I finally did it, I alphabetized my CD collection!

I celebrate Ground Hog Day. I take off work and do what I want, which always includes watching the movie.

I occurred to me that the perfect Ground Hog Day activity would be to alphabetize my CD collection. I've always wanted to, just never got around to it.

SO, I sorted them all by letter and wrote down the band, title and release date in a notebook. 414 cds total, so far. This will make keeping track much easier.

good for you scott, I'm about halfway there.

Good job by you Scott. I don't know how you went so long without alphabetizing them. That would drive me crazy.

I've got to get back into catalogging mine. I was keeping up pretty well on cd-tracker.com, but since they closed shop, I haven't been keeping track. I started a excel spread sheet, but never got past the 'A's.

My CDs (and before that, my cassettes and LPs) have been alphabetized ever since the beginning. I'm obsessive/compulsive that way. All the bands are in order by letter, and when I have a large collection of a particular band, those CDs are arranged in chronological order, i.e. according to the year they were released. Yea, I know... I'm sick.

It's a pain in the ass when I bring a new CD home and I have to shuffle everything over one spot on the shelf to make room for the new recruit(s)... especially if it's by a band that starts with "A" and I have to go through EVERYthing...

I thought about it before I began, because I could imagine such neurosis happening to me, and I decided to just let an A be and A, but not to alphabetize within a letter. I keep bands together, but Crom might come before Cage in the stack. As long as C's are with C's, I'm O.K.

Other notes:

I use last names to alphabetize, except for Axel Rudi Pell.

I don't count "The". There would be too many T albums, then.

Fat Freddy wrote:

My CDs (and before that, my cassettes and LPs) have been alphabetized ever since the beginning. I'm obsessive/compulsive that way. All the bands are in order by letter, and when I have a large collection of a particular band, those CDs are arranged in chronological order, i.e. according to the year they were released. Yea, I know... I'm sick.

It's a pain in the ass when I bring a new CD home and I have to shuffle everything over one spot on the shelf to make room for the new recruit(s)... especially if it's by a band that starts with "A" and I have to go through EVERYthing...

Freddy we share the same sickness because I also have all my CDs alphabetized by letter and by year of release. Whenever I buy a new CD I than to reshuffle all of my CDS and my wife just looks at me and shakes her head acting like my behaviour isn't normal.

i'm way behind cataloging all my cds. i'm getting them down now as i buy them, but i still haven't finished cataloging all the ones purchased before i started this project early last year. every time i think about it, it seems so daunting that i console myself with beer & football & put it off till later.

manny wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

My CDs (and before that, my cassettes and LPs) have been alphabetized ever since the beginning. I'm obsessive/compulsive that way. All the bands are in order by letter, and when I have a large collection of a particular band, those CDs are arranged in chronological order, i.e. according to the year they were released. Yea, I know... I'm sick.

It's a pain in the ass when I bring a new CD home and I have to shuffle everything over one spot on the shelf to make room for the new recruit(s)... especially if it's by a band that starts with "A" and I have to go through EVERYthing...

Freddy we share the same sickness because I also have all my CDs alphabetized by letter and by year of release. Whenever I buy a new CD I than to reshuffle all of my CDS and my wife just looks at me and shakes her head acting like my behaviour isn't normal.

It's the ONLY way to do it properly!

That said, I'm also way beind after the last 2 moves.

I'm also now using this as a fun way to pick my CDs for the day.

I put one piece of paper into a coffee mug for every six CDs of a particular letter. I have 29 C cds, so I have 5 pieces of paper in the mug with the letter C on it. I have 46 S cds, so I have 8 pieces of paper (rounding up to the nearest # divisible by 6).

I then choose one piece of paper. Yesterday in readying myself for today I pulled and E, so my next 6 CDs will be from the E pile.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

I'm also now using this as a fun way to pick my CDs for the day.

I put one piece of paper into a coffee mug for every six CDs of a particular letter. I have 29 C cds, so I have 5 pieces of paper in the mug with the letter C on it. I have 46 S cds, so I have 8 pieces of paper (rounding up to the nearest # divisible by 6).

