Cataloguing

I've been using Music Collector, I think I got it from collectorz.com for about $25. Its very easy to use, interrogates CDDB, all you have to do is post your CDs into your PC and it does the rest. I did over 200 in one night.

I haven't tried to catalogue LPs yet, this is going to be a more manual affair.

Nick

I'm ashamed to admit it!
Not only was I geeky enough to want a list of albums, but I knocked up a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to do it.

Simple cells for firstname (or 'The' in the case of bands), surname (bandname), title, release date etc.

A 'Concatenation' cell to format it like so;
firstname surname - title
(The formula suppresses or adds spaces between firstname and surname and puts in the '-' before the title)

A cell for sorting by letter (i.e. the first letter of the surname)

Using the Excel sorting and subtotalling you can then print the list in alphabetical order, with each artists albums appearing in chronological order. Sub-totals appear for each letter and the grand total at the end.

Sad but true.
Now, where was that life I had once??

Steve.

I'll definitely take a look at 'Music Collector' I hadn't come across that one. I previously set up a simple catalog system in Excel but thought I'd prefer something this time that would be able to link into CDDB.

CDDB does seem to work OK with some classical CDs, but when accessed via MCM it seems to trip up badly over others. It fails to associate the data with the correct fields and on other occasions wont download track data even when its available.
Thanks for all the help anyway.

David

Not only is it initially cheap, but any updates are perpetually free [I must have had about twelve so far]. There's a thriving forum which supports the software, and any problems are always cheerfully answered by the author, Alvin Hoogerdijk. Opportunities for obsessives are legion, - you can enter prices paid, link sleeve pictures, rate albums, even enter producers, studios etc. I ignore a lot of this stuff, but all fields can be retitled into something that is meaningful for you. It can output to ASCII, so you're future-proofed against retyping if anything better comes along. I'm almost tempted by Book Collector, which catalogues by ISBN number, but feel I have to stop somewhere [Grocery Collector? - just scan those barcodes.....]

For vinyl, you will never find anything that gives out tracks, times etc. The value of the CDDB database is in its contents, and Gracenote won't just give that away [big kerfuffle here, as what started out as a free internet resource suddenly became Big Money. There is something called FreeDDB, but I don't think it has the same range - you'd be hard put to enter something CDDB doesn't recognise - it knew most of our Bowie boots!]. Tapes, minidiscs etc. will suffer the same problem, so you have to be prepared to just flex those fingers. Any number of formats are supported however, and you can even crate your own [as I did for CD's with multimedia bits].

Classical is a bit of a problem, - partly Music Collector, partly CDDB. Music Collector is not really set up for recital albums, albums with pieces by different composers or discs with seperate significant pieces by the same composer. How you work this is a quandary that has made me leave my classical albums for a bit. CDDB is what its users make it, so stuff by a famous conductor [Solti, Karajan etc] comes up with no problem, but stuff on small British Labels [e.g. Hyperion] , is unlikely to be there. As you can add new entries [I rarely do, naughty me] you are dependant on altruistic colletors to fill in the gaps.

If you do go with it [and it does seem to be universally acknowledged as the best] I would advise thinking long and hard about what sort of information you really want to record. Maybe even do about 50 or so then leave it and have a think. The Gracenote CDDB database is particularly dodgy with genres, for example, and if this is important to you, you need to set out your own classifications at the beginning, or things get difficult later on [this is true of all database, I suppose]. And watch out for CDDB contributors entering total garbage, which unless you stamp on it, will be entered as Artist Names. By and large though, it's peerless, and problems stem from CDDB rather than the software. A useful rider against worries of anal activity is that a few printouts will count for a lot with an insurance company, in the event of Something Dreadful Happening.

I find it peculiarly satifying to discover pieces of shareware that are so ingenious, and so beautifully written that they approach perfection, fit a niche perfectly and give the feeling Arthur Neagus must have had when fondling a particulary exquisite cabriole leg. Software that is a positive pleasure to pay up for and register. For me Music Collector is one of those, and I hope Alvin makes a thoroughly good living.

my favourite other examples include:

MIRC [for worldwide chat] - don't use it much now, but superb software.

