I imagine most of you feel like my daughter did when I explained much of this to her over the phone the other night. She was polite about it

no way man...i dunno about you the bit in High Fidelity about record reorganization totally struck home. i live for this stuff.

by the way, ever had a chance to see the movie Vinyl Confessions by Alan Zweig? freaky (and somewhat depressing) stuff.

My friends all think I am a freak because I have amassed just under 1000 cd's to this point. Please tell me you get a lot of promotional stuff that has landed on these shelves. I would hate to have to figure out what it would have cost me to have that many CD's.

I will only be impressed if you have:

A. "The Omen" soundtrack
B. Bay City Rollers Greatest Hits
C. any KTEL album

I seek not to impress, only to edify:
No to "The Omen"
yes to the Bay City Rollers
yes to KTEL, among others, "Body Moves: Electric Boogie"

i built this rack a couple of years ago..thinking it would last me for quite a while.

apparently, i was wrong.

Craig, I'd guess I did not pay for 25%, but I also have a lot of used, especially vinyl, and I have always been a careful shopper. I have spent a lot over the years, though, especially in the '80s when I was DJing full time and not getting too much free.

Very nice Mark, that's exactly the kind of thing I need, except floor to ceiling on all walls. This is a possibility at our house if we ever finish the basement.

i have an even worse problem with books...man, they're everywhere!

i need to buy an old abandoned library.

I recently went to the local big box entertainment megalomart, and purchased another cd shelf thingy myself, and for the first time in several years, have almost my entire cd collection in one place (it has been relegated to our unfinished basement, amongst the detritus of Christmas gifts past-anyone want a smoothie machine-broken stuff, cleaning supplies, and yes, mouse kibble. This was prompted by Brick Jr's growing stronger by the day sense of curiousity, and ability to ambulate at a disarmingly quicker rate. And yes, it was unnerving for both Mrs. Bricklayer and myself to see the little one carrying around a Cannibal Corpse cd in one hand, and a Snuggle Puppy in the other, albeit for different reasons-hey, I like to keep my stuff in good shape, and the kid has got to learn about the world someday anyways, right? Well, when I finally had my collection all in one place, on 3 different shelf thingys, I realized I must now have well over 1500 cd's (by using a similar, if much less scientific process, as Mr O's), and I realized I own a great deal of crap (bet you don't have Pete's self titled debut, "Pete".) And I have some cool stuff too (Earache's "Grindcrusher" comp from the early '90's-yeah! And the entire Jawbreaker catalog-sweet!). But, I had been telling myself I had less than a thousand cd's, somehow trying to justify my compulsive spending thefts on half.com, and assuage my guilt at spending Brick Jr's college money on the "I shot Andy Warhol" Soundtrack and completing my entire Anthrax catalog in all formats quest. But now I see that I am but a slight scratch on the collections of many others, a small blemish on the used disc of the universe. I am pasty white and pale in comparrison to the greatness, depth and breadth of your collections! I bow down to you with envy and awe. Now, I must leave you to pursue my venture to secure all of the Replacement's concert bootlegs on 8 track. Oh, and Mark, that shelf rules, dude!

the outer part (the 4x4's) used the be the frame for this art thing i build...but i resurrected it. the silver-lookin' thing that runs vertically in the middle is a big 'ole threaded rod. i tell ya, spinning the nuts into place was no fun.

if i have to move i'm just gonna bust out the sawsall.

Mark, I again bow to your manly constructivism.

Bricky, as been said in other contexts, it ain't the meat, it's the motion. No one on earth would tell you that 1500 isn't a substantial collection (I share your enthusiasm for "Grindcrusher" - ah, when the bloom was on the grindcore rose and stuff - and for Jawbreaker, but I love some Anthrax and don't much like others, and Cannibal Corpse is completely beyond my ken), especially one lovingly - not to say obsessively - compiled. And for this I salute you (sung in the voice of '80s hair-metal guy in the beer commercials) "Mr. Obsessive CD collector, yeah!"

