field, among other quirks...

TagRenameSample

I'm looking at the free trials from MusiCollector and MusiChi - both are impressive so far, especially the latter, which has the potential to combine the cataloging and tagging steps.  But at this point, I wonder if I should just stick with what I've been doing.  I'm the kind of collector who would have to go back and update everything in my existing collection just to make it consistent - no small feat with 78,000 music files (or 'songs', as iTunes likes to call them )

I know exactly how you feel classical geek! While I am a little less picky about tagging, I do often find myself editing tags (particularly when the interpreter name / actual name of the piece isn't mentionned. (example it says 1. Andante moderato, but it does not mention it's Brahm's Symphony 5). I also include comments for every excel entry (such as good amazon reviews or description of the piece).

The conversion is sometimes annoying, and I also have to make sure I rename every folder based on the same naming scheme (eg. Composer - Piece - Interpreter - Label). Not to mention the creation of the playlist for my mp3 player (which includes deciding if I should keep only 1 or 2 best interpretation, and which ones, editiong the playlists as my tastes change. Also quite often I add new composers to my main excel file...

Good thing for these portable hard drives! They make life quite a bit easier (although I would probably kill the first person I see if one of them broke down ).

[RJR]

You could also save all your album covers in a separate folder on your hard drive and later burn them to a Cd or DVd. An album cover slide show.

[ralfy]

I am currently using Music Collector from Collectorz with a barcode scanner.

I start by scanning the bar code, then selecting the right album presented in results. If the entries are lacking (e.g., no second disk), then I go to another tab and search by artist or composer name and title, after which I select the right entry and add the album to the first one. It's only when there are no correct results do I enter the disk and let the program search by disk ID. It's only when no results show up for any search option (so far, around five disks out of 500) do I scan the disk and enter data manually.

In any case, I have to clean up and update data (missing conductor names, etc.).

The data includes info about the album, tracks, and any CD covers. There are other options, like exporting to delimited files, which I can load in Excel, etc.

[stingo]

Since iTunes is essentially my music database, I hope I can ask this question in this thread...

When adding large box sets (like Brilliant's) do you tag them as one collection (e.g. Bach Complete Edition) or do you tag each individual CD (e.g., Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos etc.)?