Tracking Music Collection

[Randy Myers]

I am curious how everyone tracks and organize their music collection. Do you keep a list or just wing it?

I have friends who have Albums, CDs, etc., all over the place. Some have GBs, TBs, etc., of digital files and have no idea what they have. Others are ultra organized to a point of having special rooms for their albums. One of our club members who writes for an audio magazine has a room which is climate controlled (almost looks like a vault with a glass door) where his albums are stored and organized.

Personally I have a cabinet where all of my disks are keep. I have the SACDs separated from CDs, but both are in alphabetical order by the artist last name. All of my digital downloaded files are on my music server and also backed up on three separate drives, one being my NAS on my network and two external drives.

I am sure that my collection is much smaller than most members, but it is growing. Because I am an ultra organized type person I wrote a computer program for tracking my music. I also track my movies/videos, family and friends addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, etc. I even created a recipe section that my wife does not use ....

Anyway, here is a print out of my music list as an example...

Just curious how other members track their collections...

[Mike]

My LP's are in alphabetical order.


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[Randy Myers]

My LP's are in alphabetical order.

Cool Mike...do you have downloads or other digital files, or mainly concentrate on vinyl? If so do you track them anyway? Do you have a list of your LP's or do you do what I used to, just stand there thumbing through albums trying to decide what to listen to? Just being curious how other people manage their music collections...

[Mike]

I mainly listen to vinyl at home...call me crazy, but it's the tactile experience and sonic experience I enjoy and have for 40 years. In deciding what to listen to, I seriously just reach into a stack of albums and pull one out. Last night it was Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall. http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/95...m_Vinyl_Record

I listened to both LP's in the album all the way through. Throughly enjoyable.

I have 5000+ albums in Canada in my in-laws cold, dark basement. They are not organized. I really must find a way to get them down to Florida. In Florida, I have a closet full of albums organized alphabetically. I ran out of room there, so now I have one of these: https://www.lpbin.com/lpbin2 The albums in there are not in any particular order. I thoroughly enjoy just flipping through, looking at the album covers and grabbing one. If I want to find a particular album, I know where to find it. Can't find that missing sock, but I can find my albums.

I ran out of room with the LP Bin above and just bought four of these: http://waxstacks.com/ -- the price of these is a bit nuts, but I know the guy who owns the company (he used to work at DynAudio) and wanted to give him support (no, I did not get any discount).

I occasionally put on tape, but it can be a bit of a PITA. I have a lot of digital files from my ripped CD's, SACD's. They are organized by Artist/Album. I will be honest, I have some audiophile friends who absolutely hate vinyl. When they visit, you can be sure we fire up the DAC and listen to the same old sh!t: Keith Don't Go, some Dire Straits song, etc. I begin to wonder if we've lost our sheer joy of an album experience. In the old days, it was about the album. Every album was an experience. You listened beginning to end. Today, we make "playlists" and hop around songs like our fingers are on fire. Can you imagine if we watched movies in this fashion?

I do enjoy putting on a CD/SACD and listening all the way through as well, but for me, I love the whole experience of vinyl when I'm alone. I understand that people say vinyl is a hassle, but then talk about their NAS, USB Regen going into their router and switch and .... and this part isn't talking to that part....well, you get the point.

Sorry, I digressed.

P.S. you kids get off my lawn!

[jdandy]

Randy.......My LP's are stored in alphabetical order. I don't need a list because I generally know what vinyl I want to spin and have an album or two already in mind when I go to pull them out.

My digital library is stored on my Aurender N10, all CD's and downloaded files to 24/192. The Aurender Conductor app does the work of organizing for me by creating searchable alphabetical lists by song title, artist, album title, genre, and cover art, plus I can search by bit rate (16Bit or 24Bit) and PCM or DSD. That completely negates any need for a spreadsheet. All digital is backed up to a hard drive that remains disconnected from my network unless I am updating the files.

[Randy Myers]

Hehe... Mike, I thoroughly enjoyed reading through. That is great, other than there is no way I could leave 5000 albums up in Canada ....

Everyone enjoys their collections in different ways. I guess the main objective of this thread .... I used to really enjoy vinyl but after getting back in to this hobby and building from scratch whenever I think about getting a table I start remembering all the care... but thumbing through albums and looking at the covers, etc., is something I did enjoy.

I tend to like to listen to full albums (CDs and digital) more so then bouncing around. But the convenience of testing different things when trying something out is also very nice.

