| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| wcerto |
Posted - 02/10/2012 : 04:27:01 AM
We have so many CDs. Paul has them loosely organized, first into genre, i.e., bluegrass, Hawaiian, blues, etc. Needless to say, we have an abundance of CDs and I can't find anything when I am looking for something specific. He took the Hawaiian music and sorted the drawers of CDs into things like "Sons of Hawai'i" and "Gabby and Sons" and I think he has one with "Hui `Ohana, Dennis Pavao, Ledward and Nedward solo". He says he does not do them alphabetically, because when you get a new one, you have to organize your drawers all over again to fit one new one it.
How do you guys do it? Do you have manageable systems. Maybe you get more room than we do?
Mahalo for any advice. |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Curtis |
Posted - 04/04/2012 : 4:32:45 PM
Aloha All:
I love the debate over the necessary sound quality needed to enjoy music. I have had this debate a number of times with a bassist friend of mine.
The extreme of this is the debate over whether it is desireable to "capture" the live essence of music in a recording at all.
I still buy cd's of the music I really care about [maybe 10 cds or so a year], but then burn those cds into electronic format. I buy electronic format otherwise unless I can't find it that way. In electronic format I can arrange the music in any fashion I want. With quite a number of genres if I find a song I absolutely love, with time I can figure out how to play it, or at least approximate it and play it live for myself/my friends... (Though I am lagging in this as regards to slack key... :-) )
One of my best friends has the best stereo system I've ever heard, and has all of his music in very high grade electronic format that he can access anywhere on a variety of systems via the cloud... His philosophy is that he wants to listen to music sound that is as close to the live sound as possible given that he can't go to many live shows. He has tons of live performances...
In the end, he and I are both right, I think...
Mahalo,
Curtis |
| Kapila Kane |
Posted - 03/31/2012 : 2:27:54 PM
Of course I love to hear the old wax as played on the good stuff!
BUT, for practical realities, when I actually have time to listen, it's (sorry Lawrence) THE CAR! Which really isn't so bad since I got the Lexus,--but those darn studded snow tires were a terrible distraction.
Not now since I mounted the fronts and backs out of phase, it's quiet as a moose.
Just a little trick learned from Neal Cassidy, on those icy, winter bus trips! ?
"Lookin' for my wallet and my car keys, well they can't have gone too far...as soon as I find my glasses, I'll know just where they are!" |
| ypochris |
Posted - 03/23/2012 : 5:19:50 PM
The Case Logic nylon binders others have mentioned, leaving an empty slot in each page for new music- arranged alphabetically, except Hawaiian and classical are in their own sections.
Unfortunately I had a couple of binders in a house I was rehabbing, and they disappeared along with my tools, so now my collection ends at "S" (although luckily the Hawaiian was in the front). My wife gave me an I-pod, so I could copy everything (closing the barn door after the cows were gone), but being old school I, too, can't deal with the low quality of MP3 format, earbuds, and what many people today call "music"... Good to hear I'm not the only one! |
| Kapila Kane |
Posted - 03/22/2012 : 09:25:14 AM
Organize?
If nobody else moves anything on my piles of cd's and wax, I know exactly about where each is...hey wait, something moved on my stacks, and nobody was near it.
that explains the calls from Oprah and Jerry Springer, for
"Is your spouse a pack rat slacker scum?." |
| wcerto |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 5:38:23 PM
Shawnie, don't make Jeni psychotic. What a mean thing to do to a librarian. lol.
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| dragonfly213 |
Posted - 02/29/2012 : 2:51:56 PM
Shawn says his CDs are by genre in books. HOWEVER, his cassette collection resides in two giant bins, any ole way. And his librarian wife is NOT ALLOWED to touch them. No worries, I've been seeing a therapist (haha!) :) |
| hwnmusiclives |
Posted - 02/17/2012 : 04:19:12 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Retro
quote:
Originally posted by hwnmusiclives
... until you hear the same recording on a 180g virgin vinyl on a vintage Denon DP-54F turntable played using a Yaqin MS-22B tube preamp and twin MacIntosh mono block 500W power amps through a pair of Polk Lsi9 speakers.
Upon reading this, I must apologize if my drooling at the computer disturbed anyone else.
