Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps

01 Dec 15 - 08:53 PM (#3755046)
Subject: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: GUEST,Lin

I have several hundred folk LPs by obscure folk artists from the 1960's, 1970's & early 1980's. I'm trying to figure out a good system to have an inventory of sorts of these albums.
Many are unknown artists who had one or two LP released but were mostly unknown folk artists. I bought many on Ebay over the years and some bought at used record shops.

If anyone knows of a good system to keep a list of these LPs please advise. If you have a system, do you also list all the tracks for each album? Unfortunately many do not have years listed on the LP jacket or on the LP itself so sometimes it is just a guess as the year released.

Due to many being so obscure, I cannot even find anything when searching by title or artist for many LPs on a Google search. Obscure record labels too that no longer are around as they were probably very small independent record or small record companies and long gone.

Do you have a written log as well as doing it on the computer?

I'm talking about hundreds and hundreds of LP's (don't know exact number) of obscure folk artists and folk groups who are mostly "unknown."

Mt pet peeve is not being able to find a year of release on many of them so it is just a guess to approximate year or decade.

Any detail of how you keep some kind of inventory of your records would be appreciated.
Thank you.

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01 Dec 15 - 10:23 PM (#3755060)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Stilly River Sage

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-catalog-your-vinyl-collection-online/ (an article about how-to)

http://www.discogs.com/ (the place C|Net recommends)

Did you ever manage to sell those CDs you were asking about last summer?

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01 Dec 15 - 10:43 PM (#3755062)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: cnd

Personally, I record them through an audio converter and have file folders under a "Music" folder. It auto-alphabetizes them (as long as you're consistent in naming them) and is searchable, and you can listen to the music at any time. So what I'm in the process of doing is going back and including all the liner notes and lyrics, etc. So if you do that from the get-go, it's easy enough.

So in short, what I'd do is:

1: Make a folder of the artist and album name (whichever order you want, but keep it consistent
2: Record the album and name the songs (with prefixes A1, A2, B1, B2, etc)
3: Make a text document (.txt, low space taken up and fast-opening) with relevant information you want (liner notes, etc)

That's basically it. If you want you could also put each artist in a broad subset, so you have some songs in Folk, and some in Country, and some in Bluegrass, etc.

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01 Dec 15 - 11:32 PM (#3755067)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: GUEST,Lin

To Acme:

No, didn't sell the CD's and now have some obscure folk LPs I want to sell. Too hard for me to sell on ebay because I don't have a car and can't always get to the post office to take LPs to ship out to a buyer on ebay in a timely manner. When you sell on Ebay you really need to keep up with getting items you are selling out to the buyer soon after they win it or "Buy It Now" from you.

To CND: Thank you for information you sent but I am the worst tech. person in the world and don't know how to do/or understand the steps you mentioned.

Make a folder: Never did that before and don't know how or where on the computer to make a folder.   Don't how to make a text document either. (not any familiar with the term.-(( Unfortunately no one here to help me. I don't know or ever heard of a broad subset. My music is all folk accept for one or two Lps that might be more "pop" then folk but 99% is all folk records. Not into bluegrass very much so don't have any records in that genre.

I guess if I had someone to talk me through it, it might be easier but my friend are not very tech.savvy either. I called two friends on the phone and both have never heard of or know what a broad subset
or know anything about text documents or how to do it. I can't record my LPs, don't have a way to do it on my computer. Basically we
my friends go on the computer to get/send emails, Youtube, or Google.

Maybe there is an easier way?

Also, many of the albums are a collection of various unknown singers at a obscure coffeehouse from the 60's or 70's and the coffeehouse put a record out with all these unknown names - never made it beyond just singing a song on this record. I have a number of records like that, some from UK and Australia too.

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02 Dec 15 - 03:25 AM (#3755079)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Hrothgar

This might be a bit primitive technically, but if you put the artists' names and the album names into a spreadsheet, you can sort the spreadsheet alphabetically in whichever order you want - by artist, or by album. You could even do it by tracks (and alternative names of tracks), if you were mad keen.

