Music Collections: How Do You Store Yours?
This has come out of another thread when I mentioned owning 3,000 CDs and Barry asked how I catalogue them all, and Garry (quadsugdenman) asked how I store them - so rather than crap all over the other thread, here's a new topic for all of us to share our methods in the madness!
Firstly, I am completely anal about my CDs, they have to be in alphabetical order, and chronologically for each artist. I don't Catalogue my CDs as such, but the first thing I do is rip the CD to itunes, in AAC format, 256kbps, which is purely for use on my ipod or for streaming background music. (I may revisit this now data storage is so cheap, but that's another story.) I have an old laptop dedicated to being a music server with a 250GB external hard-drive (+ another 2 backups kept separately) connected to the Caiman by USB and I also use this for Spotify or internet radio through the Hifi.
I'm also fanatical about getting the album artwork right in itunes. Apart from having a (lower quality) copy of the audio for ipod duties, the spin-off is that itunes now becomes my CD database - because I have only ever downloaded a few tracks, virtually everything on itunes represents a physical CD. This means I can use the search facility to find a track or artist, and see exactly which CD I need to find. This is also great for double-checking I'm not buying a duplicate! :doh: Has happened a few times anyway! So that's how I "catalogue" my collection. I can also access the server remotely from my main laptop by my listening position and view all the tracks/albums etc.
Now to storage then. Unfortunately, I just don't have the room to keep CDs in their original packaging, so the first thing I do is to recycle the jewel cases. I keep the sleeve notes, and put them with the CD in a plastic CD wallet. These come from Tesco now, (they're the best I've found as they are the clearest) although when I started doing this 10 years ago I had to order them by the thousand direct from the manufacturer (2,000 lasted me about 7 years.) I then take the back paper cover/track list and these are eventually stored in the loft, along with any "digipacs" - I just keep the CD on its own in a sleeve.
What this means is that effectively I "compress" my collection to 1/4 of it's size. I put all of the main artist CDs into separate CD boxes - like this one ("I to Ku", but it doesn't matter (bonus point for spotting what is the one sticking up...)) The boxes are designed to take 25 CDs in cases, but by slimming them down I can get around 100 in each.
http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/u...jpg?1278155039
There are 15 of the main artist boxes, giving around half of the main collection. However, there are some artists who haven't been thinned down - i.e The Beatles and Depeche Mode - recently acquired all the remasters and these are kept separately. You can see the top 3 shelves in the filing cupboard are for the "artist" albums:
http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1278155271
Hard to see, but the bottom shelf is double-stacked - so there are 10 boxes on this shelf - which explains the bowing (it's not the lens!) This is all my compilation albums, of which I seem to have rather a lot - as well as classical, SACDs and anything that hasn't made it into my main collection - stuff I will never likely play again, which doesn't "pollute" the main collection!
CD Singles and more stuff that is even less likely to get played again (free CDs from magazines, HMV samplers etc.) are stored upstairs in a spare bedroom, along with my vinyl albums and 12" singles:
http://i653.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1278155596
Because I tend to play vinyl upstairs more than downstairs I have been happy with the arrangement, but in an ideal world, I would like to get everything in one room. I rarely play CD singles, usually playing the itunes version if there is something I want to hear.
I would love to be able to have kept all the CDs in their original cases on proper shelves but it is only now that I would have had anywhere near enough room (I lived in a small flat until 5 years ago after divorce from the first wife, so something had to give.)
So there you go - blame Barry & Garry - they did ask!
How do you do yours?
