How do you sort (organise) your CDs, LPs, K7s, Tapes; physical medias

[Alexanderc]

I and my wife are considering to donate all of our physical LPs and discs, together with the digitized libraries in HDD or SSD, to a university or college with music history courses, in the (near?) future.

I’d be surprised if you can find a university to take the physical media—the storage space is too valuable. Of course, having the digital copies without the physical media creates copyright concerns. I hope someone at a university wants them and understands what a significant and generous gift that would be!

When I was a doctoral student my university school of music was trying to give away its LP library. I could have had hundreds, maybe thousands (it was a small room full), of classical records if only I had been interested. I worry that most of them ended up in the trash.

 

[symphara]

be indulgent, it's my first thread:

So many different ways and logics
Alphabetical
Style
Date of recording

and maybe more exotic ways.
Really interested to discover alternatives.

Me ? a bit of everything;
I have a special section for the rock bands of the seventies and annexed their leaders, drummers, guitarists.

Style (Rock, Prog etc), sub-style (e.g. Scandinavian Jazz), all separated by media type (CD/SACD/DVD-A).

 

[GD Fan]

My system of organizing my CDs has always struck me as an odd blend of the logical and the inconsistent. With a fair dose of subjectivity thrown in!

The collection is housed on identical standing bookshelves that flank the speakers. Each shelf (for the most part) contains a row of bands that either fit together logically or otherwise hang together in my mind somehow. The "best" band of the bunch starts the proceedings from the left side and the albums are arranged chronological by release date. Greatest hits collections and box sets always go at the end. Live albums sometimes go at the end but sometimes are mixed in chronologically, it varies by band but doesn't change once it's set. After all that come solo albums by the band members.

As for how the bands may find themselves on the same shelf, it is usually intuitive. For instance, the Led Zeppelin section gives way to the Beatles, then Rolling Stones, followed by the Police (they released few enough albums to fit on that row).

Some shelves are easy - blues gets one all its own, as do New Orleans music, heavy metal and jazz. Again, the "best" artist gets the left side and they continue in order of perceived quality. Sometimes that order gets disrupted by weight of influence. E.g. Robert Johnson never really gets played but holds pride of place on the far left side of the blues shelf.

There's so much Grateful Dead that multiple shelves are involved. The studio albums are relegated to the spillover row since the live recordings hold poll position. These are arranged by date of performance, obviously. This was not initially the case with the Dick's Picks series which had been arranged in order of release. That helped me understand the band's various eras not at all and moving to show date for those releases too was a huge improvement.

Some shelves would seem to someone else to make little sense. Why does one start with U2, move on the Who, then Van Morrison, the Eagles and other softer rock bands? I can't remember why! But I know where every band is located so it's a breeze to find exactly what I need. Usually. There are, of course, a few shelves of jumbled, random stuff. Sadly these sections don't grow enough.

As others have noted the collection is so large that duplicate copies of rarely played albums have been occasionally purchased. Oh well, at least when I go to find it a place on the shelf I usually try to put it right where the original copy is! (True story.)

Wow that turned in to a post of self-indulgent proportions. I'll shut up now in the unlikely event anyone is still reading...

 

[Wes]

re: Grateful Dead

I put everything chronologically by performance date, mixing live & studio together. When I want to hear something, I want mid-1970s or I want early 1960s etc.

 

[GD Fan]

re: Grateful Dead

I put everything chronologically by performance date, mixing live & studio together. When I want to hear something, I want mid-1970s or I want early 1960s etc.

By early 1960s I presume you mean >=1965!

 

[scott wurcer]

With respect to the thread title, I don't. That's just me, everything in a pile.

 

[Sal1950]

We still carry flood insurance because flooding is possible anywhere in Houston

Keep everything of value on the top floor.

 

[dualazmak]

I’d be surprised if you can find a university to take the physical media—the storage space is too valuable. Of course, having the digital copies without the physical media creates copyright concerns. I hope someone at a university wants them and understands what a significant and generous gift that would be!
...

Hello Alexanderc, thank you for your kind follow-up.

Yes, you perfectly understand my concern on copyright. We, me and my wife, believe our digital libraries should be nice educational tool in "early music" courses not only in music schools but also in aesthetics courses in department of literature; if they have all of the physical LP and disk libraries, they should have no copyright issue in using the digital libraries for educational missions.

In Japan, we still have fairly nice tradition of education on early music (before baroque, Renaissance, and older) in many music schools of (mainly) private universities and colleges. Furthermore, in department of literature in major national and private universities, they have nice aesthetics faculty people including the "music history" professions.

They may very flexibly use my digital library on JRiver (or Roon) in PC connected the audio system of the lecture room or hall; Jriver can search and play any specific track of interest almost instantaneously among the ca. 40,000 tracks in my libraries of rich "Before Renaissance, Renaissance, Baroque" music. My libraries are also rich with Gesualdo, Monteverdi, JS Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, et al., and lute music. (Interestingly, not so rich in Beethoven!)

