Record Collection Database

crawjo · September-14th-2004, 08:21 PM

Does anyone have any good recommendations for putting together a cd collection database? I know there are a few products out there on the Internet that you can buy, but I don't know if they will give me all the features I want.

The most important thing, for me, would be that the database have enough flexibility to allow me to list, besides all the basics (Title, artist, label, price, etc. etc.) also all the sidemen, in a way that would be searchable. So, if I wanted to get a list of every album that I own that has Paul Chambers on bass, I could do that.

Any ideas?

al j · September-14th-2004, 09:05 PM

Lots of people tout CATraxx.

A more productive alternative would be to spend an hour with an Excel or Access tutorial somewhere online (if you don't already know how to use them), and then create one to your own liking at a rate of, say, 20 discs per day.

crawjo · September-14th-2004, 09:31 PM

Thanks...CATraxx looks like exactly what I need. Plus, I already own BookCat so I get a $10 discount. I think I'll probably pull the trigger on that one. I just downloaded the demo, seems really easy to use.

Gordon B · September-14th-2004, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Christmas

Lots of people tout CATraxx.

A more productive alternative would be to spend an hour with an Excel or Access tutorial somewhere online (if you don't already know how to use them), and then create one to your own liking at a rate of, say, 20 discs per day.

Years ago, I bought a program that used Access called MusicFile. I put in all sorts of details but fatigue set in after about 350 cds. I gave up and now have my entire collection in Excel.

Gary Sisco · September-15th-2004, 08:10 AM

I get fatigued even thinking about it.

mke · September-15th-2004, 08:25 AM

Are there any such databases that can gather information from CDDB? That would make the process a lot easier.

john williams · September-15th-2004, 09:10 AM

Stonemonkts?

stonemonkts · September-15th-2004, 09:15 AM

You rang?

My spreadsheet is one of my own design using Microsoft Works 7.0, the freebie scaled down suite that comes with most Dell PCs. I manually entered all of the data as the recordings were obtained, so there's no linkage to the web, or anything easy about it.

The columns are $Paid, Leader, Date of recording, Title, Date purchased, Record Label, Sidemen.

I'd be happy to e mail it to anyone interested. But again, it is all manually entered without any of the conveniences of those programs mentioned in prior posts.

mke · September-15th-2004, 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stonemonkts

You rang?

John L · September-15th-2004, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mke

Are there any such databases that can gather information from CDDB? That would make the process a lot easier.

CATraxx does this. But I am waiting for one more step forward in this regard. IN CATraxx, you first have to put each individual disc into the CDROM drive in order for CATraxx to fetch the data from CDDB. The key innovation that would save enough time for me to bite is a function that allows you to go to CDDB and simply add albums to your database by clicking them. You could then add 1000s of albums in one day. The current method is extremely slow and hard on your CDROM laser.

Tom Storer · September-16th-2004, 09:59 AM

Making your own database in Access isn't hard, but only if you want to put in minimal information. I spent years tinkering with an Access database that would let me make all manner of queries such as which albums did this player play this instrument on, how many versions of this song were recorded in 1955 with a vibraphonist, etc. All time wasted, of course, since I was learning database basics as I went along and my ambition far exceeded my knowledge or skill.

Then I found a program called WhereIsIt?, which solved my problems. Have a gander here. I believe they have a plugin to import data from CDDB--John, I'm not sure, but I don't think you'd need to have the CD in the drive to use it. Details are on the site.

One great feature is that everything is searchable, including text descriptions per item. If you're obsessive enough, you can decide on certain text strings to use consistently, such as "bass: " and so forth. Then you can search for all instances of "bass: Paul Chambers".

I got it in order to catalog the vast number of MP3 albums I downloaded from emusic, and it now serves me for my BitTorrent shows as well. Put the disc in your drive and it reads and catalogs all the files on it; then add your text description to record all the discographical details you want. This can entail a lot of data input, but that's not a problem easily avoided no matter what system you use.

Crawjo and stone, I'm intrigued that you want to record how much you paid for a CD. Why would you want to? Seriously, I'm curious. It would never have occurred to me to keep track of that information.

crawjo · September-16th-2004, 11:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Crawjo and stone, I'm intrigued that you want to record how much you paid for a CD. Why would you want to? Seriously, I'm curious. It would never have occurred to me to keep track of that information.