Anyway, I hope to hear from many other members here because I find this very interesting. If anyone wants a copy of my program that I use to track stuff I would be glad to provide it, I mean I wrote it so it is not breaking any copy writes ....

[jdandy]

Mike.......Back in the late 60's and early 70's we used to go to the record stores on the day an album was released to buy it and couldn't wait to get back home with new music to share with our friends. The stylus got dropped in the groove, side A and side B played in their entirety, sometimes immediately playing the album a second time. New LP's were like gold to us. Vinyl was king. Living in San Francisco during those times kept all of us on the leading edge of new music. When we weren't home listening to music were we enjoying live concerts in Golden Gate Park, or heading out to the Fillmore West or the Avalon Ballroom to see our favorite bands. Those were great times. I am happy to have those memories. It's a whole different scene today.

[Randy Myers]

Very much so... I remember often going to the record store the day of a new release... Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, etc., etc.... those were great days!

[Mike]

Mike.......Back in the late 60's and early 70's we used to go to the record stores on the day an album was released to buy it and couldn't wait to get back home with new music to share with our friends. The stylus got dropped in the groove, side A and side B played in their entirety, sometimes immediately playing the album a second time. New LP's were like gold to us. Vinyl was king. Living in San Francisco during those times kept all of us on the leading edge of new music. When we weren't home listening to music were we enjoying live concerts in Golden Gate Park, or heading out to the Fillmore West or the Avalon Ballroom to see our favorite bands. Those were great times. I am happy to have those memories. It's a whole different scene today.

Great memories Dan. We had Sam The Record Man in Toronto, and I would be standing waiting for the doors to open to sniff out the new vinyl albums for that week.

Yes, very different today.


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[Kuoppis]

Randy, my vinyls are organized into music styles like jazz, blues, rock, classical etc. When a section becomes too big I divide it up into subcategories by artist in jazz and artist or composer in classical.

CDs are organized into music styles in the garage, only listen to rips and streaming in digital.


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[Randy Myers]

I had thought about organizing my disks by genera but then decided against it since there are so many that cross into different ones ... I like the idea though!

[CPP]

My LP's, CD' and downloads are all arranged by genre in alphabetical order

[Kuoppis]

My LP's, CD' and downloads are all arranged by genre in alphabetical order

You appear to master the best of both worlds .


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[CPP]

You appear to master the best of both worlds .


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Just logical my good man, logical and easy.

[Kuoppis]

Chacun à son goût.


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[CPP]

Chacun à son goût.


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I'll stick with my taste. At my age it works.

[asiufy]

Since I moved, my LPs are still split between the storage unit and my store, in boxes, some in Ikea racks Thankfully, I had them sorted in alphabetical order, and also split in three big categories (rock/jazz/classical), so they're not that hard to track down if I have to. With 4000 or so, it's kinda hard to find one spot to have them all, and get rid of the boxes, but...

The CDs I've ripped long ago, and have them all on my server, where I keep them in a separate folder from the hi-res stuff (and DSD in a separate folder too). I'm now slowly selling them all, to fund more LP purchases


cheers,
alex

[mep]

I mainly listen to vinyl at home...call me crazy, but it's the tactile experience and sonic experience I enjoy and have for 40 years. In deciding what to listen to, I seriously just reach into a stack of albums and pull one out. Last night it was Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall. http://store.acousticsounds.com/d/95...m_Vinyl_Record

I listened to both LP's in the album all the way through. Throughly enjoyable.

I have 5000+ albums in Canada in my in-laws cold, dark basement. They are not organized. I really must find a way to get them down to Florida. In Florida, I have a closet full of albums organized alphabetically. I ran out of room there, so now I have one of these: https://www.lpbin.com/lpbin2 The albums in there are not in any particular order. I thoroughly enjoy just flipping through, looking at the album covers and grabbing one. If I want to find a particular album, I know where to find it. Can't find that missing sock, but I can find my albums.

I ran out of room with the LP Bin above and just bought four of these: http://waxstacks.com/ -- the price of these is a bit nuts, but I know the guy who owns the company (he used to work at DynAudio) and wanted to give him support (no, I did not get any discount).