As mentioned elsewhere, I have all of the Gimell CDs of "The Tallis Scholars" in my digital library, full set of "200 Ans De Musique A Versailles, 20 CDs", "The Complete London Manuscript for Lute, 12 CDs", "Complete Madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo, 7 CDs", "Complete Violin Concertos of G.B. Viotti, 10 CDs", and so on, those would be also nice for educational purposes and of course for enjoyment.

If needed, and if they can use two PCs (both have my music libraries) in their lecture, very flexible comparative listening to Track-A and Track-B would be possible which should be very valuable and exciting for students, I believe.

Since I personally well know several nice "(early) music history oriented" faculty people in music schools and in the aesthetics courses in universities and colleges, we (I and my wife) would like to start discussion with them soon aiming towards the possible donation of our "digital plus physical" music libraries, I mean of course donation to just one of them.

 

[Jim Matthews]

My LP's were destroyed during a flood in 2017 along with the house which was torn down. CD's are all ripped and sitting in a box in a closet. Cassettes were tossed years ago. I have moved to high ground.

My condolences.

I was thinking about retiring to Nashville, until last week (over similar concerns).

I hope some of your heirlooms survived.

 

[Ron Texas]

I was thinking about retiring to Nashville, until last week (over similar concerns).

Check to see which areas in Nashville do not flood. The entire city did not go under water.

 

[Harmonie]

With respect to the thread title, I don't. That's just me, everything in a pile.

 

[Harmonie]

My system of organizing my CDs has always struck me as an odd blend of the logical and the inconsistent. With a fair dose of subjectivity thrown in!

The collection is housed on identical standing bookshelves that flank the speakers. Each shelf (for the most part) contains a row of bands that either fit together logically or otherwise hang together in my mind somehow. The "best" band of the bunch starts the proceedings from the left side and the albums are arranged chronological by release date. Greatest hits collections and box sets always go at the end. Live albums sometimes go at the end but sometimes are mixed in chronologically, it varies by band but doesn't change once it's set. After all that come solo albums by the band members.

As for how the bands may find themselves on the same shelf, it is usually intuitive. For instance, the Led Zeppelin section gives way to the Beatles, then Rolling Stones, followed by the Police (they released few enough albums to fit on that row).

Some shelves are easy - blues gets one all its own, as do New Orleans music, heavy metal and jazz. Again, the "best" artist gets the left side and they continue in order of perceived quality. Sometimes that order gets disrupted by weight of influence. E.g. Robert Johnson never really gets played but holds pride of place on the far left side of the blues shelf.

There's so much Grateful Dead that multiple shelves are involved. The studio albums are relegated to the spillover row since the live recordings hold poll position. These are arranged by date of performance, obviously. This was not initially the case with the Dick's Picks series which had been arranged in order of release. That helped me understand the band's various eras not at all and moving to show date for those releases too was a huge improvement.

Some shelves would seem to someone else to make little sense. Why does one start with U2, move on the Who, then Van Morrison, the Eagles and other softer rock bands? I can't remember why! But I know where every band is located so it's a breeze to find exactly what I need. Usually. There are, of course, a few shelves of jumbled, random stuff. Sadly these sections don't grow enough.

As others have noted the collection is so large that duplicate copies of rarely played albums have been occasionally purchased. Oh well, at least when I go to find it a place on the shelf I usually try to put it right where the original copy is! (True story.)

Wow that turned in to a post of self-indulgent proportions. I'll shut up now in the unlikely event anyone is still reading...

See, that's my point, there are several organizers here:
The one with logic, alphabetical, chronological, library marking.
The ones that are visual with their "left brain's" logic

It's like the "disorder" of your huge pile of documents on your desk, but you know exactly where each paper is located !

 

[babayaga]

I'm very deliberate about how my collection is organized. 5 years ago my wife said she was sick of seeing all the CD's in the basement in a mess. So my first project when I retired was to figure out how to get them into some type of order. What follows is how I did it and it seems to work well for me, YMMV!

I spent several months researching on the web and discovered there is no single was to organize a collection. I decided on a work flow and told my wife if she wanted the CD mess gone it would cost some cash. I bought a Synology NAS, got XLD for ripping, Metadatics for tagging and store my CD's in a plastic tub that you can get from Target (UPC 073149755179) it's a 32 qt box. This box is perfect because it will store about 130-135 cd's inside. They fit in 4 row's with about 33 or so in each row. I also bought a label maker and label the box as Box 1 Row 1 etc... Currently up to Box 6 Row 2. I also created a tag called Location and when I rip, part of my meta data is to add a location to each track so if there are issues I have a way to get back and find it. I also include a comment with the date I ripped and if I update the metadata I put a comment as well. I also ensure genre is added to each track. In addition, I bought Text Expander and added several shortcuts so my data entry is always the same and with a couple keyboard combinations, the data entry is repeatable and consistent and saves time. My NAS music folder is organized only by Artist, last name, then first. I add new albums to the artist folder and them let MinimServer organize my view. My Oppo 230 is used for playback and works well with MinimServer. I have some Hi Res, SACD and DTS stuff and with MinimServer, it organizes them to my satisfaction.

