Tag Archives: Music - Page 8

Filling In The Cracks In The Collection

Posted by on June 15, 2015 No comments

As I’ve previously noted, I have finished the acquisition phase of my CD collection.  I have also completed the scanning of the cover art.  The results of this have been added to Flickr and also as a series of pages for other’s benefit.  To increase the benefits, I decided to contribute to a music metadata website.

I think I’d been through this before, and I had a big internal debate as to whether to use MusicBrainz or Discogs.  Initially, I chose Musicbrainz, but something didn’t sit well with me during that experience and I gave it up pretty quickly.  Recently, I submitted some missing information to Discogs and it went a lot smoother.  So I think I’ve found my home, there.  History shows I’ve said that before and ended up disappointed.  We’ll see.

Discogs seems to be more of what I want anyway, because they focus on collectors, which is more and more how I view myself and my CDs.  So, not only do you simply submit information, you also consume that information by tracking which CDs you own.  I started doing that sporadically.  I’m about half-way through with over 300 of my 600+ albums logged.

The problem is, when you are logging a collectable, you have to be very specific as to which collectible you have.  In the case of albums, each album can be released under different labels in different countries under different catalog numbers.  So as I was logging my collection on the website, I was pretty much choosing the most likely candidate from the multiple choices.

To be the most accurate (and there is a benefit to being accurate), I would have to have the CD in front of me to make sure I was choosing the right one, with the right label and catalog number.  Instead of doing that, I decided I should record the Label, Barcode, and Catalog Number in the files’ metadata, so I can refer to them as needed.  So, for a little while each day, I sit in font of my CD rack with my laptop and record that data into the files.

I had previously used Windows Media Player’s metadata feature to try and add all missing info using their metadata services.  As I was going through and adding the actual info from my CDs, I discovered how inaccurate the results really were.  How could an application determine what label the CD was on, when all it has is a ripped audio file?  For every album I had to change from Sony to Columbia or anything else, I got really irritated.  Not so much that it was wrong, because I understand how it could be wrong, but more because I could have been put in a position of giving bad information.  I insist on being as truthful and accurate as possible.

One of the benefits of being accurate is that Discogs can value your collection based on prior sales of the same item.  Of course, if you have a common or a rare release of an album, that can make a big difference in its value, so accuracy is important.  Being about half-way through my collection, and with moderate accuracy, my collection has a median value of $1500.  I have some CDs worth $60 and some worth $.75.

Completion

Posted by on May 18, 2015 No comments

Today, I purchased the remaining CDs to complete my collection of the entire MCA Master Series catalog: 44 CDs released between 1986 and 1990, including one album with vocals and a rare special issue compilation included with BMW vehicles from that era. 

I thought I was done at 42 CDs. I knew about the country/vocal album put out at the very end of the MCA Master Series label’s life and I wanted to purposely disregard it because it has no interest to me.  I never had any hope of finding the BMW CD, since it was made so long ago in probably an incredibly small quantity and who would keep something like a promo CD with a new car?  However, as fate would have it, the completion of my collection came in a fortunate wave.  The two expensive holdouts became available for less than I’d seen before, a search for the rare BMW CD returned a hit, and the vocals album was available for a penny.  In a flurry of purchases, I was done, and done more than I even expected.  That is the completion of Phase 1 of my music plan. 

The status of Phase 2 – the scanning of all CD covers – is pretty sad.  I have a LOT of CDs and little free time and even less time where I am motivated to work on them, especially when a batch of scans came out poorly and I have to rescan them.  So I think I will reprioritize the scanning to focus on only the MCA Master Series covers so I can move on to Phase 3.

Phase 3 is the printing and framing of the CD artwork.  I don’t exactly have a plan for this just yet.  More on this to come…

The Same And Different

Posted by on March 21, 2015 No comments

Last night, I got the strange urge to play the keyboard.  Although my posts make me sound like it’s something I do all the time or it’s something that I’m constantly re-inspiring myself to do, the truth is, I don’t play all that much.

So, when I sat down, I kind of bopped around wondering what I should play and if there was anything I could still remember.  Then it started coming back to me again.  And I played and I kept on playing.  As would be expected, my stamina wasn’t all that great and my accuracy on the notes was a little faulty, but for the most part, my hands went where they should have.

Today, I played a little more.  I guess my hands got a little sore from the workout last night because I couldn’t play as much.  But while I was playing, I did my little daydreaming about being a rock star (or some kind of star).  I thought about how my technique was crap and how I may get criticism for how “poorly” I play.