I occasionally put on tape, but it can be a bit of a PITA. I have a lot of digital files from my ripped CD's, SACD's. They are organized by Artist/Album. I will be honest, I have some audiophile friends who absolutely hate vinyl. When they visit, you can be sure we fire up the DAC and listen to the same old sh!t: Keith Don't Go, some Dire Straits song, etc. I begin to wonder if we've lost our sheer joy of an album experience. In the old days, it was about the album. Every album was an experience. You listened beginning to end. Today, we make "playlists" and hop around songs like our fingers are on fire. Can you imagine if we watched movies in this fashion?

I do enjoy putting on a CD/SACD and listening all the way through as well, but for me, I love the whole experience of vinyl when I'm alone. I understand that people say vinyl is a hassle, but then talk about their NAS, USB Regen going into their router and switch and .... and this part isn't talking to that part....well, you get the point.

Sorry, I digressed.

P.S. you kids get off my lawn!

Good post Mike. I really don't think tape is any more of pain in the ass than vinyl, maybe less. The added SQ quality is worth it IMO.

[Mike]

Thanks Mark. How is part 2 of your Avenger review coming? I personally think the Magnetic Platter is the biggest difference.


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[Mordante]

I have about 400-500 LPs and about 500 CDs. I use Discogs as archive. At home they are all on alphabetical order. I don't really collect vinyls I buy the music I know I like and will listen to.

[fragoulisnaval]

I have ripped all my CDs and stored them at my NAS. Every two weeks , I keep a backup copy of my NAS to a second off site NAS.

I have approx. 4TB of digital files, FLAC and ALAC alike, 10% to be hirez files.

For organizing same, I keep various folders like blues, jazz etc. On the server.

One could say that I am a metadata maniac, since I enrich the metadata of my files daily.
This is because I may using MUSIChi software .

MUSIChi software suite does it all. Most importantly it has an excellent library management system, which lets you have multiple libraries on the fly and change them at will. This is very helpful with large collection of digital files, since the loading and search times are reduced significantly.

The second feature is it's incredible search engine (based on the metadata of the files ) where you can search by folder/name/artist/comments/bit rate, whatever you want.



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[nicoff]

I keep all my CDs in boxes in the attic. They are completely disorganized.

But... that's after I ripped them and stored them in a NAS.

Software like Logitech Media Server, Roon, etc analyzes the files in the NAS and create a database that keeps all rips perfectly organized by Artist, Album, Genre, Composer, track Name, etc. I can even separate by type of recording (DSD, high-res PCM, MP3, etc).

I recommend that you spend a little time thinking of how you will organize your files (be consistent!), then rip the files, and use software to adjust the metadata.

I use a tree structure like this:
Artist Name
-Album Name 1
-Album Name 2

I use mp3tag to change/adjust the metadata.

I use DBpoweramp for ripping which gives you very good metadata choices. But you will need a good metadata software to make corrections from time to time.

And you can export a list of your music and print it if you want!

[AlterEgo]

I use for my digital database XLD for ripping lossless files. The physical administration is done by iTunes. ITunes is not the best choice for the administration of the hard disk, but for me a good compromise and as a nice side effect I can use the files for my mobile devices.

To enjoy my music collection I use Roon & HQ-Player. I love to browse through the collection with Roon by using the additional information/content concerning the music I enjoy. That´ s for me a feeling almost like watching/reading an album cover. Usually I listen complete albums/cd´ s. But from time to time I perform track hopping which also is easy to do with the database. I appreciate to have the choice of enjoying my music collection in both ways.

My Vinyl collection with round about 300 records only a tenth of my digital collection is sorted in alphabetical way using the interpret of the record.

[Mahalo]

...

I have 5000+ albums in Canada in my in-laws cold, dark basement. They are not organized. I really must find a way to get them down to Florida. In Florida, I have a closet full of albums organized alphabetically. I ran out of room there, so now I have one of these: < link modified "lpbin2 from the lpbin company.> link modified" The albums in there are not in any particular order. I thoroughly enjoy just flipping through, looking at the album covers and grabbing one. If I want to find a particular album, I know where to find it. Can't find that missing sock, but I can find my albums...

P.S. you kids get off my lawn!

