A Digital Library Dilemma

So as I mentioned before, I recently purchased a 1TB external hard drive for my music. Since it arrived, I've slowly been ripping my CDs. I imagine I'll be doing this for like 6 months. Haha. Anyway, previously I had my music separated into folders by broad genres. Doom and black and death and goth went into one, thrash, power metal, melodic metal, and so on went into another. You get the idea. But that started to seem pointless, as I was stressing myself out trying to figure out where to put certain albums and such. I can have a bit of OCD at times, especially when it comes to organizing things.

But then I ripped Suicidal Tendencies' albums. My head exploded. Here we have a band that started out punk, went metal, and is now doing punk again. Do I split their albums up? Some go into the metal folder, others go into punk? That seemed retarded. So I just split everything up alphabetically. Now I have a folder for each letter and one for numbered bands, like 311, 3 Doors Down, etc. That works.

But what about soundtracks and various artist albums? I've been ripping them into a various artists folder. But like I said, I have some OCD tendencies. I can't have a song by Snapcase coming up as Various Artists as the artist name. So do I just remove the individual songs from these albums and put them in the appropriate band folder? I have a Misc folder under a lot of band folders, for non-LP tracks from singles and such. A band like Therapy? has put out a ton of singles; I don't want a million folders with one track in them. So the Misc folder works. But doing this for all my compilations and such will be tiresome.

So what would you do?

Eyesore wrote:

So what would you do?

See a doctor about my OCD.

Quote :

So do I just remove the individual songs from these albums and put them in the appropriate band folder?

I always change the artist name from Various to that artist, but keep it in the soundtrack or V/A folder of which it came. So I would say change the artist name and if you must, place them into the appropriate artist's folder.

Stuff like this is why I refuse to go digital. I'd go completely batsh*t crazy trying to organize everything... and I have WAY fewer CDs than Eyesore does!

This is what I did a few years ago Eyesore, and it remains an ongoing process. I have designed folders for each year starting with 1951 going all the way up to the present day. I have a pretty eclectic taste, so I have big band stuff from the early days, along with Doo-Wop, and so forth. I'm not only a metal fan, but also a top 40 fan, especially as it pertains to the 70's and 80's. I have everything broke down with what year the album came out, no matter what the genre.

The only thing that might be a little different is when there is a song that was in the top 40. Luckily, I've had at my disposal a Billboard Book that shows every top 40 song from 1955 to 2000 (my edition is a little bit older/they have one that goes through 2003). When a song reaches the Top 40, I go by when it hit the chart for it's highest point. So for instance, if an album debuted in 1984, but the song charted #10 in 1985, I go by 1985. If it didn't reach the top 40, but was a single and landed somewhere outside the Top 40, I just go with when the album debuted. Case in point is the song "Looks That Kill". That song actually made it to, I believe #67 in 1984. In this case, it would remain with any of the other songs off that album of 1983.

When I download songs off the "Shout At The Devil" album, I went with songs 2,3,7,8,9,10, & 11. The next process after adding all the other albums for 1983 was to then rank the songs in order by each band. So, in Motley Crue's case, I went with in order:

Looks That Kill at #1 (#11 overall)
Too Young To Fall In Love #2 (#19 overall)
Danger #3 (#65 overall)
Shout At The Devil #4 (#82 overall)
Knock 'Em Dead Kid #5 (#91 overall)
Red Hot #6 (#98 overall)
Ten Seconds To Love #7 (#114 overall)

My year of 1983 year as a whole is made up of 192 songs. On the folder I will round it down or up to a number. In this case I have my 1983 folder as the top 190. I just went back and added 5 songs off R.E.M.'s "Murmur" album, so when this happens, I have to then see where those songs need to be within the 187 that were already in order. This is a dubious process, and I don't relish it. So, either I keep songs off the list, or I go back in, see where I want each one of those songs to fall, and then hopefully I won't have to do it again. I can tell you right now, the list (for whatever year) is constantly in flux due to albums that I hadn't discovered, or just stuff that I forgot.

The hardest part of this whole process is to have a feel of where I was in 1983, and what songs/albums were truly apart of my listening habits. In 1983, I just started to get into metal, so I was definitely a pop fiend as a 12 year old. So, when I make my list, I try to keep that in mind. I probably could have half the Kill Em' All album in the top 10, but it just wasn't where I was, so then comes the unenviable task of deciding 192 songs.