I think it's my wife more than anybody else that wants this information. My cd buying has gotten out of hand in the last month. Just got a credit card bill in the mail today: fully $300 spent on music during the month of August. What did me in was I went on a couple of vacations, and those always kick my ass because I tend to find interesting record stores during my travels. Also, I got the Sonny Rollins Prestige box in August. I now have way more than I can possibly listen to, but that's another story....

crawjo · September-16th-2004, 11:39 PM

Incidentally, I've just started using CATraxx in the last couple of days, and I like it so far. It's very easy to do, very attractive to look at, and it has all the information that I need. If I want to know all the albums I have with Paul Chambers on bass, I just go to the Lookup: People view, pull up his name, and voila, you get the whole list right there. You can also break it down to personnel for individual tracks, which is useful for Big Band box sets where the lineups are always changing. If you were really crazy, you could also create an MP3 link for every album and every track, so that you could literally pull up and listen to any track in your collection with the click of a button. Of course, you'd need some free hard drive space to pull that one off.

I'm not too worried about wearing out my CD-Rom drive. I figure that right now my collection is at a sufficiently small stage (maybe 300-400 discs, total) that now is the time to start doing this stuff.

stonemonkts · September-16th-2004, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Crawjo and stone, I'm intrigued that you want to record how much you paid for a CD. Why would you want to? Seriously, I'm curious. It would never have occurred to me to keep track of that information.

In my case it just gives me another column to fill. I like to keep track of what I spend on recordings.

If and when I sell a CD I can compare what I spent vs. $sold (that's another spreadsheet). I'm nutty when it comes to keeping records, in more ways than one.

john williams · September-17th-2004, 01:16 AM

I'd be a bit scared of finding out how much I've spent in total on music. Good L-rd!

mrjazzman · September-18th-2004, 09:50 AM

I tried several collection databases. Since I'm no computer whiz I find that when it comes to simplicity "CD Trustee" does it for me. You seem to need a lot of search features so CD Trustee might not be for you. Works beautifully for me.........mrjdw

Tom Storer · September-19th-2004, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crawjo

Incidentally, I've just started using CATraxx in the last couple of days, and I like it so far. It's very easy to do, very attractive to look at, and it has all the information that I need. If I want to know all the albums I have with Paul Chambers on bass, I just go to the Lookup: People view, pull up his name, and voila, you get the whole list right there.

Crawjo, can you have combined searches on personnel, for example, one search for Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, another search for Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums?

Can you then combine further searches, for example: Chambers on bass AND PJ Jones on drums AND recorded for a given label AND playing a given song?

crawjo · September-20th-2004, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Crawjo, can you have combined searches on personnel, for example, one search for Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, another search for Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums?

Can you then combine further searches, for example: Chambers on bass AND PJ Jones on drums AND recorded for a given label AND playing a given song?

Yes and no. You can do combined searches for personnel, like the ones you mention in your first paragraph.

In the second case, you can do combined searches of one personnel, and label and song, but not for multiple personnel. The reason for this is that the database type that CATraxx uses won't allow you to do a search for two entries "Paul Chambers" and "Philly Joe Jones" in the same field, unless you do a separate search. You can combine up to six fields in a given search, and you can search for up to two entries in a singular field, but you can't combine up to six fields AND search for two entries in a singular field. Actually, there may be a way to rig up or devise a search of your own that could do this, but I'm not clever enough to, and I honestly can't foresee myself ever doing the type of search you outline in your second paragraph.

Tanager · September-23rd-2004, 10:10 AM

I have tossed around the idea of throwing something together (using some RDBMS and a servlet container) for a web-based CD DB. If I ever get off my lazy ass, I'll throw it out here for folks to try. But don't hold your breath, b/c I have about a zillion half-finished "fuck around" projects lying around.

mke · September-23rd-2004, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tanager

I have tossed around the idea of throwing something together (using some RDBMS and a servlet container) for a web-based CD DB. If I ever get off my lazy ass, I'll throw it out here for folks to try. But don't hold your breath, b/c I have about a zillion half-finished "fuck around" projects lying around.

I've been thinking about doing something like this myself (I think I even once proposed a joining of the forces of JC's computer people, to no avail). It would be especially interesting if it were possible to implement John L's wish to grab info without having to put the CD in the drive.