I then choose one piece of paper. Yesterday in readying myself for today I pulled and E, so my next 6 CDs will be from the E pile.

Way to turn CD choosing into an exercise in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!!

I just open the cabinet, stand there scratching my chin for a minute, then grab a dozen or so CDs at random.

I used to do that, but now it's a game! My chance for variety must take place within the Letter of the Day. These are among life's "little things" that make me happy.


No phallic references!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Way to Go Scott!Its the only way I can keep up with all mine.

How I choose what I going to listen to depends on my mood but usually it is triggered about an article I read and sometimes postings on this board, thanks to this board some CD's I have not spun in away get pulled out of my archieves.

I'm too lazy too go through mine.

I don't know how people find what they're looking for if their CDs aren't alphabetized.

And I mean all the way through the band name; no way Cage comes after Crom in my CD rack unless I refiled it when I was drunk. I have some letters that take up 2 or 3 shelves; I'd never find what I'm looking for if I didn't completely alphabetize.

I sort my by genre right now but over the last few months I have been fighting the temptation to sort by alphabet. I am in the process of auditing my cds against my list on the web to make sure everyone is there (and the list is accurate). I have a feeling at some point I may follow scott....

Alex

Quote :

I don't know how people find what they're looking for if their CDs aren't alphabetized.

You have to hunt.

I would love to have a website like ULT and Spec's listing their cd collection with graphics, but have neither the skill nor the time to take on such a project, but I admire what they have been able to do.

Troublezone wrote:

Quote :

I don't know how people find what they're looking for if their CDs aren't alphabetized.

You have to hunt.

I'd end up having to take the morning off

I've been using a database program called CATraxx since around 2003, it was cheap and does the trick. I have separate databases I use for physical CDs and also another one I use for music on my computer and external hard drives.

It's really simple to use, when you buy a new disc you pop it in the CDrom drive, it scans the disc, pulls the info off the internet and voila, you're done. It does the same thing with audio files on your computer.

I think the initial cost was about $30, never regretted getting it.

detuned wrote:

I've been using a database program called CATraxx since around 2003, it was cheap and does the trick. I have separate databases I use for physical CDs and also another one I use for music on my computer and external hard drives.

It's really simple to use, when you buy a new disc you pop it in the CDrom drive, it scans the disc, pulls the info off the internet and voila, you're done. It does the same thing with audio files on your computer.

I think the initial cost was about $30, never regretted getting it.

That would only work with newer, major label discs though, right? Ones that have the artist, album title, etc encoded?

Indy labels or self-released don't have that information do they? I know a lot of my older CDs don't have that data.

detuned wrote:

I've been using a database program called CATraxx since around 2003, it was cheap and does the trick.

Nice subliminal reference to Cheap Trick.

For me, metal/hard rock is separated from country/southern gospel and just rock. Compilations make up a separate category as well.

Within those genre categories, I don't alphabetize; rather, I go from my perception of lightest to heaviest, with Queen/Angelica/Stryper at the bottom and Horde/Malevolent Creation/Absu at the top.

Does no one else do it like this, or do I need to get with the program and alphabetize?

I've had mine in alphabetical since day 1.

I go alphabetical A-Z, and then chronological by release with each artist. I break a few rules, I suppose. I don't put anagrams first in each letter section. Rather I treat them like any other band name (example: M.O.D. is filed as if the name was Mod).

I have my entire collection (minus the only cassette I own; The Moshketeers) catalogued on my website, which is linked in my sig.

tohostudios wrote:

detuned wrote:

I've been using a database program called CATraxx since around 2003, it was cheap and does the trick. I have separate databases I use for physical CDs and also another one I use for music on my computer and external hard drives.

It's really simple to use, when you buy a new disc you pop it in the CDrom drive, it scans the disc, pulls the info off the internet and voila, you're done. It does the same thing with audio files on your computer.

I think the initial cost was about $30, never regretted getting it.

That would only work with newer, major label discs though, right? Ones that have the artist, album title, etc encoded?

Indy labels or self-released don't have that information do they? I know a lot of my older CDs don't have that data.

No it pretty much works on all discs, it uses both CDDB and freeDB to pull the information from...very few albums it doesn't recognize.