Mike:

I'm glad that I came across this thread and your post as I've been considering purchasing one of the lpbin2's. However, I'm not interested enough to do a blind buy and have been unable to find anyone that has purchased one of these. Until your post. So, if you don't mind I'd appreciate if you'd provide your input regarding the following:

1. Did you also purchase the bottom shelf adaptor so that all albums are facing forward?
2. If so, how accessible/viewable are the albums on the bottom of the bin?
3. What's the build/design quality like?
4. What's the aesthetic of the bin? I'd likely be placing this in a living room and wonder if this would look appropriate in a living room or is it more of a basement / storage / garage type product?
5. Have you attached any lighting to the bin?
6. Did you also buy the groove mats? If so, how do you like them.
7. The depth is 28 inches. If you have this in a room do you feel like maybe the bin protrudes too much into the room?

I'm considering purchasing an lpbin2 with the bottom shelf adaptor and the groove mats.

Thank you.

[joeinid]

Welcome to the forum Mahalo, thank you for joining.

[Try1256]

Physically, I have my albums in first name, alphabetical order by genre. Same with cd's, which I don't have as many. I have them listed on discog's. With the app on my phone, I can check to see if I already have a particular album or which issue it is if I find a copy I am interested in. Discogs is also helpful for insurance purposes if need as it gives a value for your collection.

[Mahalo]

Welcome to the forum Mahalo, thank you for joining.

Thank you.

[baddog]

As someone with a lot of vinyl I find Discogs invaluable in maintaining my vinyl collection. It has saved from my buying lots of duplicates. Great to use when I am looking at records in a store as well.

[Mahalo]

Mike:

I'm glad that I came across this thread and your post as I've been considering purchasing one of the lpbin2's...

Mike:

No need to respond to the prior post regarding the lpbin. I was at a dealer event and the dealer had purchased on of the lpbin1's. It was on the showroom floor so I was able to familiarize myself with it.

[crwilli]

Randy,

I have been using CLZ music to keep track of what I have mainly to give me a quick a reference on my phone when Imam considering new purchase. It is helpful to,avoid duplicates. It works with all physical media, CDs, LPs for example. It struggles to differentiate between my downloaded hi Rez FLAC and. red book sourced FLAC album and that could be me as it seems to have capabilities far beyond what I have been able to learn.

craig

[still-one]

Randy,

I have been using CLZ music to keep track of what I have mainly to give me a quick a reference on my phone when Imam considering new purchase. It is helpful to,avoid duplicates. It works with all physical media, CDs, LPs for example. It struggles to differentiate between my downloaded hi Rez FLAC and. red book sourced FLAC album and that could be me as it seems to have capabilities far beyond what I have been able to learn.

craig

I have been using this program for too long to remember. I find it useful to have a complete inventory of every lp, cd,digital file and tagged Tidal release I own with me at all times. I even track the different versions where applicable. In fact I have spent several hours the last few days updating the program to indicate which files I have loaded to either Sooloos or Roon and both. A ways to go to complete this task.

[Phil A]

I keep my music files on the NAS in folders too with hi-rez stuff by genre in separate folders and same for CDs. I have a few back-up copies on hard drives. JRiver allows for a report but a couple of years back I must have gotten a couple of albums that have foreign characters in them and the last couple of times I tried I got an error message. I keep the list from a couple of years ago in a PDF file which I have in a saved folder on my email so I know most of what I have from anywhere.

[crwilli]

I have been using this program for too long to remember. I find it useful to have a complete inventory of every lp, cd,digital file and tagged Tidal release I own with me at all times. I even track the different versions where applicable. In fact I have spent several hours the last few days updating the program to indicate which files I have loaded to either Sooloos or Roon and both. A ways to go to complete this task.

Actually Jim, I think I learned about CLZ from you! My library is a mess as I have not figured out how to distinguish between CDs, FLAC or DSD downloads of the same album.

[nicoff]

Actually Jim, I think I learned about CLZ from you! My library is a mess as I have not figured out how to distinguish between CDs, FLAC or DSD downloads of the same album.

What I do to differentiate different versions is to include the type of recording in the title in brackets. For example:
Led Zeppelin II [96-24]
Led Zeppelin II [DSD]
Led Zeppelin II [multi-channel]
Most of my collection is in FLAC. So I don't label them. If title shows with no brackets, that means it is FLAC.
I am using Roon. It has the best file management for music that I have ever used. Roon takes the names in the brackets and shows that name in a corner of the cover art. In the example above, you would see three covers. One would show "DSD", another will show "96-24", the third would say "multi-channel".
You need software to change the metadata. I use MP3TAG.

[fragoulisnaval]

I am using MUSIChi suite, thw library management fearure to keep track of what I have. With almost 3000cds and a ciupke of TB digital library its priceless...

