[Suedama]

OK, you know the CD collection is getting outta control when you buy a new CD that you "absolutely fall in love with" only to find that you own the darn thing already. (At least there is a thread of consistency in my musical tastes.)

Anyway, I started looking for music database software to get hold of things. There are some pretty interesting products. Does anyone have any experience with any?

The program "Music Collector" looks interesting: www.collectorz.com

 

[elrod-tom]

Yes, I've done this (bought album that I already owned) before. Pretty embarassing!!

I used to have an Excel DB with all of my albums, tapes, and CD's in it. Then my hard drive went belly up.

Be interested to hear how this one works out.

 

[Lindy]

I use a couple of different methods. I have about 2200 CD's, and like you I found that some sort of archive list became necessary. Caveat -- it was a couple of years ago when I searched for some CD archiving software, so there may be better stuff out there now. That being said, I'm very happy with CATraxx.

The quickest and easiest way I have found is to just use Excel. I create a separate tab for each category of music. I use different fields inside each tab depending on what category of music I'm archiving. For example, I use more fields in the Jazz category (Artist, Title, Date, Label) than I do in Rock (Artist, Title). This method is quick and easy, but it doesn't allow you (at least very easily) to put in lots of detail. Also, it's all manual.

When I have the time, I use CATraxx: http://www.fnprg.com/catraxx/catraxx.html LOTS of details (including song titles) -- almost everything but the kitchen sink. You can use CDDB to automatically download almost everything you might want to know about the album. It takes more time per CD to use this method, but the results are much more detailed and comprehensive. One of the many neat features -- you can scan your CD covers and attach a little jpg of it to the music details. Their web site has a much more comprehensive list of features.

Let us know what you find out there.

 

[JiPi]

Best program IMO is WhereIsIt.
I use it with my MP3CDs and it works GREAT. Very user-friendly,
quick & simple, etc... I don't know what I'd do without it. I can't
imagine myself digging through 850CD's trying to find the
CD I want..

Try it, very good.

 

[LobsterSan]

That Catraxx program looks pretty promising. CDDB access is a very useful inclusion.

I found this little guy for DVD's:

http://www.dvdprofiler.com/dvdpro/index.html

Annoying in a few ways, but also very very comprehensive and cool. I wish they had the package picture database thing for CD
s that they have for DVD's .

 

[DarkAngel]

Those custom programs seem to really have information overload,
like you are doing research project on your CD collection. Do you really need a pix of each CD........probably more useful to DVD collectors who want to cross reference actors, directors etc.

I have just been using MS Excel spreadsheet listing alphabetically,
you can make as many info columns as you want depending how
much/detailed you want to be.

 

[Outdoor Man]

Quote:

Originally posted by Suedama OK, you know the CD collection is getting outta control when you buy a new CD that you "absolutely fall in love with" only to find that you own the darn thing already. ( www.collectorz.com

It hapened to me too.

Peter.

 

[elrod-tom]

Dude, where do you get all these clever happy faces and such??

 

[Zanth]

Catraxx has my vote, I really enjoy how it searches cddb. Not much work needs to be done. I really like having a song searching option. I use MAC for my mp3's which I could use for the CD's but I really appreciate the covers and the song id'ing.

MAC is 100% free, Catraxx is 20 bucks I think.

 

[Lindy]

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkAngel Those custom programs seem to really have information overload, like you are doing research project on your CD collection. Do you really need a pix of each CD........

HA -- point taken! I guess I'm sort of funny that way. It may not surprise you that I'm a statistician by day

.

Actually, even if you don't get into the mini jpgs of your CD covers, the CDDB feature makes it incredibly easy to instantly download the CD title, songs, times etc... I know there are other programs out there besides CATraxx that will also do that, but I found the CATraxx implementation to be the best. Anyways, you can use as much or as little of the "chrome" in the package as you care to.

I have a huge jazz collection, and probably over 100 versions of some songs -- that's ONE individual song. It's useful to be able to search by individual song title as well as by CD title -- and I'm not about to type all those song titles into Excel by hand.

 

[Lindy]

Quote:

Originally posted by DarkAngel probably more useful to DVD collectors who want to cross reference actors, directors etc.

Forgot to add this to my post above....

For anyone interested, the same company that wrote CATraxx also has a program called CATVids for doing exactly this. I own that program as well but haven't used it as much as CATraxx. FWIW, CATraxx also has the capability to cross reference performers, producers, you name it... I haven't used that feature too much tho because you have to enter all the data manually.

Details on CATVids can be found here: http://www.fnprg.com/catvids/catvids.html

 

[OneMalt]

I've been playing with Music Collector most of the day (I ultimately bought it). I've got about 200 CDs entered into it so far. I like it.

 

[zowie]

I wrote my own on Dbase years ago.

Key for me was being able to list sidemen, sololists, conductors, so I could search for Heifetz among classical recordings that are otherwise filed under composer, or search for Blakey and get the albums that he plays on but is not the leader.

Also to be able to find the "filler" pieces on classical records.

It's also been useful for borrowing and lending stuff with friends.

Be advised - if you have a big collection it can be a big pain to keep up with, especially if you sell/gift as well as accumulate.

 

[DanG]

Why not just use standard DB programs? Like MS Access on a Windows machine or FMP on a Mac? Both are real database programs (unlike Excel) and you don't need to buy or download any new software.

 

[zowie]

Would any of these programs import my existing data? If not, forget it. I can't retype 5000 entries I've input over the last 12 years.

For that matter, do they export, or am i SOL when the program becomes obsolete or looses support?