Recommend good software for cataloging my library of vinyl music

September 24, 2010 6:52 PM

Looking for the best solution for cataloging my vinyl collection - is collectorz.com's Music Collector my best bet, or is there something more customizable and/or tailored to vinyl collectors?

Due to my parents' recent retirement and downsizing, I've found myself in possession of a hefty collection of vinyl - 300-400 LPs, 200 or so 45s, and a small collection of 78s. My long dormant love of vinyl has been rekindled in a big way, and I now find myself in need of a good system for tracking what I have in my collection.

In the past, I've used collectorz.com software for books & movies, so I'm strongly considering picking up their Music Collector to catalog my vinyl. One big upside I've already discovered is that their database has some pretty obscure vinyl already scanned and tracked, which would cut down on the amount of info I'd need to input. One big downside is that in order to be able to customize field names and export XML/CSV, I'd have to get the Pro version ($50, vs. $25 for the standard). Before I make that kind of commitment ($50 can buy a lot of sweet vinyl!), I'd like to know if there are other good options out there. Are there any fellow vinyl addicts who are currently cataloging their library with something else? Any Music Collector users want to weigh in with the pros & cons they've found?

posted by Banky_Edwards to Technology (5 answers total)

Discogs is pretty great for this. It's online only, but you can download your collection and wantlist as CSV and do with it what you will. They also offer full data dumps of the database, so I wouldn't be surprised if Collectorz, et al are using that data for their "scanning and tracking." I'd compare before plunking down the Grant.
posted by rhizome at 9:50 PM on September 24, 2010

Best answer: I'm using CATraxx for a collection of 6000+ items, around 1/3 of which are vinyl. I can't say how well it compares to Music Collector other than to say Music Collector looks prettier. But CATraxx is deeply customizable, and imports from a variety of sources including Discogs. I'm very pleased with it.

(Personally I wouldn't be able to stand maintaining my collection in Discogs—I capture way more fields than they bother to track, and the data entry UI is really cumbersome compared to what you can do with a desktop app.)
posted by Lazlo at 12:56 AM on September 25, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks guys. Discogs is definitely where Music Collector is getting the obscure vinyl stuff, so I will take CATraxx for a spin and see how it compares.
posted by Banky_Edwards at 8:17 PM on September 25, 2010

Response by poster: Hot damn, Lazlo - you weren't kidding about CATraxx. It has more fields than I can even imagine needing and more features than I'll probably ever understand, but I feel confident that I can start cataloging my collection without fear that I'll someday want to include information that doesn't fit. Big thanks for the tip! (And thanks rhizome for pointing out that MC's info was coming from Discogs; I assumed it was some kind of proprietary database from their users.)
posted by Banky_Edwards at 11:09 PM on September 25, 2010

Glad to hear it worked out! I hunted for years to find something that actually could track everything I wanted to track.
posted by Lazlo at 10:04 AM on September 26, 2010