 

[Harmonie]

I'm very deliberate about how my collection is organized. 5 years ago my wife said she was sick of seeing all the CD's in the basement in a mess. So my first project when I retired was to figure out how to get them into some type of order. What follows is how I did it and it seems to work well for me, YMMV!

I spent several months researching on the web and discovered there is no single was to organize a collection. I decided on a work flow and told my wife if she wanted the CD mess gone it would cost some cash. I bought a Synology NAS, got XLD for ripping, Metadatics for tagging and store my CD's in a plastic tub that you can get from Target (UPC 073149755179) it's a 32 qt box. This box is perfect because it will store about 130-135 cd's inside. They fit in 4 row's with about 33 or so in each row. I also bought a label maker and label the box as Box 1 Row 1 etc... Currently up to Box 6 Row 2. I also created a tag called Location and when I rip, part of my meta data is to add a location to each track so if there are issues I have a way to get back and find it. I also include a comment with the date I ripped and if I update the metadata I put a comment as well. I also ensure genre is added to each track. In addition, I bought Text Expander and added several shortcuts so my data entry is always the same and with a couple keyboard combinations, the data entry is repeatable and consistent and saves time. My NAS music folder is organized only by Artist, last name, then first. I add new albums to the artist folder and them let MinimServer organize my view. My Oppo 230 is used for playback and works well with MinimServer. I have some Hi Res, SACD and DTS stuff and with MinimServer, it organizes them to my satisfaction.

welcome @Babyaga

So if I understand well, you haven't sorted your physical media at all, other then putting them all into boxes with tags with running numbers according to the rows according to your box?

In short it means that your ripped media is organised (by Artists name) which keeps a track where your physical media is located.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

My CDs - I always know where things aren't

 

[babayaga]

welcome @Babyaga

So if I understand well, you haven't sorted your physical media at all, other then putting them all into boxes with tags with running numbers according to the rows according to your box?

In short it means that your ripped media is organised (by Artists name) which keeps a track where your physical media is located.

Right, my thought process was as follows; Before I put them into the boxes, I had to search through everything because they were a mess. With everything being digital, I do not need the physical media. If I need to go back and find anything which is rare, it's pretty simple to look through 1 row of 35 CD's to find what you are looking for. Using the tagging program and MinimServer I can sort by the Location field as one of my indexes. The other great thing about these boxes is they fit into a standard closet and can be stacked and out of sight. Being the anal retentive fool I am, I make sure the front of the box has a label with Box number that's visible from the outside and the row numbers are affixed to the top lid of the box cover. Mine are stacked 3 boxes high. They work very well and only cost about $8... Can't say enough good about MinimServer either. I have many HI Res and SACD's and I originally had them isolated from the plain CD rips but just recently I merged them into one directory on my NAS. MinimServer takes care of the rest by using a few of the indexes to organize. So if I want to listen to DSOTM, I just scroll to Pink Floyd and look for the SACD Mutli channel version of DSOTM .

 

[daftcombo]

Date of purchase.

 

[babayaga]

Date of purchase.

I bought all this stuff 5 years ago. Synology D216j NAS with 2 TB drives, 2 USB external drives for 2 back ups. Have 1 TB left on my NAS...Been using MinimServer for about 5 years too. It was free but has recently moved to subscription model. MetaDatics is free but I made a few donations to the developer. TextExpander is a subscription now too. XLD is free but also have made a few donations to developer.

 

[daftcombo]

I bought all this stuff 5 years ago. Synology D216j NAS with 2 TB drives, 2 USB external drives for 2 back ups. Have 1 TB left on my NAS...Been using MinimServer for about 5 years too. It was free but has recently moved to subscription model. MetaDatics is free but I made a few donations to the developer. TextExpander is a subscription now too. XLD is free but also have made a few donations to developer.

Thanks. Actually I meant to answer OP: I sort my records (CDs and LPs/EPs) by date of purchase.

 

[Harmonie]

Thanks. Actually I meant to answer OP: I sort my records (CDs and LPs/EPs) by date of purchase.

That's another way to sort and hasn't been mentioned so far indeed.

I used to have a CD software that was originally on (good grief) ... diskettes.

That software keeps a track of a lot of details of the CD including it's date of purchase