StyleXP - makes XP look like anything you fancy, - from replica Mac OSX to ....... God Knows What - uses no overheads, & is seemingly bug free.Blue, silver & olive green get dull after a while...

ACDSee [image management] - they've got a bit greedy recently, in fact a LOT greedy, but it's still superb. Tries to do too much now, but I'm used to it.

MAME 32 - flawless arcade game emulation [and freeware]

Atari 800 Winplus - makes my beloved Atari live again, with all the games even written. Flawless & uncrashable. [freeware to boot].

CUTE FTP - upload webpages without hassle.

Printer's Apprentice - manage ludicrous numbers of fonts without tears.

I'd be very interested to hear of any others. Links etc. to any of the above on application [but Google will find most]

throb

[This message was edited by throbnorth on TUESDAY 10 September 2002 at 18:37.]

Definitely useless for larger professional applications, but for that purpose it's good enough - and above all it's fun if you have time to waste building databases. And in the end you have the system YOU want!

Cheese

OK - with all the praise this program was getting I had to try it. On first looks it seems a bit like Cattrax but slightly less complex which is good (I think!). I still don't find it as intuitive as Music Catalog Master, but that seems to be distinctly flaky (especially the CDDB interface) so I've eliminated it from the shortlist.

I've tried uploading some amended details to CDDB using Music Collector, it seems to accept the corrections, but if I then delete my file record and scan the CD again, all I get is the original erroneous data from CDDB not the corrected version I submitted. Any ideas here??

David

I tried a program called "The Music File", which had 10,000s of recordings already in it, which you could check a tick box if you had it.

It failed with me, concentrating on mainstram rock/pop, with no coverage of Industrial Strength Trance, or independent Finnish Techno, or 70's punk singles.

This Music Collector sounds like a good idea - I will give it a try.

Can it output a file to a handheld device? I am still suffering memory lapses when buying records (see thread in the Padded Cell). On Saturday, I avoided buying two copies of the latest Electrolux releases, but failed when I purchased another copy of the Kriedler / Chicks on Speed reunion record.

Doh!

Perhaps I will flog the ever increasing piles of duplicates on E-bay and retire on the proceeds ?!

DS

OTD - David Bryne - Music from the Knee Plays

there are some sad gits who use them to catalogue the many beers they have had!

I trust my memory though I must admit its been a bit hazy at times

I'm not sure I understand what it is you don't understand

David

I have used the above and found it to be OK. It cost about $20 if you recommend it to somewhere. Good cover and spine printing. It handles originals and PC copies. Does any classical I have (not extensive). It does not do LPs copied to CD. The author told me that he will be including a lookup feature but it hasn't happend yet. Link is www.base40.com

rn

Took a look at Collectorz.com - looks brilliant! Anyone aware of something like this for Mac OS?

Nick,

That's a shitload of Grateful Dead.

Who are The Nit's and System 7?

quote:

---

Errr...the bit where you made corrections to the CDDB entries in Music Collector, then deleted the entries, then re-entered them again, only for them to be missing.

---

Maybe I didn't explain myself well, so here goes. As I understand it, subscribers to CDDB can upload additional information or corrections to the database for the benefit of other users.

I did a CDDB lookup on a recording I had of Holst's Planets (DGG Cat No. 400 028-02) with Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. When the data downloaded from CDDB, I noticed each individual track listing was incorrectly attributed to Karajan & the Vienna Philharmonic.

So, being a good chap, I corrected the error by removing the reference to the Vienna Phil and uploaded the corrected data to CDDB. To test it, I then deleted the CD record on my own computer and did a CDDB lookup again, only to find that the incorrect data was downloaded once again, rather than the corrected information.

I was wondering why this might have happened - does anybody have any ideas

David

Nick,

They are a fine band, but it is a hell of a job keeping up with the many remixes that come out!

Despite being close to the edge of "Hairy Wank" music, I actually like the old Steve Hillage stuff, like Rainbow Dome Muzik and others.

System 7's finest moment was Alpha Wave being remixed by Richtie Hawtin - what a builder!

DS

OTD - Subsonic 808 - EML 101