Cataloguing Software

[Alexander Hawkins]

Apologies if this is a duplicate post - I did search, but didn't come up with anything!

I'm looking for some simple software for download to help me catalogue my collection on my computer.

I've found a couple of things - for example this. This seems very simple to use, but one major shortcoming seems to be that it rarely 'knows' the personnel on a given album (I downloaded their free trial just to check it out).

Does anyone have any suggestions for software which will automatically retrieve data such as personnel/recording date etc?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

[Shawn]

I haven't run across anything with personnel information yet. About the best you can hope for is year of release, song titles, etc.

I've been using this software for about 5 years now:

http://www.fnprg.com/catraxx/

[Alexander Hawkins]

I haven't run across anything with personnel information yet. About the best you can hope for is year of release, song titles, etc.

I've been using this software for about 5 years now:

http://www.fnprg.com/catraxx/

Thanks Shawn. Seem like a lot of these programmes are essentially very similar...interesting that none seem to have personnel information though...I wondered whether any could key into e.g. All Music Guide or something like that.

[Claude]

In order to include personel information automatically in the cataloguing software, it would require a database of all CDs including this info, which can be accessed by the software. That is a huge challenge.

The two main databases in this field - Gracenote (formerly CDDB) and freedb - do not include personel info.

http://www.gracenote.com

http://www.freedb.org

Edited June 7, 2009 by Claude

[Shawn]

I wondered whether any could key into e.g. All Music Guide or something like that.

I used to work with AMG in a previous job, they don't provide that information in their feeds (plus so much of their information is incomplete or incorrect anyway).

[Quincy]

I've found a couple of things - for example this. This seems very simple to use, but one major shortcoming seems to be that it rarely 'knows' the personnel on a given album (I downloaded their free trial just to check it out).

Does anyone have any suggestions for software which will automatically retrieve data such as personnel/recording date etc?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!

Can't help with the automatic part. I've been using collectorz which you link to. I sped up the process by initially not entering the musician information for nonjazz albums. Now I've been going back on days when I don't feel reading or doing something else with my time. There are annoyances with the little bit of information that gets automatically entered. A simple thing like "label" can end up as "Warner Bros.", "Warner Bros", "Warner/WEA" and so forth. Some people misuse the "format" field so "live" will show up there. "Genre" is another troublesome field, with silly things like "General Jazz" showing up. The problem is that all of these are automatically added to the master lists, so you have to periodically purge what you don't like. It's always something. At least the autofill is your friend when it comes to adding personnel.

Within a week there should be a Music Collectorz ap for the iphone/ipod Touch that will display your collection for when you're shopping in a brick & mortar store and can't remember what you own. Just in the nick 'o time while a few stores still exist!

There is a website called Rateyourmusic where you enter your collection online. However I don't think it will help at all if you want to see all of your albums that Hank Mobley plays on or other personnel information. I think the best potential is for some sort of online database but I don't think Rateyourmusic is there yet. But trying to have accurate information over thousands of albums is one heck of a difficult endeavor!

[Alexander Hawkins]

Thanks everyone for the replies - all really useful.