The last song on the list is Robert Plant's Big Log at #192

My Top 10 is

#1 Def Leppard (Photograph)
#2 Journey (Separate Ways)
#3 Lionel Richie (My Love)
#4 Metallica (The Four Horsemen)
#5 Flock of Seagulls (Space Age Love Song)
#6 The Tubes (She's A Beauty)
#7 Naked Eyes (Promises, Promises)
#8 Rick Springfield (Human Touch)
#9 Bryan Adams (This Time)
#10 Hall & Oates (One On One)

There is plenty of Metal in this list, but I try to think of what I was loving as a 12 year old. I think the list by 1986 starts to represent a more even amount as it pertains to Metal and Pop, maybe even a little more of a tilt towards Metal.

I did this because I wanted to have what some would think to be a very whacked list of songs. I think it lets people know how eclectic my tastes are, and that if others have similar listening interests, this could result in a cool party with cool tunes playing at it.

Even though I hate changing my list as far as how they rank, it has been a fun process. I've probably been working on this for the good part of 4 years. I will never truly be done with it, but I would say the older the years, the more set in stone most of the songs are. The years that fluctuate the most are the last decade, because I keep discovering bands/artists.

I just have a folder for each band, and's getting a little crazy. I'm about to do ABC folders, the band folder, the album folders (or singles folder in each band folder)

For comps, various artists folder

For soundtracks, separate folder. I don't sub-classify the genres.

You know, they have good drugs now for OCD

Id do it just by Artist youll find its easier

I am with Freddy this why I won't go digital, it would drive me insane, and metalinmyveins set up just thinking about it gave me a headache. If I were ever to commit the insanity that Eyesore and metalinmyveins I would arrange folders by artists.

I've only started going digital in the last year or so because I finally broke down and got an mp3 player. And because my wife lost my portable cd player. I haven't even put 1/10th of my collection on my computer yet. I've just been picking stuff at random and burning it to cd when I have time. I can't see a time when I'd go completely digital though.

I just go alphabetically. Each band gets it's own folder. The few tribute albums I burned went into Various. That's about as in-depth as I'll go. I'd probably get more detailed, but I just don't have the time.

Man, metalinmyveins is far worse than me. Damn! I actually feel pretty good after reading what he's done. My setup is simple. 27 folders. 26 for the alphabet, one for bands that begin with a number (excluding bands like Seven Mary Three, where the number is written out). Simple alphabetizing for the most part. Though The Black Crowes are filed as Black Crowes, The, but artists like Sarah McLachlan and Ben Harper are under S and B. The OCD again. Haha.

Other than that, it's simple. Rip, then drag and drop to the right folder, then drag it into Windows Media Player. As for the various artist stuff, I may keep them all in their individual folders, under Various Artists, but then change Artist to the band name and Album Artist to Various Artists.

Guess I'll just rip them as I go and leave them in my Ripped folder. I'll decide when everything is ripped.

Also, I'm not going digital in the sense of getting rid of my CDs. I just spend so much time on my PC, it's become my stereo. So it makes sense. Plus, as much as some people will resist, everything is heading to the PC. You're seeing it now where TV shows and movie companies are getting involved. ABC and CBS show most of their shows online for free. Movie are beginning to do similar things, though not for free. DVDs are now including a digital version of the movie, so people can put them on thier PCs or laptops.

I tell everyone, technology is ridiculous now. If you think your parents have no clue when it comes to things like toasters and microwaves, you've seen nothing. You will be a million times worse when you're their age. Haha. People need to embrace technology, because it's not going away. As much as I hate the fact that CDs will be disappearing, there's nothing I can do about it. And I imagine at some point I'll be buying digital albums. I'll be sad, but it's the way it goes...

Eyesore, I'm in the same boat with you in regards to holding onto your CD's. I had this project in mind 5 or 6 years ago, but it was never my intention to move away from my CD's. Originally I was just going to do the 80's as far as my list goes, but then I started going further back. Then I decided that the 90's deserved this treatment and so on. After reading my previous post, I guess I'm pretty anal retentive when it comes to music, and where they rank....

That probably has a lot to do with me as a child. I used to love to rank sports teams, especially NCAA teams. To this day, I still make my list of 64 teams of who will go to the NCAA tournament, and then I also write down what their seed will be before the process plays its way out.

manny wrote:

I am with Freddy this why I won't go digital, it would drive me insane, and metalinmyveins set up just thinking about it gave me a headache. If I were ever to commit the insanity that Eyesore and metalinmyveins I would arrange folders by artists.