But then the realization dawned on me that some of the most innovative players were not formally trained and had a style of playing that was unconventional.  Why should I be any different.  In fact, I might say that it would require a personal technique in order to play in an unheard fashion.  And it would make it harder for someone to imitate you.  You would have your unique sound because it’s done with a playing style only you know.

And that naturally made me think outside the world of music at how having your own style for everything is important.  It’s not good to be exactly like the crowd, but you do need to have some “accessibility.”  I’ve heard a lot of music that doesn’t sit right with me and I’ve seen a lot of people that just don’t sit right with me as well.  Maybe people should strive to be unique and accessible.  Although lately, I think that some people are taking the individualism stuff a little too far.

And, as an off-topic aside, playing keyboards yesterday and today made a significant change in my typing: faster and more accurate.  I had been lamenting lately how bad my typing was becoming because I could barely type a sentence without having a typo.  I’d be constantly stopping and correcting things and it was slowing me down drastically.  I think I may have just found a solution for this.  That’s a happy discovery.

All Things Considered

Posted by on November 18, 2014 No comments

Since I’ve been working on my CD collection, I’ve been thinking about CDs a lot lately. There’s a lot of talk on the death of the CD format, with it being replaced by digital downloads. On top of that, there’s talk about the music industry not making any money anymore. On top of that, there’s the discussion of digital piracy and how to get people to pay for music again.

All these issues are intertwined.  The industry is losing money in some areas, but not in all.  Part of it is because of the third point, piracy, but another good part of it is that there are now multiple, durable playback mediums.  CDs are very durable, and where they may fail, digital copies and CDRs fill in the gaps.  So the industry doesn’t have the opportunities to resell an entire collection to a consumer in a new format, and the instances where the industry has to sell replacements has decreased, too.  You can see the industry trying to adapt by selling special editions and remastered versions.  It’s not working out all that well.

Some say the CD is dead for the same reason “books are dead” – because the physical media takes up space.  I recently read about a company whose purpose is to license out-of-print classical music and create CDs on-demand.  It made me wonder if the entire music business could be like this.  (I’ve also wondered if automobile sales could be like this, too.)

My issue with that concept is that CDRs do have a limited shelf life.  Supposedly, aluminum CDs also have a shelf life, but that is yet widely proven.  Also, for me, buying a CDR is no different than downloading the music and making the CDR myself.  So, unless someone is willing to archive the glass masters and one-off actual CDs, I’ll stick with my originals.

So, let’s think of the future where manufacturing CDs is obsolete and digital or CDR is pretty commonplace.  In that time, real CDs have value – they are elevated to collectables.  So, why can’t the industry make that happen a little sooner?  Just manufacture less CDs and let the market decide who wants to pay to own a physical copy of the music instead of owning a license to a digital copy.  The CD becomes the collectable.  The industry saves money from having a lower on-hand inventory.  CDs gain a marketing edge as “limited quantity”.

In some of my daydreams where I am a famous musician or maybe the owner of a record label company, I would brainstorm how to make my albums valuable and how to get people to buy instead of steal.  A long time ago, I thought including a video with the album would be a nice value-add.  Back then, digitally copying a DVD was prohibitive in storage and bandwidth.  Not so much anymore.  And now today, lots of special edition albums include a behind-the-scenes DVD.  So then what?  I also thought about books.  Books are more difficult to reproduce digitally and don’t hold the same allure when seen on a screen.  A recent album I purchased was being sold direct by the record label as a bundle with a DVD, a shirt and a poster.  It was 3x what I paid for it, but I think that’s a nice option.  Whatever the solution is, it has to be physical, because digital has no value.

And maybe in the future, the only physical thing needed to make the album special will be the CD itself.

Time, Money, and Music

Posted by on October 22, 2014 No comments

imageHere’s an update to my music label collection: I am down to six remaining CDs.  This leads to the questions, “what’s next?” and “and then what?”

Well, the next thing is CD cover scanning, so I have pristine artwork for all my CDs.  Over time, reissues and re-releases will change the cover artwork, usually to the album’s detriment.  For example, all the Ozzy Osbourne covers got some massive, dumb border around them, with the actual album artwork in a tiny box in the middle.  Who came up with that stupid idea?

So, yeah, I want my album artwork to be exactly like my CDs.  And, I want some album artwork framed and hanging on my walls.  But then what?  I think the next step is owning a real listening stereo system (again).

