What 17,000 lps WOW,that's the most important ever heard of a guy owning unless he's a store also...WOW...
The not lost but hard to find art of vinyl records
Hello fellow goners,
I'm looking for some advice and guidance today. For the last six years or so I've rediscovered the joy of vinyl. Over that time i've added and upgraded an analog branch to my streaming only system. Currently it's based on an origin live deck and arm with a few different cartridges, my favorites are hanna sl and an AT-VM760xSL.
Over this time, I've also managed to acquire a modest collection of records which now fill a few of those ikea shelving units. Now some of you might be thinking aww I remember when I got started. :-) I did say modest. However with just this collection, it's become difficult to account which records or even which pressing or pressings are a part of the collection. Specially and fortunately, when you have friends and family who know about your passion and want to contribute with purchases for special occasions. Or come over and want to hear album X to which I usually respond with browse the shelves and pick out something you wan to hear.
To help with this, I started using a spreadsheet of artist, titles and a few other pieces of information but quickly ran into issues with the native spellchecker and my own horrible spelling mistakes. Leading to some funny and not so funny things in the list.
So I'm wondering for those of you out there with collections of your own, how do you manage it? Does it just reside on a shelf? In your memory (if this is true do you have room for mine too? :-)
Thanks in advance for your suggestions and advice.
david
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- 37 posts total
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I also use discogs. For those of you who are discogs users and also have another separate accounting of the records, you are wasting your time. It is very easy to export your collection in an excel type report. Another great reason to use discogs, if you do it correctly(according to my view), is to force you to dig into the dead wax and find your exact (or close) pressing. In vinyl, pressing order and plants largely determine fidelity. Albums that I was sure were first pressings turned out not to be so. In that circumstance, I would seek out a first pressing of the disc from well known quality plants such as Santa Maria or Monarch, to name a few, and be rewarded with a much better listening experience. I only purchase mint or near mint pressings and use only high rated sellers with an extensive review history if possible. @inagroove I'm not sure what you are referencing in terms of the discogs police "denying all your work" if the indices don't match. I have roughly 1200 LPs registered. Many do not have indices that match up with known versions in their data base. I get as close as I can with the proper pressing plant and there has never been any blow back. I don't bother creating a new version, but my brother has and he had no issues either. My physical sorting is exactly like @o_holter |
KISS. Excel spreadsheet. If it is a duo or non-standard record, go by the first artist or group it with a more defined group. It happens with jazz records sometimes. They are physically organized alphabetically by groups to try to listen to them at least closer to the same frequency so I don't always have to decide what to listen to. For example Tom Petty and Springsteen are in the same grouping since they are close alphabetically and the total records between them is 9 or 10. I try to keep the groups between 8 and 10 in rock and a little bigger in jazz. Exceptions are Miles, The Beatles and Steely Dan. They get their own area. A few others have their own grouping within a bin/area- The Police/Sting, Grateful Dead, Neil Young/CSN(Y), Boz Scaggs - maybe one or two others. I listen to each record 3 or 4 times a year roughly. There are a few records that seem to get recategorized because of the sizes of the sections or storage. They're one off jazz/watercolors types, but it is annoying. I don't want them in the single record area since that is rock. Seems like every time I buy a new record it's an adventure, which is why I mainly upgrade records for sound quality. I know, I make it overly complicated, but I know what I have and very rarely can't find any given record within 10 seconds. I'm always trying to perfect it....I'm probably a bit OCD with the matter. |
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