Classical collection cataloguer

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Before I do any Googling, I wonder whether anyone, from personal experience, could recommend some software which will facilitate the recording details of a CD collection and the searching of this information, such as CD number, manufacturer, CD title, performers, composers, possibly even tracks (but that may be too much work).

The difficulties with classical records (that spring to mind) is that

• they may have more than one composer featured thereon
• they may have soloists (e.g. Rebecca!! )[/list]Obviously I wish to minimise the amount of data entry…

  Any brite ideas or suggestions, folks? would be preferable…

  Thanks

  John

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Are these audio CDs or MPEGs? If the latter, I’ve heard of (but not used) the ware MPEG Audio Collection. HTH.

Alan

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Alan: no MPEGs, plain old CDs – just need to be able to catalogue much of the information they contain.

Joe: I’ll take a look at your suggested “Monkey” – I hadn’t come across that in Googly searches!

Thanks to you both!

John

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Alan: no MPEGs, plain old CDs – just need to be able to catalogue much of the information they contain.

Joe: I’ll take a look at your suggested “Monkey” – I hadn’t come across that in Googly searches!

Thanks to you both!

John

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Are these audio CDs or MPEGs? If the latter, I’ve heard of (but not used) the ware MPEG Audio Collection. HTH.

Alan

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John,
Check out Media Monkey> I don’t know if it will search everything you want but it uses an Access DB so maybe you can still get it. Basic version is . Also, the requisite ‘pro’/’gold’ etc. version available.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi John, I love the professional version of CDTrustree but cannot afford to purchase. At US$70.00 and the exchange rate it would cost me ovewr A$100.00 but have a look at http://www.base40.com/CdtPro.htm%5B/url%5D

Ted

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Ted

I downloaded the trial version of CD Trustee, and was fairly impressed by it, particularly that it could look up the CD in the online CD database when you inserted it into the computer, and so populate most of the fields in its database automatically!

But the first three classical CDs I tried showed up the problems that I suspected would happen, which are in part a function of how the data was originally entered on the online CD database.

a) a classical CD is more complicated, since it is usually by a “group” with perhaps a number of soloists. CD Trustee shows the soloist(s), rather than the “group”, as the primary key at CD level. Additionally, the soloists may vary for each track, and there may be no soloist at all for some tracks.

a classical CD will often have tracks by more than one composer (and “composer” is an important data item for a classical CD track, but probably of little or no importance for a “pop” CD)

c) CD Trustee doesn’t seem to record the CD number/reference (is it held on the CD’s metadata?). This could easily be inserted manually, but there doesn’t seem to be a specific field for it.

d) the online CD data is subject to spelling mistakes and lack of consistency in the method of recording the track information between CDs. In one instance, the same description applied to several tracks – because the data did not include the “movement” (allegro, adagio, etc) of a symphony!

So I’m not sure whether to carry on cataloguing the remaining x hundred CDs, or to actually purchase it! My current view is that it does some of what I want, and it is unlikely that there’s another piece of software that will do all I want! Decisions, decisions…

Thanks for the suggestion!

John

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Ted

I downloaded the trial version of CD Trustee, and was fairly impressed by it, particularly that it could look up the CD in the online CD database when you inserted it into the computer, and so populate most of the fields in its database automatically!

But the first three classical CDs I tried showed up the problems that I suspected would happen, which are in part a function of how the data was originally entered on the online CD database.

a) a classical CD is more complicated, since it is usually by a “group” with perhaps a number of soloists. CD Trustee shows the soloist(s), rather than the “group”, as the primary key at CD level. Additionally, the soloists may vary for each track, and there may be no soloist at all for some tracks.

a classical CD will often have tracks by more than one composer (and “composer” is an important data item for a classical CD track, but probably of little or no importance for a “pop” CD)

c) CD Trustee doesn’t seem to record the CD number/reference (is it held on the CD’s metadata?). This could easily be inserted manually, but there doesn’t seem to be a specific field for it.

d) the online CD data is subject to spelling mistakes and lack of consistency in the method of recording the track information between CDs. In one instance, the same description applied to several tracks – because the data did not include the “movement” (allegro, adagio, etc) of a symphony!

So I’m not sure whether to carry on cataloguing the remaining x hundred CDs, or to actually purchase it! My current view is that it does some of what I want, and it is unlikely that there’s another piece of software that will do all I want! Decisions, decisions…

Thanks for the suggestion!

John

Reply | Quote

Hi John, I love the professional version of CDTrustree but cannot afford to purchase. At US$70.00 and the exchange rate it would cost me ovewr A$100.00 but have a look at http://www.base40.com/CdtPro.htm%5B/url%5D

Ted

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