Rebuilding my library.

[cloughie]

I have mentioned before about having this facility on here but haven't - so far - broached the subject with FF. I suppose there's no problem with individual members doing this by PM if they wish to do so but I wonder how it would work if open to all? Are there any legal pitfalls?

Incidentally, I have an increasing number of duplicated CD's that deserve a good home.

Know the feeling - is it Boxed Set Purchase Syndrome?

[gurnemanz]

Know the feeling - is it Boxed Set Purchase Syndrome?

Some of these duplicates have ended up doing useful service in my car, eg Andras Schiff Bach Keyboard Concertos.

[Dave2002]

My solution is to load the CDs onto the computer. I'm nearly halfway through having loaded about 1,000. It's a big task but I've loved going through them and finding all sorts of interesting things again, I've bought fewer new CDs recently!

Eventually I'll put all the CDs into a box in the attic.

That was my thinking too, but it hasn't happened so far. When I last looked I had something like 50 days worth of music stored - and that's probably still a small proportion of the total - which now includes downloads and other material. I strongly recommend buying more disc drives and backing up what you have so far. I need to do this again myself - case of "do as I say, not do as I do." It'll be a pain if you get to 1001, and then your drive fails.

The benefits of storing CDs on hard drives re saving storage space are considerably less when you consider some of the relatively compact box sets these days. It makes sense to tackle the jewel case CDs first. Despite that, it's remarkable that a small drive such as the Samsung M3 1TB USB 3.0 Slimline Portable Hard Drive - Black from Amazon for under £60 can store the equivalent of several CD storage units, and I suspect its volume is equivalent to only one or two CDs in jewel cases.

[cloughie]

I think there is also the consideration of how much time it takes to download - doesn't matter just bung them on - but the harder part is labelling them so that they can be retrieved - OK for the odd download - but for 1000 CDs - which you may not live long enough to listen to - is it worth the effort and cost of hard drives? You decide....

[Barbirollians]

I find duplicates embarrassing signs of aging - recently I bought Walter's bruckner 9 amazed that i did not own it . Only to find it in my office

[Petrushka]

Know the feeling - is it Boxed Set Purchase Syndrome?

In short - yes!

The 1960s Karajan set, the remastered Bernstein Mahler on Sony and the remastered Kondrashin Shostakovich box were the most prominent and created quite a bit of space. Frustatingly, the Günter Wand DSO/Berlin box has just 8 CD's in an enormous door-stopper of a box and cancels out the gains!

[mikealdren]

I think there is also the consideration of how much time it takes to download - doesn't matter just bung them on - but the harder part is labelling them so that they can be retrieved - OK for the odd download - but for 1000 CDs - which you may not live long enough to listen to - is it worth the effort and cost of hard drives? You decide....

I've decided that it is worth the effort although it is a lot of work. The drives themselves are not too expensive. I've just bought a 'network storage' device that contains two disks, arranged to back each other up for about £180. The key to finding the CDs is correct software, Musichi allows me to store by Composer/Composition/Movement and I can also track pieces by performers. It enables me to compare different versions of a work very quickly and easily and the whole process is reacquainting me with lots of pld friends from my collection.

Mike

[gurnemanz]

I've decided that it is worth the effort although it is a lot of work. The drives themselves are not too expensive. I've just bought a 'network storage' device that contains two disks, arranged to back each other up for about £180. The key to finding the CDs is correct software, Musichi allows me to store by Composer/Composition/Movement and I can also track pieces by performers. It enables me to compare different versions of a work very quickly and easily and the whole process is reacquainting me with lots of pld friends from my collection.

Mike

I can see the attraction of having everything on a hard drive but have decided that it wasn't worth the effort precisely because of the amount of work involved and that the time could be better spent (eg in listening to CDs).

Other factors:

- Of the nearly 4000 CDs I have, some are obviously more important to me than others and some which I have acquired as part of box sets are hardly important at all. If I were to digitise my collection, it would probably be sensible to have a process selection or weeding out but I don't really want to undertake such a process.

- The online databases from which details are downloaded are not consistent in how they arrange the data, especially for classical music. Downloading neat can lead to a dog's breakfast in terms of - genre and sub-genre (chamber - string quartet etc, vocal - opera, lied etc,) artists, singers, instrumentalists, date of issue/recording, re-issue, composer (sometimes the composer is called the artist), movement entry sometimes contains composer and/or work title as well as tempo marking etc etc. Some track titles become very cumbersome and over-lengthy and as a result a lot of trimming and standardisation is required to bash the data into useful shape.

- I already have a database of my collection tailored in a way that suits me, which enables me to keep track of what I have and I do know where to find things on the shelf.

[BBMmk2]

Andras Schiff JSB Keyboard Concerti? What hey like compared to Perahia?

[mikealdren]

Hi gurnemanz,
I agree, it is a lot of work and the on-line databases are poor. Musichi does make editing of the databases reasonably easy, data can be copied and cut and pasted and it can also be be selectively copied splitting fields by '-' or ':' or any other delimiter.

I also have a database that suits me well (MS Access). The data in that can be cut and pasted into the tags through Musichi although my database has each work listed but not each track.

The biggest problem on the internet isn't poor data, it's missing data. CDs on major labels are usually fine but some of the smaller labels are very badly served and the data has to be input from scratch.

Mike