What’s up with that graphic?  That was the image I got when thinking about owning a high-quality stereo system.  Right now, I can get by with my home theater system, but there is a certain appeal to having a real stereo, with dedicated speakers and amplifier, and components.  Why?  I have a computer with every CD ripped to lossless format playing through studio monitor speakers in my office.  Why this?

Let me first explain the graphic.  I think that owning a dedicated listening stereo is the realm of young, single men and old, retired men.  Exceptions abound, but bear with me.  The graph illustrates the likelihood of owning a stereo between the start and end of your adult life.  Yes, I had a great system in my 20’s.  I got into a stupid relationship and sold it all off for pennies at a garage sale.  Now, 20 years later, I am reconsidering the purchase again.  I’m not sure now is the time though.  Maybe a little later.  When I thought of why now might not be the right time, my rationale illuminated why the parabolic curve makes sense.  It’s about time.

Being young, single and free, you have the free time to indulge in nothing but music.  The same freedom applies once you are an empty-nester or a retiree.  You can also apply this to book-reading or really, any hobbies you had to give up because of the rat race of life.  For me, I’m not sure I’m nearing the end of the rat race yet, but I want to slow down, definitely.  I can say I haven’t exactly disliked any point in my life so far.  I sacrificed some things at certain points that may or may not have been wise.  But overall, life’s been good to me.

Now, about that stereo.  Why is that something to desire?  This sentiment would probably be shared by many hobbyists who have had their hobbies “stolen” by modern convenience.  There is an effort you must make when using older, dedicated equipment.  One might go so far as to say there is a ritual involved.  It’s the performing of the ritual that matters.  If you don’t do it right, the results won’t be good, or said another way, the more precise you are performing the ritual, the better the results will be.  And you can take pride in that.

Sure, the ritual of listening to an album involves choosing a cd, placing it in the tray, pressing the play button, then sitting down.  But that’s more than using a wireless remote to scroll through a huge list of albums, then clicking one.  Book people, you understand.

Status Update

Posted by on October 4, 2014 No comments

After returning from a refreshing vacation, it’s time to jump back into the collection plan.  The current status is: of 42 albums, I now own 26 and 6 are in transit, leaving 10 left to purchase.

My current mantra is, “Why am I not listening to music?”  There’s a ridiculous number of times that I catch myself just working in silence.  I’m spending a good amount of money to complete this music collection.  At the very least, I should be listening to it.  Geez.  But, I have found some very good music that I am glad to have.

And I did get most of my music ripped to lossless before the vacation.  I say most, because I used Exact Audio Copy and there are some discs that had some errors in ripping and some discs that I had to skip complete tracks.  So, there’s going to have to be a second round of ripping to recover what I didn’t get the first time.

And then somewhere in the future lies the CD cover scanning, which I will use for artwork, both digitally and physically.

Genres, Generalizations, and Generations

Posted by on September 4, 2014 No comments

Continuing my quest for ripping and metadata-izing my whole CD collection (currently midway though the D’s – getting through one letter a day).  And I’ve come up against the dilemma of assigning genres.

There seems to be 3 camps: don’t use genres at all, use a limited number, or go all in and use hundreds.  I’ve read a few interesting schemes as well, one being to use a limited number, then subcategorize using playlists.  That was going to be my plan, until I kind of realized something.

Looking at the Rock genre, there is a very large collection of sub-genres under it.  For example: Surf, Hard Rock, Hair Bands, British Invasion, Rock & Roll, etc.  Reading this list made me realize that the “genres” are actually few and far between, but the sub-genres can nearly be classified by release year.  Right?  Rock is different in the 50’s, the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and on and on.  Yet, it’s all Rock.  It’s the same with Heavy Metal.  The metal of the 70’s is nothing like the metal of today.  70’s metal is many times tamer than modern rock.

So I guess my plan now is the same as it was, keep a very limited number of genres and the classify things further with playlists.  But with my new insight, I can create smart playlists grouping by Year and get a pretty close approximation of a specific sub-genre.

In an semi-related topic, I had a hell of a time ripping one particular CD: The Digital Domain: A Demonstration.  This is one of those CDs that you almost need to have in lossless because its entire purpose is to demonstrate the capabilities of digital audio.  For some reason, every single track resulted in a read error when ripping with Exact Audio Copy.  I got the great idea that I could copy the disc to ISO as data instead of as audio, then mount the ISO and rip from that.  The first tool I tried, ImgBurn, hung during track analysis, so I ended up using Daemon Tools Lite, which I had installed already.  The rip from the ISO went off without a single issue, and it was fast.

