How do you file/store your music?

Well this is a topical subject. My collection arrived back in the UK a couple of months back and I am today continuing to try and get some semblance of order. Taking a little break at this moment.

Well you did ask, so here goes from left to right as I sit in my armchair.

CD's - I have I reckon about 6000 of them and it is a major challenge to get them in some order.

ECM - my favourite record label and it gets it's own section as I have about 950 of them. Filed alphabetically by artist, each artist section is in catalogue number order. I do split the ECM collection between ECM and ECM New Series.

Audiophile - MOFI's, Naim, Other Audiophile releases - all alphabetical

Jazz - about 1300 discs filed alphabetically by artist and I generally try to get each artist in release order.

Female Vocals - all CD's by each artist together but not filed in alphabetical order

Prog Rock section - Genesis, Genesis solo, Led Zep, Floyd, Supertramp, Yes, VDGG, Hammill, Porcupine Tree, Marillion, Jethro etc etc etc - not alphabetical, rather a favourtism order - one of my fave parts of my collection.

All other rock artists are not filed in order but rather collected together in sections that go together for me - Springsteen ,U2 and Beatles go together. Then I have an LA section - CSNY, Joni, Eagles, Neil Young, Zevon, etc etc and other good American rock

Alternative section - in no order

Heavy section - in no order

Classical/Opera - filed alphabetically

Easy Listening - in no order

World - alphabetical

Vinyl is split into two main sections. First is my vinyl from 70/80's that I have kept all these years - will be alphabetical when I have finished it.

New vinyl - rock is alphabtical, jazz is alphabetical but 45 RPM Blue Notes are seperately filed. MOFI's are seperately filed alphabetically.

That's it. All sounds highly nerdish

Jamie - you have an interesting way of storing your collection. What happens when you move and they all get out of order? Can you remember how to get it all back together?

quote:

Originally posted by Lontano:
Jamie - you have an interesting way of storing your collection. What happens when you move and they all get out of order? Can you remember how to get it all back together?

They go into boxes in order, and the boxes are numbered.

I am not entirely sure about a couple of artists who I have only one CD by. I am not consistent with solo artists either, most are tagged on after the band, but some are separate, if I feel they are quite different. Solo albums by artists still members of the band go into the band's chronology.

Peter Gabriel is separate from Genesis, but Steve Hackett is straight after Genesis. I don't have any solo by the others from the band. This does reflect that my main interest in genesis is Hackett's playing.

I have thought of making a list on the computer in case I forget some odd entries.

I agree this sounds very nerdish, but also reflects that music triggers memories in a very personal way, so how you keep your music can also be personal.

Unlike the character in 'High Fidelity' I do not reclassify my music whenever I break up with a partner (I just play 'Hejira' by Joni Mitchell a lot).

I tend to put them alphabetically, tho separate rock from jazz and country. Classical it's own shelf. I'm familiar with it, but I do like the images to finger thru. I could never own a HDX.

I have a low drawer coffee table that has favorites and then bedroom has big heavy bookshelf. And of course the changing piles of LPs and CDs that populate the speakers and coffee table.

I use the heameroid system. Piles not in alphabetic order based on a layering according to the last played at the top. When I have a tidy up I can find nothing!

Very distressing to have a tidy up. I am looking forward to servers taking over from those odious little bits of plastic that contain our favourite music and which so often conspire to be absent when we most want to enjoy the music they contain!

I do realise that I shall need a back-up. But I have zero intention of parting with the discs once loaded onto a server, so no particular reason for another hard drive. I suspect that the loading upprocess is likely to be a job that requires doing again in time in any case as optimal copying is perfected!

I believe that iTunes is automatically alphabetic!

ATB from George

Alphabetical. My wife says I can remember how much I paid and where I bought each of my 5000 + collection.

She stil thinks I am insane.

While some claim that chaos is the only way, I actually need some semblance of order. My music library is just that...a library where I can conveniently find something as needed and not have to think about it much. My biggest pet peeve with this is that I do not like albums that have more than one composer on them; this makes it hard to file and find. At the moment I'm very stressed out about my library because I ran out of space about last January. Everything new has been filed on the floor in various piles that keep growing. This Christmas holiday time I plan to rectify the situation and add a shelf and rework what I have (about 3300 CD's, 100 Vinyl, 50 DVD's.

