How to classify vinyls?

[Masdefi]

I am sure this thread is already appeared, but now is actual to me.
How you guys classify the vinyls 12" and LPs?
By alphabetical order?
Just by a number and in order of "buy time"?
And all the records have a number?
Please give me an idea. Thanks, ciao! :???:

[Bernie]

My favourite filing system is alphabetical order by genre. It allows me to find things quickly and without much guess-work. For example:

Disco 12"/LP A-Z
Hi-NRG 12"/LP A-Z
Today's Dance stuff 12"/LP A-Z
Dance Rock 12"/LP A-Z
Various Artists comps A-Z by title
Various DJ mixers & plates (Disconet, Hot-Tracks, Ultimix...) A-Z
Soundtracks LPs A-Z
Classic Rock LPs A-Z
Classical LPs A-Z
7" Singles A-Z

I then repeat the same system for CD's with 7" singles becoming 3" CD singles since I have hundreds of them. The 3"er's will eventually be merged with everything else. Also another section for box sets

At one time I used to keep my 12"er's seperate from LPs, but that didn't make any sense. Filing by BPMs, labels... didn't make any sense either and creates many headaches.

[The Lord of Flatbush]

My filing system is done by: Artist, Title, Label, Year, Genre, Type - DOUBLE LP PROMO & Code - The Bar Code number; This is sometimes found on the label if not the back of the jacket per LP/12".

In the event of no code being found, I'd enter the word none for that field.

_________________
THE BEST, KEPT SECRET IS OUT!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: The Lord of Flatbush on 2002-05-26 14:32 ]</font>

[Graham_Start]

For vinyl, aside from 7" and 10" singles, I have them in two sections: disco, and everything else. This isn't really by choice, but I don't have enough room to put them all in one place. Currently I have all my CDs together, but this too might have to change soon. Mind you, I'm hardly buying CDs anymore, just making them from vinyl...

Everything is sorted alphabetically by artist. Compilations are in a seperate section and filed by title. If a soundtrack is all or mostly one artist, it gets filed under that artist. If it's a mix, then it gets filed under the soundtrack name -- although now that I think of it, it would make more sense to put them with the compilations.

[Masdefi]

Thanks, but I have this problem.
I have listed the records just by artist name, merging both 12" & LPs. The CDs (5%)are in a separate place.
For the vinyls, each record has a white label on it and I have marked with a progressive number, so the records are listed by artist name and also with a increasing number. The problem is that since about 5 months I am buying a lot of vinyls from GEMM and other sites and every time I get one new record and I try to list it I cannot give it the number because it is already taken. Real example:
First Choice LP Breakaway #231
Flakes LP 1980 #232

I buyed Roberta Flack with D. Hathaway LP
and according "Flack", goes before Flakes. But what number I give??
So I gave 231-1.
But If I buy another First Choice LP, what number?? 231-1-0 or what ?!?

Why I put the number on each record? Just to have a easier location after use than to check the correct place by alphabetical.
It is easy when the first letter is essential to classify (Whispers and Dynasty) but what happen when you have Whispers and Barry White? In this case the letter "s" comes before "t". ...oooohhhh.... I'm sorry!!

[Masdefi]

On 2002-05-26 15:01, Graham Start wrote:
just making them from vinyl...

Graham, this is what I do too. But I have a problem with GoldWave. How do you monitor the recording level? The windows with graphs are so approximately. How do you consider the LED max peak, just at the end (right way) or quite at the max peak?
And another question: when I burn the CD, I have to create first a mp3 file on my hard disk (is this flow correct or I'm wrong?): whick kbps you recommend? 128 is enough? If I create a mp3 with 320kbps instead of 128 kbps is better then on the CD sound quality ?