Kids are never too young to hear "Fucked with a Knife" by Cannibal Corpse for the first time. I am not sure what Snuggle Puppy will look like when it is all said and done though.

I am now inspired by Mark's shelf. I will build a shelf unit for my CD's. I think I will design it soon and make it a springtime project. I have always sucked at building things, but I think it might pay off if I get it done.

you all shouldn't think for one second that i'm good at building stuff. shelving is about as far as it gets.

though with this project i at least figured out ahead of time that the 1x4 spanning that distance wouldn't take the weight, thus: the threaded rod solution.

the great thing about it is that it's pretty cheap to make.

As Raggedy Ann once said, "Thank goodness for threaded rods."

Vinyl Confessions by Alan Zweig

I actually know a couple of the people in that documentary (it was mostly filmed in Toronto) and worked with one guy (and he is even more creepy in person).

One of the things I really like about iTunes and MP3s is they free me from filing (which I am horrible at). I don't have as large a collection (about 4K vinyl / 4K CDs / boxes and boxes of cassettes I keep intending to throw away / 60 GB MP3). With iTunes, I just type into the search box and whoot, there it is.

For shelving, I defer to the Ikea $40 Billy bookshelves. And the floor in piles. Beside the DVDs. And books. The vinyl is mostly in a hotel lobby mail shelf "rescued" from a building undergoing renovations. Twelve feet long, 36 inches high, two levels. And old milk crates pre-metric.

I have been putting off actually thinking about these sort of meta issues, but I can see now it's pretty important. I certainly envy the storage and access benefits of MP3s, but I can't imagine the process of conversion. Of course I could just start adding them to the mix as I did when I finally broke down and got a CD player in 1990, but then you have to take into account the packaging and info, which I would miss.

yep, i don't ever see myself going completely digital. it's pretty soulless, from my point of view.

(as i sit here thumbing through the photos in the Brigitte Bardot compilation i'm listening to...)

CDEX is a freeware program that a friend of mine edited so that it will run automatically when a CD is inserted into a drive, and rip it down to the harddrive in MP3 format. If you are interested in doing something like that to start a conversion process, I can send it to you. I am almost done with my own collection so I could even let you know the easiest way to get started.

That's a tempting offer Craig, but right now I can't imagine taking the time, and you're still talking about a vast amount of computer storage space. But maybe... I sure like the idea of "automatically."

...then there's the issue of why a person would trade sound quality for convenience.

but that's a whole 'nuther can 'o worms.

Well, when you have a 900+ cd jukebox on random never playing the same song twice, you will see why I would be willing to trade a bit of quality for the convenience factor.

Okay, usual suspects (you know who you are): I'm very curious simply because I hae no idea. How many CDs, records, etc do you have? Vague generalities are fine. So far, the numbers are in the range I might have expected. How many in that shelf, Mark? We can convert feet: 32 per foot CDs, 80 per foot for vinyl.

Oh yeah, and making mix CD's for friends, etc, is a breeze.

that rack holds around 2000 cds. when i put it together and had it fully loaded i went through the same approximation step you did.

i also have about 1200 lps and another 500 or so cassettes (of which about 200 will be 'converted' to cd when i get the dollars to buy a cd recorder).

Anybody else but me trying to shed jewel cases? I've taken about 1500 of my discs (so far) and transferred them to those 132-disc album book things, including all the paper from the packages. Be advised that you have to get albums that have square envelopes for the discs, not those roundish ones that won't fit the paper.
This process is tedious but saves a lot of space. However, it is sooooo tedious (State of the Union tedious. Democratic Presidential debate tedious. Merchant-Ivory marathon tedious. DMV-line tedious.) that the project has been abandoned until further notice.
Any thoughts from anyone who's done this?

i thought about doing it before "the rack".