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02 Dec 15 - 03:30 AM (#3755082)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Hrothgar

I should have said - you could have another column for category as well.

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02 Dec 15 - 03:38 AM (#3755084)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: GUEST,HiLo

I am intrigued by the term "obscure". I would like it very much if you would share some artist names and lp titles!

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02 Dec 15 - 04:29 AM (#3755095)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Jim Carroll

I'm doing exactly the same at present with our large collection of traditional records - certainly over 1,000 so far - haven't counted.
Have made sound-files of each, dropped each one into a named file accompanied by scanned information on it, then drop them into named files designating county/country.
I'm also photographing the album sleeve or taking a copy from the internet to include in ach file.
Not that laborious if you have half-decent software - I'm using ABBYY fine reader for scanning notes, Lightshot for copying from the screen and Adobe Audition for digitising (Adobe is great for removing surface noise or crackle without reducing sound quality, if you're careful.
So far, I have found very few albums which don't have information somewhere on the internet - in the case of Folkways and Library of Congress, the full notes are available for downloading, of all their output.
Have more or less finished British, Irish and American albums but envisage having some problems with the very large international foreign language section - I'll probably just photograph the sleeves and photoscan the notes and organise them the same way.
Screenshot is excellent for making a final inventory of the finished product directly from the screen
Good luck,
Jim Carroll

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02 Dec 15 - 04:37 AM (#3755096)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: G-Force

Also, many of the albums are a collection of various unknown singers at a obscure coffeehouse from the 60's or 70's and the coffeehouse put a record out with all these unknown names - never made it beyond just singing a song on this record.

So, put them under 'various artists'.

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02 Dec 15 - 04:53 AM (#3755099)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: DMcG

Personally, I record them through an audio converter and have file folders under a "Music" folder. It auto-alphabetizes them (as long as you're consistent in naming them) and is searchable, and you can listen to the music at any time.

That's a good approach, but it is not as easy as it sounds. To begin with, unless you have really specialist equipment, you have to record 'real time'. So if you have hundreds of LPs at let's say about 45 minutes each, that's (somewhat less) hundreds of hours you need to dedicate to this task. When I tried it, there are programmes that can guess where one track ends and the next starts by detecting silences, but configuring that for unaccompanied solo folk was impossible: tracks were split and joined at random places, and the right gap varied per artist and sometimes per song. So in practice I had no alternative but to sit by the recorder and manually indicate where tracks started and stopped. For, as I say, hundred of hours. But you can't dedicate your life to this, can you? You'd like to do other things as well? Ok, expect to spend several hours a week and so to spend several years to complete the task.

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02 Dec 15 - 05:02 AM (#3755100)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Jack Campin

Have more or less finished British, Irish and American albums but envisage having some problems with the very large international foreign language section - I'll probably just photograph the sleeves and photoscan the notes and organise them the same way.

I don't know what "photoscan" might be, but if you're thinking of just OCRing a text in a language neither you nor your software understand, you are going to get useless gibberish.

If you actually ASK, you can get help with understanding pretty near any language in print.

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02 Dec 15 - 05:26 AM (#3755107)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Jim Carroll

"I don't know what "photoscan" might be"
Just scanning the notes - sleeves as a photograph rather than editable text, which I prefer.
I know you can get translations of many languages - haven't gone into it yet.
Apart from our vinyl stuff we have a stack of Greek locally-made cassettes got on holiday which I would like to spend some time on.
Jim Carroll

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02 Dec 15 - 12:02 PM (#3755165)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: GUEST,Paul Clarke

Lin:
You may be able to find dates by reading the hand-written info scratched into the relatively ungrooved portion of the disc between the labels and the playing surface: the pressing info was usually written there, to identify the record to the producer, before the labels (added relatively late in the process) were attached.

"Broad subset" is a maths term, but used (in this context) to mean a wide-ranging, not too specific, category. It's not computer jargon.