Oh, it did. It shorted out the Yaqin all the way over here. The good news is that I was hoping to strike a deal on a Music Hall Bellari VP530 tube preamp anyway.
Retro, by the age of 5, my dad nicknamed me "Dolby" in honor of my constant pursuit for better sound. I never owned a "boom box" because I got tired of the wow, flutter, and truly crappy signal-to-noise ratio of cassettes early on. I did all my mix tapes on 1/4" open reel tape at 7.5 IPS on an Akai GX-4000D. I have every piece of equipment I have ever owned.
When I remaster vinyl LPs, I don't use the noise reduction in the commercially available softwares because they leave digital artifacts. In my teens, I lucked into the Holy Grails of vinyl noise reduction in the analog realm - a KLH Burwen Research TNE3000A and a similar unit by SAE. The "TNE" stands for "transient noise elimination." The clicks and pops on vinyl records are defined as transient noise because they are unexpected in the sound field (i.e. not part of the musical content). These noises are most noticeable on stereo recordings because they are typically manifested in either the left channel or the right channel - rarely both because of the design of the groove of an LP. These devices work by recreating the transient noise heard in one channel in the other channel as well, and because both ears are experiencing the noise at the same time, the brain is tricked into thinking there is no noise at all. This was conceived of by the great audio engineer Dick Burwen. Using both the Burwen and SAE units in tandem, I can eliminate about 95% of a record's noise before it even gets to the computer. (LEDs on these units visually demonstrate the clicks and pops as they are being removed - allowing you to see what you can no longer hear. An "invert" switch allows you to hear only the clicks and pops being removed without the music - proof again that these devices work miracles.) Starting with a cartridge and stylus on your turntable designed specifically to track damaged recordings is a plus, too. All needles are not created equal.
Ask me about the equipment in the rooms that aren't my music studio. 
As for the digital realm, after years of searching, I found the only sound card with a signal-to-noise ratio of 124db. If anyone is listening strictly to digital sources now or doing a lot of conversion from vinyl to MP3 (Norm?), ask me about this sound card.
Steel guitar wizard Jeff Au Hoy is a bit of an audiophile himself. We spend countless hours talking about the merits of such things as Rudy Van Gelder's engineering techniques or what kind of equipment George Ching used to get those sounds on those 49th State Records. Jeff puts my thoughts succinctly: "The last step in the audio chain will always be analog - your ears." At least, for now.
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| Retro |
Posted - 02/16/2012 : 10:49:46 AM
quote:
Originally posted by hwnmusiclives
... until you hear the same recording on a 180g virgin vinyl on a vintage Denon DP-54F turntable played using a Yaqin MS-22B tube preamp and twin MacIntosh mono block 500W power amps through a pair of Polk Lsi9 speakers.
Upon reading this, I must apologize if my drooling at the computer disturbed anyone else. |
| hwnmusiclives |
Posted - 02/16/2012 : 07:37:30 AM
quote:
Originally posted by markwitz
The main reason I have gone digital is that my turn table tends to skip while I'm driving in my van.
Life is full of compromises. How else am I going to be able to listen to all my LPs, 45s and 78 as I drive? Not to mention those episodes of Ho'olohe Hou that I have on my iPod. Why just the other day I was re listening to "Steel Guitar In The 50's" in all it's glorious 128 kb sound.
I will need to scan a page from the most recent issue of Stereophile magazine and the latest in suspension systems that allow your LP turntable to ride in the backseat skip-free.
I completely understand the convenience aspect. I have 150,000 MP3s of my own on a 2TB drive that goes with me on long weekends to the Jersey Shore. But one does not begin to understand the music that is missed or lost in even the highest quality MP3 until you hear the same recording on a 180g virgin vinyl on a vintage Denon DP-54F turntable played using a Yaqin MS-22B tube preamp and twin MacIntosh mono block 500W power amps through a pair of Polk Lsi9 speakers. I think it has probably been two generations since so-called "music fans" have heard music the way it was intended to be heard when created the first time in the orchestra hall or the studio.
At the Grammy Awards last Sunday evening, Elliott Scheiner won - again - for Best Surround Sound Recording for his remastering of Derek and the Dominoes' "Layla." And rightfully so. Listening to this recording through six channels reveals information many thought never previously existed.