North Country Audio sells some nice and quite inexpensive sleeves that open like old lps.

but then i couldn't figure out how i'd go through the cds on the shelves to find something...because the sleeves are sorta 'spineless'.

i caved and made "the rack"

Dude, assuming you are going alphabetical, don't bother buying new CD's. In order to put it in, you will undoubtedly have to displace discs. It's horrible.

The "library" mentality still rules in the "old media" (ie physical existence) world. It's only drawback is space, all of the other solutions have even worse drawbacks.

Eric is right about the lack of packaging, but then, most CD packaging just plain sucks (CBS - early Sony and BMG, I am metaphorically kicking you in the nuts).

However, MP3s on a hardrive allow you to concentrate more on the music. Also, iTunes on the Mac has automagic importing of CDs.

Most of my MP3s are from emusic.com, and free downloads, plus conversion of bootlegs and mashups.

when i loaded the thing up i left space on each shelf...so there's room for new stuff.

periodically, everything needs to be shifted around.

i figure i've got another year or so before the next crisis arrives.

the "middle of the collection" insertion issue is why my shelves don't go in order: each shelf is internally in order, but moving from shelf to shelf, they jump around because of "insertions." My next project is to put them the shelves in th eright order, but that means moving every fucking disc around, in order. Damn.

How many CDs can you pick up and keep in order? I have gone as high as 50 or more if you can apply enough pressure to the ends of the pile, then quickly flip it upright, but if I screw up (at least 50% of the time) the whole pile goes flying all over the room, behind the shelves, down my shirt, and in my shoes. This is not worth the risk, so I end up with cautious piles that are in CC's "beginner orchestra tedious" range to move.

Yeah, I know the insertion process would be a bitch, so I must admit I chose the first 1500 or so (actually about 1100, as I have nine of these 132-disc books) from among the "less likely to be played a lot" CDs. In other words, I'm putting only my C team in these sleeves.

By the way, I figure about 5000 CDs, about 300-400 LPs.

It is good to know I that I am not alone in the world of music collecting. I have about 1400 CD's and 500 vinyl albums. I eventually want to get a huge wall rack like Mark's so I can put all the CD's in one place.

All these rekkid collectors gathering together just waiting for somebody to yell:

Wow, what a great rack!

I can grab about 35-40 CD's at a time, Eric, but I too have had the veritable explosion a couple times when I got too ambitious. This kind of thing is so counter-productive to the organizing process that I can't even tell you. I am officially on-board for this computer collection thing though. I may only have my MP3's ripped at 192 KBPS, but that is good enough for me for now in my current setup. Someday I will have my whole house wired with speakers and I will be able to call up music on demand from that server in whatever room I am in.

What are you laughing at? I will have that system one day. I WILL!

Just so you can guage one of the problems with piracy... I was telling my dad about my computer jukebox, and he immediately said to me, "Oh, so when you are done, you can just sell the CD's right?"

Dads are logical, not me, but dads in general.

I recently put in a new rack and ended up having CD's flying everywhere in the process of moving them. I no longer try to hold a massive stack of CD's.

Now I just go with what I can securely grab in each hand, kind of following the breast theory.

I entered all my CD's into a database, including information like artist, label, release date, producer, and how many discs in the set (for multi-disc releases).

So I have exactly 1880 releases and 2295 discs, of which 13 are singles or EP's. However, there is some redundancy in that I have many remastered editions of previously purchased CD's, and even a few outright duplicates (that was why I broke down and made the database).

That total will be obsolete when my most recent internet order arrives next week.

Rock out JR, thanks! You are sufficiently anal to receive my salute.

With a collection that big, how many discs are duplicated because you'd inadvertantly bought a CD you'd forgotten you already owned?

Although I do do that from time to time, there aren't any dupes in there now because I just purged them all (just had a nice trade - always trade, never cash - of dupes) as I was doing this filing. I'm sure there still some in the 2003 pile, however.

