Music Collector users -- advice sought

Posted by: ejl on 27 August 2004

Alerted to the existence of this program by Tom Alves, I've spent the evening testing out the trial version. I made up a test batch of 10 LPs. In the test, I intentionally avoided what I thought to be popular titles, but I also didn't go out of my way to be incredibly obscure.

Anyway, 10 titles, almost an hour of it sorting through databases, and only one match! There were zero classical matches and zero rock matches -- only one dub LP was found.

I selected all of the databases in my searches and used the "Add Album Wizard".

Tom, I noticed you have a lot of classical LPs on your Music Collector list. How did it find them?

I know from other threads that some of you are using Music Collector with big LP collections. How's it working out? I think I might be doing something wrong; The All Classical Guide database was turning up no hits for Haydn symphony #45 on any label whatsoever! Confused Has All Classical been discontinued?

Below are the artists and titles I tried. If someone wants to try one on Music Collector and gets a hit, please tell me what you did.



-Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1/No. 7. Melodiya, Moscow RSO, Gennady Roshdestvensky.

-Haydn: Symphony No. 45/55. London, Aldeburgh Festival Orchestra, Benjamin Britten.

-Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies. Yorkshire Records, Louis Ketner piano.

-Stravinsky: Le Scre Du Printemps for Piano 2 Hands. BIS, Dag Achatz piano.

-Schoenberg: Variations on a Rcitative/Satie: Mass for the Poor. Esoteric Records, Randolph Singers, David Randolph director, Marilyn Mason organ.

-Niney the Observer and Friends: Bring the Couchie, 1974-6. Trojan Records.

-Wingtip Sloat: Turbine Mother. K records.

-The Sweet Things: Deliver. White Heap Productions.

-Slant 6: What Kind of Monster Are You? Dischord.

-Lee Perry and the Upsetters: Reminah Dub. Original Music Ltd. This is the one it found.



I'm holding out hope that this program will work. But I'm not buying it unless it starts doing better. Thanks for any info!

Eric
Posted on: 27 August 2004 by ejl
To add to my confusion I just found the Slant 6 record (a 7") by searching for myself on Allmusic. So I don't know why Music Collector didn't find it in the database search. (I did read the Music Collector instructions, by the way.)
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by Rich Cundill
I agree 100% with Tom's comments - just to add - basically there isn't a proper LP database out there. The best you can get in most cases is to find its CD equivalent and edit from there - i.e. deleting the extra tracks, changing the label, changing catalogue number, changing the year in some cases etc.

If you work on the basis that you add LPs by hand and anything else is a bonus.

Another thing to do fairly quickly is work out what fields you do and don't want populating. Until I got my head around it I realised I had loads of CD reissue cat numbers in there where I really wanted the proper LP cat number.

In summary, MuC is good and you won't find anything better cos the on-line databases are the limitation.

Cheers

Rich
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by BigH47
If you do a manual search on AMG you some times see a colon or extra words or words missing on the title listed. This can sometimes give you a better match. You often only get an original listing (converted to CD issue mainly) remasters re-issues tend not get a full entry, if mentioned at all. So get the basics and edit. "Various artist/best of" albums are a particular pain. AMG does at least now show you the 72 max "matches".

Howard
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by ejl
Thanks for the tips and info, and thanks, Tom, for double-checking my searches.

I tried 10 randomly selected CDs this morning and it did much better -- 9/10 (missed only a Denisov/Schnittke compilation). You're probably right, Rich, that we should be grateful it's as good as it is.

Tom, I may well take you up on the offer of copping some of your hard work.

Cheers,
Eric