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[Randy Myers]

It is interesting to see what everyone uses. It sounds like a lot of you use some kind of program to track your collection. When I have a need for this type of program I usually write a database application for the purpose. It allows me to customize and change when I want to. In my application I now track names and addresses, our Christmas card list, our movies collection, and not that long ago I added my music collection.

I am still fine tuning the report print out the way I want it. I keep a print out with my system for quick reference. I just added in a photo of the album covers to the database. I have a print out with and without the picture. The photo does increase the number of pages quite a bit, so not sure I will be using the print out with the photo moving forward much...

[crwilli]

It is interesting to see what everyone uses. It sounds like a lot of you use some kind of program to track your collection. When I have a need for this type of program I usually write a database application for the purpose. It allows me to customize and change when I want to. In my application I now track names and addresses, our Christmas card list, our movies collection, and not that long ago I added my music collection.

I am still fine tuning the report print out the way I want it. I keep a print out with my system for quick reference. I just added in a photo of the album covers to the database. I have a print out with and without the picture. The photo does increase the number of pages quite a bit, so not sure I will be using the print out with the photo moving forward much...

Showoff!

[crwilli]

What I do to differentiate different versions is to include the type of recording in the title in brackets. For example:
Led Zeppelin II [96-24]
Led Zeppelin II [DSD]
Led Zeppelin II [multi-channel]
Most of my collection is in FLAC. So I don't label them. If title shows with no brackets, that means it is FLAC.
I am using Roon. It has the best file management for music that I have ever used. Roon takes the names in the brackets and shows that name in a corner of the cover art. In the example above, you would see three covers. One would show "DSD", another will show "96-24", the third would say "multi-channel".
You need software to change the metadata. I use MP3TAG.

Thanks for that Jim. Perhaps this is better in another thread but one last comment. (Apologies Randy).


I have used JRiver and Mp3TAG to add these types of things to my folder names. However, my issue is more on the use of CLZ as when I upload them, it then does not 'find' those names in its database so I found myself having to re-enter the data which was short lived. Not sure what I am doing wrong but it really hasn't worked for as a result. My database in CLZ is a mess and I have been thinking of schist starting over.

[nicoff]

Thanks for that Jim. Perhaps this is better in another thread but one last comment. (Apologies Randy).


I have used JRiver and Mp3TAG to add these types of things to my folder names. However, my issue is more on the use of CLZ as when I upload them, it then does not 'find' those names in its database so I found myself having to re-enter the data which was short lived. Not sure what I am doing wrong but it really hasn't worked for as a result. My database in CLZ is a mess and I have been thinking of schist starting over.

Just a thought: folder name is different that "album name". You can change the folder name in any computer without need for special software.
The "album name" on the other hand is one of the metadata fields that is embedded in the file itself independent of the folder that is stored under.

You need special software to be able to change the metadata.

The filename of any track can provide you all the information needed to identify that track. Here is an example of a filename:

05 - Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III [9624] - Out on the Tiles.flac

Even if you find that file somewhere misplaced in your computer, you know exactly where it came from.

Some programs (like mp3tag) can generate that same filename automatically. In this example, I told mp3tag to use the following track metadata to generate the filename.

Track # - Artist - Album Name - track name - type of file

Btw You can even embed the cover art in the metadata so it will show when you play the file.

[Mahalo]

I basically use an Xcel spreadsheet. I'm thinking most likely because I'm a bottom line/what's the point kind of person and most of my day is taken up by work -- with no complaints. I use the Xcel spreadsheet to create columns, i.e., genre, issue date, etc. And then I periodically use the search function to rearrange the spreadsheets by line item. And then I use this to rearrange how I arrange the physical media in terms of storage and access.

For example for vinyl I currently have the arrangement as follows: 1) 12-inch singles, 2) catalog titles that have been cleaned, 3) recent purchases, 4) jazz, 5) A-list, 6) live albums.

For example for digital I currently have the arrangement as follows: 1) SACD - Mono 2) SACD - Stereo, 3) SACD - Multi-channel, 4) DVD-Audio, 5) DTS 5.1, 6) Blu-ray audio, etc.

This seems to work for me.

And then I shake things up periodically. For example my next re-arrangement will probably include a segmentation for 1) soundtrack, and 2) '70's, '80's, etc. And I can do this because I have unique columns in the spreadsheet and then I just re-arrange the spreadsheet based upon the current parameters.