And to relate this to another thread here, I wonder what aspect of the information lost by converting music to an MP3 is an aspect that would cause - or not cause - the listener to have "chicken skin?" How do you know what you're missing if you've never heard it?
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| markwitz |
Posted - 02/13/2012 : 12:42:44 PM
quote:
Originally posted by hwnmusiclives
I am not going to even broach the subject of converting CDs (or even LPs) to MP3s for iTunes. Unless, of course, you have reached the age where you seriously can claim you cannot hear the difference. There is definitely a difference, and not just one your dog can hear.
The main reason I have gone digital is that my turn table tends to skip while I'm driving in my van.
Life is full of compromises. How else am I going to be able to listen to all my LPs, 45s and 78 as I drive? Not to mention those episodes of Ho'olohe Hou that I have on my iPod. Why just the other day I was re listening to "Steel Guitar In The 50's" in all it's glorious 128 kb sound. |
| hwnmusiclives |
Posted - 02/13/2012 : 07:19:44 AM
I have 3,000 CDs, 10,000 LPs, 2,000 DVDs, and assorted media. My first rule is never to use a shelving system that does not allow for expansion. So no CD racks that have a slot for every CD as I would spend my life shifting them left and right one slot at a time.
I use the Expedit system from Ikea for the vinyl LPs (sturdiest thing that will hold vinyl, which gets heavy) and a generic Target rack system (pressboard, for the most part) for CDs and DVDs. There are section dividers for the CDs and DVDs, but each section holds at least 50 titles So I never cram a section full. I leave room for the next CD or DVD acquired.
I file by genre, artist last name, artist first name, then date of release.
I am not going to even broach the subject of converting CDs (or even LPs) to MP3s for iTunes. Unless, of course, you have reached the age where you seriously can claim you cannot hear the difference. There is definitely a difference, and not just one your dog can hear.
I recently chastized an up-and-coming group for spending so much money on studio time, mixing, and mastering for an album that most of their fans are going to rip to 128kbps MP3s and listen to with Skullcandy earbuds. Gone are the days, I suppose, when folks invited over their friends to show off their "hi-fi." Musicians tend to appreciate this assertion more than others since they know what the music sounded like when it first came out of their heads and hands, and they would like it to sound as close to that as possible when it reaches somebody's ears.
~ Bill
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| Retro |
Posted - 02/12/2012 : 08:05:24 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Auntie Maria
Small bit of radio industry info to share -- radio stations which have CD libraries, file them alpha-by-artist-first-name. Sooooooo confusing!
Some do, some don't. All the stations I worked for filed by genre, then alpha by artist last name.
Except for Classical music, because there are often multiple composers or artists on a single disc - in many cases, we first filed alpha by record company (Albany, Bis, Columbia, DG, Erato, ...), then numerically by catalog number within each company's section. This only works if you can cross-reference by a searchable database. In several jobs, it was my responsibility to develop and/or maintain said database. |
| thumbstruck |
Posted - 02/12/2012 : 07:25:16 AM
I need a better shelf system. I just grab something to listen to in the truck. |
| Auntie Maria |
Posted - 02/12/2012 : 05:53:21 AM
Interesting thread here -- and I use a mix of what's been listed by others (CDs by genre on different shelves, cassettes in box in closet, vinyls in storage bench of our dining banquette) all in alpha-order by artist's last name).
We invested in a large, beautiful carved wooden cabinet from Bali about 10 years ago, which houses all my island CDs. Would post picture here, but am not that technically adept. 
All genre (CDs, tapes and vinyls) are in mp3 format on the laptop which is my dedicated music library machine (from which I do my radio broadcasts).
Small bit of radio industry info to share -- radio stations which have CD libraries, file them alpha-by-artist-first-name. Sooooooo confusing! |
| neeej |
Posted - 02/11/2012 : 10:26:10 AM
1st sort is by genre. Then each CD is assigned a letter (HM for Hawaiian, f'rinstance)& a number. These are entered into a database, and the CDs themselves are shelved by genre/number. Every once in a while, I print out an updated copy of the Hawaiian ones, sorted by artist, so I don't have to dash off to the computer to find what I want :-) |
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