Program for music organizing

[Alvarius]

We all have big collections of music and I’m not an exception. But after one attempt to introduce order in my albums I’ve faced a real problem: I need some kind of catalogue for my collection. To write all that I have and its location manually in something like an Excel file is not a solution. So I’d like to ask any advice, how do you handle your music and what do you use?

[gryphon]

I use Microsoft excel................only I use it as database and then I use it again as a data base of databases.............This gives me an overview of the CDs I have and at the second level I can click on each album and open a database of info on it such as track ts producers musicians etc.:wink:

[Tiggi]

Mine are all kept on a Palm PDA, and backed up to the laptop.

Unfortunately PDAs are becoming scarce, so when mine falls over I'll just have to rely on the Palm laptop application...

...until my laptop falls over & the O/S doesn't support the software... :Cry::Cry:

[Alvarius]

Thanks a lot for the replies!
But let’s ask a question another way: Can anybody advise me some software specialized on the music organizing? I’d like to see the info about artists/albums, but putting it manually will take ages for me, the collection is huge.

[Jerome]

The only program I use is my brain which probably explains why I can't find anything amongst the thousands of discs all over the place. I have finally resorted to the 'hit and miss' method, which when translated, means that I am always playing stuff I wasn't really planning to. Sometimes it produces great results!

[Alvarius]

During the last week I searched by myself and would like to share my impressions and experience.
I’ve tested plenty of software and JetAudio organizer was my first choice. It was rather cool, since it had an attractive interface and was easy to use. But then I found out that there was such software that automatically retrieved info about albums/artists from the internet and saved it, forming some kind of expanded encyclopedia of the movie collection. The problem was that JetAudio could get and show only covers and ID3 tags, as iTunes did. I hadn’t used iTunes before and I tested it for several days. It was rather handy, but I’d like my organizer to create an informative catalogue with data about my albums and especially artists. So I continued searching and found an amazing tool for making a music catalogue.
The program is called Musicnizer. It works with multiple online databases and creates a great graphical appearance for your collection, downloads info not only about albums, but works with artists too. Almost every entry is clickable, so you can categorize, sort and receive information, whatever you like. I am using it now and, should I say, it’s the best music software that I ever had.
[URL="http://www.musicnizer.com/"]
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[Alvarius]

By the way, has anyone tried Musicnizer? It is claimed on its website that one can add an album to his music collection by scanning the barcode on the disc box, using a web camera. I wonder if this function works fine. My webcam is old and too bad for this =(

[Tiggi]

^ This sort of thing is coming fast. Listened to a radio program today discussing barcodes on advertising hoardings. Take a picture of the code, and if you have the correct application running, the advertiser's website will open on the phone. Already big in Asia, apparently....

[SteveO]

I separate my collection obviously into CDs, Cassettes and LPs. They are all in alphabetical order with dividers labelled A-Z. The biggest problem is enough space especially when you have a three foot stack to listen to !

It's an archaic way but I'm used to it and it always works for me. I always use the last name of a solo artist and omit the word "The" and use the first letter of the band like most music shops do.

I used to have a reference catalogue but that went by the wayside.

[Alvarius]

^ This sort of thing is coming fast. Listened to a radio program today discussing barcodes on advertising hoardings. Take a picture of the code, and if you have the correct application running, the advertiser's website will open on the phone. Already big in Asia, apparently....

Yeah, it’s so called QR-code, I see it spreading and getting popular too. Can be rather useful unless it becomes just an instrument of advertising.
But the overall idea of barcode scanning in Musicnizer without a doubt appears to be a helpful function, especially for big music collectors. Cataloging a huge music library can be quite hard without some automation.