Bits and Pieces, Scattered

Posted by on August 30, 2014 No comments

As my recent posts have indicated, I’m getting ready to do some serious work re-ripping and cataloging my CD collection.  It’s about a 600+ disc effort, so I want to do it as efficiently as possible.  One of the things I am having a lot of difficultly coming to terms with is whether to contribute my efforts to the public domain.

By public domain, I mean submitting highly-detailed metadata to an online database, probably MusicBrainz.  From what I’ve read and understood, this seems to be the workflow I’d have to perform:

  1. Search MB for album on website
  2. If not found, enter the new album on the website, if found, add additional data
  3. If new album, wait for submission approval
  4. Rip CD
  5. Use MB Picard to get DiscID for CD
  6. Search MB for album (hence the wait for approval) then submit the DiscID for that album
  7. Use Picard to update the metadata in ripped files from MB

The part that keeps nagging at me is the part where the metadata has to exist in the MB database before Picard can do its (only one) thing.  I am pretty sure Picard is supposed to be a database consumption application, tagging MP3 files from the MB database.  The DiscID and audio fingerprint features feel like they’re tacked on.

I was already resigned to the two-step process of ripping and then metadata cleanup, but I’m now looking at metadata entry, then ripping, then metadata refresh.  This is where I can’t tell if it’s worth the extra effort.  It’s probably worth something, because someone can use that metadata sometime.  After all, if I searched for the album and didn’t find it, someone else surely has, too.

There’s so many potential apps out there, but nothing does everything I want, and I don’t think there’s a lot I want.  The ideal application would:

  1. Look up metadata from MusicBrainz based on DiscID from CD in drive
  2. If data does not exists, prompt for it, otherwise display it and allow for editing
  3. If data changed, submit it to MusicBrainz. 
  4. Submit the DiscID if not already there
  5. Rip the CD and include the metadata in the files

Some apps do 1, 2, and 5, some do 4, some only do 5, none seem to do 3.

These are the times I wish I could have a clone of myself that would be able to do nothing but this task for a few weeks.  This is why sudden obsessions are so difficult for me.

… And I did some metadata editing on MusicBrainz.  I don’t think it’s for me.  There’s so much ambiguity, I don’t want to add any more confusion to what they have.  In my few edits, I came across a album they didn’t have – a classical compilation (damn it).  I entered the basic info and they said that my entry looks like this other album.  It was, so I copied the tracks.  Then after saving, I thought “Why didn’t I just edit the original after I learned it was there?  (and why couldn’t I find it in the first place?)”  I looked at the original and it may or may not have been the same album.  It might have been released by a different company.  So, on one hand, I could duplicate data; on the other hand, I could screw up another person’s release.  Yeah, not for me.

So I guess my decision is made.  My data is mine alone.  Selfish.  But cover art… that I can contribute, which is different post altogether.

Again, Not Thinking Ahead

Posted by on August 27, 2014 No comments

A post from 6.5 years ago (holy crap!) has come back to haunt me.  In the post, I was lamenting how I had taken a week to rip my entire CD collection to a lossless format, but then I didn’t have enough space to store it on my Zune.  I faintly remember the day I took the drastic step and deleted it all, keeping my standard-quality MP3 rips.

I’ve had a renewed interest in music again, and I was thinking about re-ripping my CDs.  Some of my rips have to be ancient, using imperfect encoding algorithms.  I’ve read a lot of advice lately and some of it I initially ignored, but now it’s starting to sink in.  I realize that I wasn’t thinking ahead before I started that forever-ago ripping process, and I wasn’t thinking ahead after the ripping either.

The first piece of advice that I shrugged off as dumb is proving to be the most important: Always rip to a lossless format.  Yeah, I did that.  It gave me a library too large to sync.  Dumbass, you transcode lower-bitrate versions for your portable devices from the lossless versions.  Well, that’s stupid, then I have two copies on my hard drive taking up space.  No you don’t.  The low-bitrate versions only exist on your portable device. 

(Insert lightbulb moment here)

In fact, the Zune software will do this for me completely automatically.  I just never gave it any consideration.  My thoughts were that I should have the highest resolution copies that the Zune could support on my hard drive.  Why would I ever need more if the device couldn’t handle it?  It’s a damn computer.  That’s the device that will.  Why, for any reason, should I limit my desktop to anything but the highest possible quality?  Now most people will rip lossless copies, then store or dispose of the physical media, but for many reasons, I won’t be doing that.