Thanks for your help
Masdefi

[The Lord of Flatbush]

On 2002-05-26 16:19, Masdefi wrote:
Thanks, but I have this problem.
I have listed the records just by artist name, merging both 12" & LPs. The CDs (5%)are in a separate place.
For the vinyls, each record has a white label on it and I have marked with a progressive number, so the records are listed by artist name and also with a increasing number. The problem is that since about 5 months I am buying a lot of vinyls from GEMM and other sites and every time I get one new record and I try to list it I cannot give it the number because it is already taken. Real example:
First Choice LP Breakaway #231
Flakes LP 1980 #232

I buyed Roberta Flack with D. Hathaway LP
and according "Flack", goes before Flakes. But what number I give??
So I gave 231-1.
But If I buy another First Choice LP, what number?? 231-1-0 or what ?!?

Why I put the number on each record? Just to have a easier location after use than to check the correct place by alphabetical.
It is easy when the first letter is essential to classify (Whispers and Dynasty) but what happen when you have Whispers and Barry White? In this case the letter "s" comes before "t". ...oooohhhh.... I'm sorry!!

What program are you using, Excel or Access? I use Access from Microsoft to create my table. You can name any field to which it automatically gives you a number to your field. Also, you can ascend any column to alphabetize in any order that you like.

[DJ P]

My method of 'filing' music (be it vinyl, 45-7" vinyl or cd's) is by 'BPM'. Being a DJ for quite a few years it was (and is still) a habit. On my computer, I have a file that can be accessed by either 'Artist', 'Title', 'Bpm', 'Year' or 'Record label. It does take time to set up initally, but once done it only takes a moment or two to update with new entries. The actual (physical copies of the) music is in Alphabetical order with labels indicating the above mentioned catagories. Hope this info helps. All the best, DJ Phil

[Graham_Start]

On 2002-05-26 16:27, Masdefi wrote:

Graham, this is what I do too. But I have a problem with GoldWave. How do you monitor the recording level? The windows with graphs are so approximately. How do you consider the LED max peak, just at the end (right way) or quite at the max peak?

I'm not sure, as I don't use Goldwave... but I would imagine that it also depends on how you have your soundcard set up. I use Cool Edit and an M-Audio 2496, which allows you to reroute the audio signals according to your needs, and you can save different settings. This comes in handy because whenever I launch Logic Audio, it always mutes the input. Anyway, with the exception of a few VERY LOUD 12" singles (and somehow, the original French Ibis pressing of "Romeo And Juliet"), the level from my phono preamp is usually *way* below 0dB. I record in 24-bit to capture as much detail as possible, and do all my processing at 32-bit (remove rumble, declick, denoise, and EQ if needed) and only once I'm finished do I boost the volume. I use the "hard limiter" in Cool Edit, more as a means to boost the volume than anything else. Then I dither down to 16-bit. Note that the actual limiting should be *very* subtle, at most 2dB below the highest peaks, and it should never perceptable as such... otherwise, you wind up with the dreaded "Unidisc sound". The only exception to this is if you're making a mixed CD; most DJs heavily compress their stuff, so lost of compression/limiting will give it an authentic "nightclub" feel.

And another question: when I burn the CD, I have to create first a mp3 file on my hard disk (is this flow correct or I'm wrong?): whick kbps you recommend? 128 is enough? If I create a mp3 with 320kbps instead of 128 kbps is better then on the CD sound quality ?

Why would you need to first convert to MP3? All audio CD-burning software that I know of works just fine with WAV files. But to answer your question: *no* MP3 is capable of better-than-CD quality. MP3 is a lossy format, and no matter how high you set the bitrate, you will always lose a bit of the sound. It is because they were designed with keeping the file size down first, and sound quality second. Windows WAV files (as well as AIFF on Macs) are not lossy, and will give you 100% of what you recorded. The disadvantage is that they are very large; slightly over 10 Mb for every minute of music at CD-quality (16-bit, stereo, 44.1 kHz).

If you're familiar with graphics, an MP3 is like a JPG... no matter what settings you use, there is always a bit of quality loss. It might not be immediately noticeable, but if you listen/look closely, it's there. WAV is like TIF or BMP; it's all there but the files are enormous. MP3s are great for convenience and sharing over the 'net, but for any serious archiving, you should always use WAV.

Hope that was helpful...