New Folder: if you use Windows, locate Windows Explorer (in Windows xP) or a similar window, listing all your directories. Later versions of Windows (there are plenty) may have renamed this: perhaps other contributors can help? Click 'File', then 'New', then 'Folder'. This appears, called 'New Folder', in the visible pane listing all the folders in that directory. While its name is still highlit, type in a new name for it. You can also achieve this by typing Alt-key & 'F' at the same time, then 'W', 'F' in succession. Learning that quick sequence is faster than using a mouse, if you want to make lots of new folders one after the other (it will react as fast as you can type it).

Windows xP still has a program called Notepad, very basic* , but does all you want to store information. (Win 7, 8 & later may have dispensed with it). Find it from 'Start' [button], 'All Programs', 'Accessories'. The files created will almost certainly be saved in your My Documents folder, from where you can drag them (in bulk, if you know how to do that) to the New Folder you've just renamed.
*e.g. you can't format the text: I'd use CAPS to distinguish the title, and use the Tab-key to separate different groups of information, such as Artist, Title, Record Label, Date [when you find it], Condition, etc. in the same order, one per line. It doesn't matter if the text spills over into the next line, or shifts what you've typed left-wards off the screen [click' Edit', 'Word Wrap' to cure that], that's still all one "line"., to the computer; until you press Enter to create a new line.

Hope you haven't got a Mac, 'cos this info will be of little use to a non-techie!!

As Dave the Gnome suggests, it would be more useful to enter this in a spreadsheet but, if you're a technophobe, the basic word-processor is less frightening. Hope this helps.

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02 Dec 15 - 03:00 PM (#3755194)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: cnd

Paul Clark basically summed up all of your confusion for me. To answer DMcG, yes, it can take a little while, but what I do is record a whole side first and then go back and split it; I've found that to be somewhat faster. However, if Lin isn't all that interested in keeping it individual tracks, she can just record the whole side, or not worry about recording it at all. I usually just find something else I'd be doing anyway and come back every 1/2 hour or so.

My version of Windows (maybe 8 or 8.1 or something?) still has Notepad. The easiest way to do it is find and click on a file folder (they look like your standard manila folder). On the left should be an area of most commonly used/important links. There should be one called "Music" if you have pretty much any version of Windows. Double-click that to enter it. Once there, you have two options: a) you can make them part of a broader list, or b) just put each folder there. By broader list, you can categorize that however you want. You can organize by instrument, year (if known), etc, or just leave it by name.

To make the Notepad .txt documents, go into the folder of the artist you want and then hit right click, find "New" from the pop-up, and then click "Text Document," but if yours doesn't have that, you can follow Paul Clarke's suggestion.

Music recording is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. I'll put up a link later on how to do it and download the recorder, etc. The only other component you can't download online would be an audio recorder. You can get a decent one at a techy store (like Best Buy or something, or they may be able to send to you a store with such components), or you can buy one online (but that may be above your ability levels, no offense, if you can't make a folder). I personally use a Behringer UCA 202, which is fairly easy to use.

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06 Dec 15 - 06:28 PM (#3756257)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: Bill D

Lin... if YOU are not tech savvy, perhaps you know someone who is. If you live in a metropolitan area, there is probably a folk group... or at least a few who remember the 60s & 70s and who might like to have some of that music in return for helping organize it and do 'techie' stuff with it.

Otherwise, you are down to picking some arbitrary system.. (artist's last name, group name, 'favorites', style (acoustic solo, bluegrass, traditional) whatever YOU think of them. (some things may even be temporarily done by album color - Folk Legacy records were all black at one time, and I kept them together.

After that, it's just pencil & paper and 3X5 cards. People made do with such things for a long time.
Digital photos with album names might help... but those require a minimum of techie filing to store them on a computer.

My first suggestion... getting local help... is what I'd recommend.

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06 Dec 15 - 08:06 PM (#3756281)
Subject: RE: Categorizing Hundreds of Obscure Lps
From: TonyGillespie

Hey, Guest Lin. I agree with the Discogs answer. It's a good way to organize.

If you are interested in selling, I would be interested in chatting with you. I have a large Folk LP collection, and I am always looking to add to it! Please email me if you want. [e-mail]

Thx, Tony

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