Do you catalog or inventory your CD collection?

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't know if this has been asked here before, but do you catalog or inventory your CD collection? I never did so before about a year ago, when I could not find the Kertesz Bluebeard's Castle and bought another, only to find I had it coupled with the Kodaly Hary Janos and filed under K.

And so I made a catalog (a 130-page Word document) that inventories all my single-composer CDs, the contents of all my box sets, the couplings for each CD, and the locations for all the discs throughout my home. It was a very helpful process, especially in finding some duplicates I could purge and works I probably had more than enough of. (I mean come on, 20 versions of the Symphonie Fantastique? Surely I could live with only 17-18.)

I also made an inventory of all my scores, but that's something else.

How about you?

[Florestan]

No. All my music is stored on three external HDDs (I will need a fourth soon) and two laptops. I know exactly where to find this or that without the help of a catalogue.

[Jo498]

I started a database in the 1990s but gave it up in the early 2000s when I changed computers and it was only a few 100 discs then, so it would not have been necessary.
As for the example above: The easiest way w/o any catalogue is to put an empty CD case or just a piece of cardboard under "Bartok" with a note: ""Bluebeards Castle/.../." see "Kodaly: Hary Janos"".

[Henk]

I trust my memory and that works for me. I even do not try anymore to order my records. I just pile them up and when it gets messy I put them on the shelves randomly. It works well enough for me. It takes some more time to search, but at the same time I comes across records that otherwise wouldn't grab my attention. Easy and pragmatic.

[(poco) Sforzando]

No. All my music is stored on three external HDDs (I will need a fourth soon) and two laptops. I know exactly where to find this or that without the help of a catalogue.

Does that mean you've ripped all your CDs to files?

[(poco) Sforzando]

I started a database in the 1990s but gave it up in the early 2000s when I changed computers and it was only a few 100 discs then, so it would not have been necessary.
As for the example above: The easiest way w/o any catalogue is to put an empty CD case or just a piece of cardboard under "Bartok" with a note: ""Bluebeards Castle/.../." see "Kodaly: Hary Janos"".

I had thought of that. By this point however I'd need a lot of cardboards.

[Florestan]

Does that mean you've ripped all your CDs to files?

No. It means I haven't got one single physical CDs since I don't remember when. Downloads only. My physical CDs (and vinyls) are stored in an attic, getting dustier each passing year. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

No. It means I haven't got one single physical CDs since I don't remember when. Downloads only. My physical CDs (and vinyls) are stored in an attic, getting dustier each passing year. 

Ah. We each have our own system, which doubtless makes perfect sense to each of us.

[Florestan]

Ah. We each have our own system, which doubtless makes perfect sense to each of us.

Absolutely.

[DavidW]

Alphabetical by composer, then genre, then performers.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Alphabetical by composer, then genre, then performers.

That sounds like a system of organizing the CDs. But do you have any document where you list everything you own, so you know just what you have?

[Maestro267]

I made mine on Discogs earlier this year. Took me nearly a week to add everything I could. Out of over 850 discs and box sets, I'd say there's about 10 missing due to not being able to find them even when scanning the barcode.

[Madiel]

Yes, on an Excel spreadsheet. By work rather than by disc (though in cases where the relationship isn't obvious I might put something in a "Notes" column to remind me which disc the work is on).

Composers that I have a decent amount of get their own page within the spreadsheet, and there's a "General" for everyone else.

Composer, Work, Numbering (opus number or similar), Length, Date last listened, and Performer. The sorting within a composer is by the numbering, where numbering exists.

I started doing this something like 15 years ago, not so much because it was hard to keep track of what I owned, more because it was hard to keep track of what I'd listened to any time recently.

[Papy Oli]

I do keep a basic Classical Excel file listing the albums in my collection:

- number of CD's in each entry
- Composer(s)
- Works
- Booklet in PDF Y/N
- Conductor(s)
- Orchestra/Ensemble
- Label
- Soloists/Comments

the entries are coloured according to format: Physical CD, FLAC, MP3.

It sort of became redundant a couple of years ago when I started to rip the whole physical collection to FLAC, so I now use my file player MusicBee to search in the collection. I still keep that file updated though, if only for a tracking of the formats held, maybe more out of habit.

I had a another Excel file listing works and Op. No. in the collection (but not the various performing entries for each). that became even more pointless once I used MusicBee. Maybe one day I'll extract and reowok the whole data from MusicBee to remake such a more helpful file.

Basically more like that :

Yes, on an Excel spreadsheet. By work rather than by disc (though in cases where the relationship isn't obvious I might put something in a "Notes" column to remind me which disc the work is on).

Composers that I have a decent amount of get their own page within the spreadsheet, and there's a "General" for everyone else.

Composer, Work, Numbering (opus number or similar), Length, Date last listened, and Performer. The sorting within a composer is by the numbering, where numbering exists.

I started doing this something like 15 years ago, not so much because it was hard to keep track of what I owned, more because it was hard to keep track of what I'd listened to any time recently.

 

[DavidW]

That sounds like a system of organizing the CDs. But do you have any document where you list everything you own, so you know just what you have?

No I don't, I don't see a point.  I look on the shelf for the cds or go through the folders on the pc.  My collection is not that big, I mostly stream.

[Spotted Horses]

I've ended up with two catalogs. When I was listening to CDs on a player and they were mostly boxed up I made a spreadsheet. The columns are label, catalog number, composer(s), work(s), conductor, performer, orchestra. It was a bit vague, I might have an entry that had Schubert, Schumann listed for composers and Symphony No 8, Symphony No 4. The last column was which box it was in. I still have this, although it it mostly obsolete because I have disposed of discs that have been ripped. I still look in it to find discs that I might still have unripped.

When I started ripping them as FLAC+CUE, I devised my own tagging scheme. Each folder has a file called contents.txt which contained tags I defined, label, release, recording date, number of discs, and for each work composer, work, conductor, performer, ensemble, etc. I have a script that searches the file structure for contents.txt files and compiles it all into a table. I also put the album cover in the folder as cover.jpg

The file structure is organized by label, catalog number, which is my failsafe way of finding something if there is an omission from my tagging scheme.

[Holden]

Yes, sort of.... I have ripped my entire collection to files and this in itself is a database I suppose. I know I have used this to determine if I have a particular artist or work in my collection as I don't completely trust my memory.

Because I have these digital files I rarely play CDs except when I want to use my HiFi for listening. That said I do have the capacity to stream my digital files to my stereo via a wifi streamer.