Eric, You should have a garage sale. There has to be some whack shit you don't listen to.

There's lots I don't listen to, but as a historian, discographer, journalist, author, DJ, collector, fan, I want to keep everything I have now, more or less.

Hey, whatever man.

I have been inspired by The Great Rack. My CD collection momentarily sits at 700-ish, LP's around 100 or so. I have the racks that stack vertically, with a SEPERATE slot for each disc (plus a couple 'double spots' in the middle). Sure, tidy, but the age old new CD in the middle dilemma haunts me. You would have to actuallly move every single disk following the new entry! So now I impress my friends with my locating ability. That is until I can build a new Great Rack.....

Is it just me, or does anyone resist d'loading full albums, so as to have the original? Perhaps I'm nostalgic, or just not frugal, but I am compelled to complete my collection with authentic case, artwork(?), etc.

Although sheepish to admit, I have d'loaded a CD prior to release date, Then bought the actual when it came out. I know, you thought nobody actually did that.......

Oh yeah. I too have a rule about never getting rid of music.
Whilst in college I sold off portions of my collection for beer & similar necessities. I regretted it more & more as time went by.
You know that someday, someone is going to say to you "do you have XXXXXXXyz?". You walk over - pull a disc - blow the dust off, and say "yup". The alternative is, " well, i used ta, I think". The beer is long gone but those tunes are lost forever.

I'm having to become like you, Jeff. I stand at somewhere around 1500 CDs currently, and it would have been a LOT higher had I not spent the last 15 years trading in things I thought I'd gotten "tired" of - many of which I have come to realize I would have cherished having just for the autobiographical sake. So in the past year I've pretty much stopped trading things in because, for one, I tend to make pretty informed decisions about music and so rarely pick up a real dud, and two, I like owning everything. I generally don't download at all - if I'm curious, I'll find sound clips somewhere, whether on a band's site, Amazon/CDuniverse/etc., but on the rare occasion I'll get desperate and download a track or two, but never the full thing (with the exception of Radiohead's Hail To The Thief because I was curious what the pre-release versions would sound like. Listened once and never again, then deleted it after I bought it so I can't even say whether they did indeed sound different or not. Oh well.)

I drool at the thought of Mark's Rack Of Much Bigness. I need this. I need this.

These ruminations do my heart good - thanks all!

Speaking of storage: I have a friend with a, perhaps, 50,000 piece collection who had CD-height floor-to-ceiling shelves, separated into fairly small sections to avoid the "insertion dilemma," put in all along his second-floor hallway, which spans the house. It is a beautiful, impressive sight, makes for very easy access and filing, and is only about half-full even now.

When we can afford to finish our basement, I am going to do something like this.

I find there's very little music I've "grown out of"; my tastes have broadened over the years, but I find I still like almost all of the stuff I liked twenty five years ago. Even Iron Maiden.

The only records I don't like are the ones that were duds in the first place. Every collection has to have a few; the first (and only) album by Angelwitch?

I even have three or four LPs of train noises....

I have been fortunate to have grown out of very little as well - my priorities may have rearranged along the way from time to time, but I can still appreciate what I liked about something in the first place.

a coupla things:

-i've only gotten rid of one cd since 'the beginning' and that was this thing called Harlequin by Lee Ritenour. i don't get rid of anything because, well, you just never know when you might like it in the future...but this one cd: i had just read an article about ritenour and thought to myself, gee, a great guitarist and i've got no recordings. so i went to the store and picked "Harlequin" up. one single cd taught me so much. i learned of the evils of both GRP records and Dave Grusin.

-have any of you "large collection" people ever accidentally bought a duplicate?

Part of why I finally got motivated to file the stuff from the last couple of years is that I picked up about FIVE used CDs I already had - that really made me sit up and take notice.

dear sir, please email the mp3 album canto by los super seven to me at [Deleted in line with BlogCritics Comments Policy. Comments Editor]