I’ve always told myself: I always have the physical versions, so I can re-rip them whenever I need a higher-quality version.  But, not thinking ahead, if I rip them at the highest quality possible, then make lower-quality versions as needed, I never have to rip again.

So, it looks like I’m going to have to start another round of lossless ripping, including a full round of metadata cleanup.  But it’s not so bad.  Encoding has become way more accurate, drive space has become plentiful, and CPU power has gotten insanely fast.  Over six years ago!

Oh, and also, I did decide to get a new hard drive for my old Zune 30.  It will be getting a 120gb replacement drive, so I should be able to hold my full collection at a better bitrate than what I currently have, even if it turns out to not be lossless.

The Next Big Thing

Posted by on August 24, 2014 No comments

Surprise obsessions are a difficult thing for me.  I started last week on a sudden quest toward a dual purpose.  Like many other inspirations of mine, it’s a race to finish the quest before the desire runs out.

I’m actually not sure where the spark came from, but it’s been something lingering inside me for a very long time.  The end result will be this: to own a complete collection of albums published under the MCA Master Series label and secondly, to create framed artwork of the album covers for my walls (copyrights be damned).

Let me explain the history of my experience with MCA Master Series.  When I was in my impressionable youth, I had acquired a home stereo, which had the new-fangled tech of the day – Digital Compact Disc – and I was building a CD collection of my own.  My stereo was monstrous, like most probably were at that time.  A full component system with receiver, dual tape deck, CD player, and the requisite 4-ft tall, 15”-woofer stereo speakers.

Around that time in my life, I was trying to figure out “who I was” and “who I wanted to be”.  One thing that I thought I wanted to be was “high-class”.  That didn’t necessarily equate to “rich” but more about appreciating art and music beyond the standard radio fare.  Let me quickly find an image that sums up my youthful vision…

…well now.  That was not a quick search at all, and this isn’t even what I think I originally had in mind, but:

image

That’s more or less what I imagined, reclining on crazy-modern couches and listening to… what?  Something pretentious classy, sure, but what was that?  I hadn’t found it yet.

As luck would have it, around that time, the MCA Master Series was releasing albums, and because I lived in a tiny dump of a city, no one would ever buy that stuff, so it ended up in my music store’s bargain bin – my default shopping section.  The first album I bought was Edgar Meyer – Dreams of Flight.  I was incredibly attracted to the cover art, because it looked as modern and abstract as I imagined my future listening room would be.  The music was clean and clear, jazz/classical, and I grew very fond of it.

Also around that time, I had read some articles mentioning the band Acoustic Alchemy and I noticed they were on the same label as Edgar Meyer.  A nearby pawn shop supplied me with these and many more of the MCA Master Series catalog.  All were enjoyed (except Booker T Jones, which is the only one I now regret throwing away) and are in my current collection.

Fast-forward to recent days and I’m finding a nostalgic desire to have that innocent dream of what my future could be – relaxing in a modern sofa (which I do have, now), listening to New Age/Jazz/Classical on a high-end audio system, maybe reading some e-books.

My adult sense of appreciation enjoys this music label for another reason.  When you put all the albums together, you have a incredibly cohesive marketing design.  There’s really something to be said for that, and it’s something that I feel might be lacking today.  Because I know the MCA Master Series is all high-quality, I can scan a rack of CDs looking for their consistent design and find something in a flash.  Using the same fonts on every album, with a dash of color for uniqueness, was a genius move.  You can see the same marketing technique if you are a Telarc or Rykodisc fan – just scan for their logo in the spine.  Windham Hill is another example, as well.

Back to the story, I’ve been hammering online sources and local sources for these really old, out-of-print CDs (yes, 30 years!).  I don’t want any reissues, if they exist.  I want these albums for the original artwork as much as the music.  Less than a week into my mission, I have purchased six missing albums.  Right now, I have 13 out of out of 43, with 4 en route, leaving 26 left to find and purchase.  I’m estimating at least $150 to finish out this collection.

What will that mean?  I’ve talked about collections again and again in my blog.  And the truth is still there.  This collection will mean nothing to anyone else but me.  But let’s discard that fact and think about phase two of the plan.  Scanning the album covers and getting them printed and framed as artwork.  Granted, some of the covers aren’t really suitable for framing, but many of them are.  Framing 43 covers?  Gah!

I’ll have to post some updates as I progress through this collection growth.