The first thing I do when I buy music is add it to my database. If my mind plays tricks on me or I can't find something I know or think I bought then I have it in black and white to back me up.

After this I generally use the following process to organize myself:

- Jazz, Rock, etc. is only a handful of CD's for me so each category of 20th century/contemporary stuff gets its own portable storage case. I got these from Ikea and each holds about 36 CD's. They go in the closet or cupboards.

- On the main shelves, I start from top left and organize to the right and then down just like a library. At the top is a section of all composers around or before Bach. This group is then organized chronologically by the time period of the composer. (ie: Gregorian chant to start and ending with Handel and Vivaldi.)

- Then come the main big hitter guys. From Bach to late 19th century each composer takes up a pretty substantial amount of shelf space so each one gets its own big section. Then I just make sub-groups within each section (ie Bach:Orchestral/Chamber, Keyboard, Organ, Cantata, Vocal/passions etc).

- Debussy and Ravel end this section. Then comes the Russian / Eastern European section.

- Next comes the misfit section; those CD's that have more than one composer (oh how I get annoyed with this section). So these CD's get filed in sections following by the following way: solo piano, chamber, violin, cello, etc. female vocal, male vocal, symphonic etc.

- Last but not least is the Opera section. For some reason, these are filed alphabetically by composers last name.

I currently have 3 shelves and by the end of the year I hope to have 4. Most of the new adders are from Bach to Brahms so pretty much everything has to move to the right. A lot of work but I look forward to a very organized and relaxed 2009

Regards,
Doug

Alphabetically by artist. Separate collections for pop/rock, jazz, classical/opera and movie soundtracks.

Although all music is on CDs, I actually listen via iTunes and lossless rips. The CDs are back-ups in a sense.

quote:

I believe that iTunes is automatically alphabetic!

My experience so far is that Apple products aren't too good at alphabetical.

I don't understand what you mean that Apple products aren't too good at alphabetical. Does Apple get the alphabet wrong?

iTunes can do pretty much whatever you like (admittedly not by producer, engineer or label etc unless you manually input that yourself into the description or comment field - but what system can?). I can't imagine what else you could possibly want. The fields are all editable and there are many, many to choose from. I usually just search by keyword, or browse by album or artist. If a track or album has a mistake in the metadata, I just correct it (although a minor bugbear is when the artist field gets contaminated by some album tracks that have " main artist feat. some other dude " in the field so that the album gets broken up when you group by artist. When I notice this, I just correct it.)

I meant in my previous post that my physical CDs are organised alphabetically by artist. iTunes makes this largely irrelevant, though.

I have all my CDs in a Mac application called Delicious Library - at just over 2000, I know where most of them are - either on a shelf, pseudo alphabetically in Classical, Jazz and Other sections or in ring binders where my taste or perhaps more importantly, my partner's taste, has moved on. I know where these are and can fish out a less heard disc reasonably easily.

Vinyl is also, primarily, in the CD categories but a lack of storage limits the LPs in the apartment to around 500 and so there is a rotation policy based on newly acquired and current faves with the remainder being in the basement.

I would hate to think there are discs whose whereabouts I do not know as this would mean they have been forgotten. I am wondering what size the collection has to grow to before this begins to happen.

Adrian, with 6000+ CDs and your growing vinyl collection, how do you keep on top of it all?

BTW - when we last moved I off-loaded a bunch of discs (silver and black) that I thought no longer merited home storage. I regret that, but through such actions we learn.

Huw

quote:

Originally posted by Huwge:
Adrian, with 6000+ CDs and your growing vinyl collection, how do you keep on top of it all?

BTW - when we last moved I off-loaded a bunch of discs (silver and black) that I thought no longer merited home storage. I regret that, but through such actions we learn.

Huw

Huw - I am getting to the point where I have too many. But they keep releasing stuff I want to buy. The past couple of years I have bought so much back catalogue that now I am going to focus most of my buying on new releases only - easier said than done.

There are some obvious candidates for pruning but I doubt that I will.

Just wish there were more listening hours available.

Cheers

quote:

Originally posted by ewemon:
Alphabetical. My wife says I can remember how much I paid and where I bought each of my 5000 + collection.

She stil thinks I am insane.

..She has a point marra!