You're right about this, but in the same respect its fun. I just look at it, and say this will probably never be complete. I tend to mess around with this whole process when it's disgusting outside, or late at night when nothing is on the tube.

Eyesore, here is the solution I've been using for the last 5 years or so.

http://www.fnprg.com/catraxx/

It's a music database program (built on Access) that will keep track of all your CDs, all your music files on your computer and external hard drives, your vinyl...everything. You can use it "as is" out of the box or it's endlessly customizable. By using this program I don't really care how I have something stored on my computer, because the program will find it and organize it logically. It's fun to use, you can create endless reports, statistics, etc.

The best piece of $39 software I've ever purchased. Download a demo and try it out.

Windows Media Player and my impeccable organizations skills do pretty much all that. For free. Haha. I don't really reports and stuff. I just want a badass playlist.

This thread made me have a major headache...

Windows Media Player...man I hate that thing, I actually don't like any of the "heavy client" media players. I use Foobar2000, it's a light client, freeware, plays flac and ogg files, great playlist features and it uses almost no memory.

Now, I can definitely relate on the OCD thing, for years I was like that with CDs and organizing them. I think I re-arranged my jazz collection about 50 times (alphabetical, era, genre, combo type, record label, remasters, etc). Then all of a sudden I decided I couldn't take it anymore, I started loading all my CDs in my computer and packing them up in boxes...they've been in boxes now for 4 years. When I buy a new disc I'll check it out for a bit, read the liner notes...then I load it on my computer, pack the disc away and forget about it.

I have a terabyte of storage and another terabyte for backups. I've still transferred a very small amount of my total collection, but I'll finish it up eventually. One of these days I'll start focusing my energy on actually creating something...insted of just organizing things that others have created.

My life is an endless series of possibilites that I don't act upon.

I'd put the Suicidal Tendencies with all of the crossover/thrash bands that I have. That lumps 'em all into one category.

This thread really shows that we're not sane...but it's fun doing all that sorting and everything. I sarted with baseball cards.

My playlists are divided into my favorite 50 to 150 albums in each self defined genre which I program and then play randomly within the genre (on old large volume CD changers as of now). I don't worry about assigning a band's entire catologue to a genre, just each album by how it sounds to my ears. It's kind of like a bunch of my own personal satellite radio stations, each with a general theme. When (if ever) I go digital, I'll just rip each group as I have time. I'll never bother to digitize the whole collection, just the stuff I like enough to have programmed unto my playlists. This will cut the chore from 5000 discs to about 1500 of my faves. It's like a library. The books that get read are in circulation, and the rest of it is gathering dust in the "stacks".

The more I add to this external drive the more I'm loving it. All my metal is downstairs on shelves, so I haven't started ripping the rest of that yet. Right now I'm doing everything else, all the stuff that was upstairs in boxes. It's a cool mix. Since all this stuff has been in boxes for two years or so, I didn't listen to it often.

A lot of you will someday be doing this, I imagine.

Eyesore wrote:

A lot of you will someday be doing this, I imagine.

The majority of my CDs are in boxes and I don't have jewel cases for them (had to move, space constraints, etc)...and there's no way in hell I'm going to invest in thousands of jewel cases and shelves to put them on. So I'm slowly going box by box and loading everything onto external hard drives and then cataloging them in my database.

Eyesore wrote:

A lot of you will someday be doing this, I imagine.

I have done this since I got my computer in 2002. While I have nowhere near what you have (I have barely gotten to 1000), I have had to buy an external hard drive after my computer got too full. Having my library accessable on my computer is so much easier than looking through my CDs for what I need.

But the Wall of CDs will always be bad-ass! I don't care where technology takes us.

Eyesore wrote:

But the Wall of CDs will always be bad-ass! I don't care where technology takes us.

Oh, make no mistake about it, I plan on getting as many CDs as possible before they become obsolete. I want to have a collection big enough to fill a room (with the amount of music on my want list and as long as I make enough money, that won't be too hard).

DallasBlack wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

But the Wall of CDs will always be bad-ass! I don't care where technology takes us.

Oh, make no mistake about it, I plan on getting as many CDs as possible before they become obsolete. I want to have a collection big enough to fill a room (with the amount of music on my want list and as long as I make enough money, that won't be too hard).

One great thing about this new digital revolution (or whatever it's called) is that used CDs are becoming cheaper, and hard to find albums are showing up in used bins more often. I love it.