Suggestions for Cataloging A Vinyl Collection

[wheelersaw]

I'm relatively new to OCD, although I've had it for awhile. I will be using it to catalog my father's record collection (4000+) that I've inhierited.

I would like to ask those more experienced users for any suggesstions, tips or tricks that will make my cataloging easier. I have discovered the Vinyl Side option which is very cool.

How do I input special characters for the French and German words?

Where can I find the album art for the older albums?

Are there suggestions for scanning in the album cover with a typical scanner?

Any suggestions will be appreciated. I am a sponge just waiting to soak up the combined knowledge of all these experienced users. :D

My thanks in advance.

[gurnemanz]

Foreign characters are not a problem.

You can use the alt key + the number pad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A978636

I use a very good freeware program which gives a lot of extra options, e.g. entering chunks of often-used text (such as your email address) via a keyboard shortcut.

http://allchars.zwolnet.com/

[Jazz_North]

Foreign characters are not a problem.

You can use the alt key + the number pad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A978636

I use a very good freeware program which gives a lot of extra options, e.g. entering chunks of often-used text (such as your email address) via a keyboard shortcut.

http://allchars.zwolnet.com/

And all the keycodes are available (for those using some form of Windows) under Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Character Map. Easy enough to make up a simple cheat sheet for those you use regularly.

[wheelersaw]

Excellent help, Thank you. I am working with the links provided by gurnemanz. Jazz_North, I had forgotten about the built in character mapping provided with Windows. I am checking them all out to see what works best for me. Thanks again.

Going forward do either of you, or anyone else for that matter, have suggestions, tips or tricks for cataloging vinyl albums. I'm finding it quite tedious. I'm currently using the notes tab to record the jacket notes. That's a lot of typing.

What about cover art? Any suggestions for getting the entire cover scanned in? Right now, I'm working with Paint.net to merge two scans into one.

[Tony]

What kind of music is in the collection that your dad amassed?

I have a large collection of vinyl ablums (mostly rock).

I don't know how fussy you are about the cover art, however, this is what I do:

Very often the artwork for a CD is very close to the artwork for a LP of the same title.

Many LPs are in CD format and can be found on freedb. Load the data into OCD and edit as you see fit. Then go to the taskbar and do an internet search for "artist & album" I use Google.

When that comes up you can click on "show images" and if you're lucky, the cover may be there. If not, use the "search within results" at the bottom and type in the LP number. then it narrows it down and you may find your cover art somewhere in there.

Once you find the cover you want, right click on it and click copy. Then go to the album in your OCD, click the artwork tab and then paste.

There are loads of sites on the internet that have album artwork. I find a lot of them In something called "Rate Your Music" and another called "Musicstacks". I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can probably search through Racks and Tags and find album artwork to copy and paste. I haven't tried it.

Hope this was of some use to you.

[Jazz_North]

I have found allmusic.com a good source for cd covers (and for other info about a release). If the cd cover is the same as the album, then that would be a place for lots of them (assuming a cd version exists).

Other sources you might want to look at (depending on the genre):

http://www.lpdiscography.com/

http://www.discogs.com/

[wheelersaw]

Tony, The albums that I've inherited cover all genres from classical to rock 'n' roll. There are even a few new age albums. The oldest album in the collection is from the mid 1950's and the newest is mid 1980's.

The suggestion to look for CD cover art is a good one and has worked for albums from the 70's and 80's. It's when I start looking for cover art for albums from the 60's and earlier that I run into a brick wall. The original publisher's don't even list the albums anymore. Not surprising.

For those older albums, here's what I've started doing. I scan the cover of the actual album. This takes two scans, one for the right and left sides. Since there is overlap with the two scans, I use Paint.net to merge the two scan images. I wind up with one huge file. I'm playing around with options to reduce the file size and get the image to a size I can use with OCD.

Many thanks for the sites you and Jazz_North suggested. I will definitely do some exploring on them.

Thanks again to all who've contributed.

[krisheding]

I'm also working on adding vinyl singles and albums to my database, and it's more difficult than I thought it would be!

As for finding album artwork, I've been searching Google (and Google image search), music rarities sites (eil.com, gemm.com) music catalogue sites (musicstack.com) and band/artist websites (official and unofficial) to find album art. Ebay has been helpful at times, too.

I haven't started adding LPs and 12" singles yet, but I think albums will be easier since the artwork is typically the same if it's been released on CD, so most music sites will have the images for those. With some of the more obscure or older albums, though...I think I'll have to do some scouring.

As for scanning the covers in, my scanner isn't big enough to scan the entire cover of an LP at once, so I have to scan it in in two parts and "piece" it together in Photoshop. It's a pain, but it works fairly well. If you have a good digital camera, you could always take a photo of the cover and crop it in Photoshop or similar program.

As for scanning, I scan the left side of the cover first, and then the right side. The key is to make absolutely sure the album is perfectly straight in the scanner, or else your two sides won't match up.

Hope this helps, even a wee bit!

Kris

[wheelersaw]

Kris,

Thank you very much for your post. I didn't know about the websites you mentioned for music rarities. I will definitely look into those.

The suggestion for using a digital camera is a good one. I had not thought of that. I was focusing on trying to use my scanner. I guess I've been a bit too close to the problem to see the answer.

Thanks again for your post.

Steve

[Vanija]

I use the Panorama Maker SW

http://www.arcsoft.com/products/panoramamakerpro/

It's a good way to merge thw scan of LP covers

[davidagbr]

My solution to adding 12", 10" and oversized packaging was simple... I photograph everything using a digital camera fixed to a copystand! I've made a note of the settings I need for each format (ie camera height etc), the base is marked so I put each format in the same position. This way I always get uniform results... no messing around with joining two or more images, just simple cropping and resizing. And it's much faster than scanning as well (at least when doing multiple covers).

Just thought I'd through that into the pot!

Cheers,

David