How do you avoid buying CD's you already have?

[DavidL]

On 3/18/2020 at 6:09 PM, davide256 said:

Reaching the library size where I find myself occasionally buying (used) CD's of material I already have. I'm wondering if there is a good inventory

program out there I could run against my FLAC music library and check against the results on my iPhone when out shopping?

 

There was at least 1 thread here a year or 2 ago discussing how to set up a database for a music library. I've not been able to find it in the old Computer Audiophile threads so I'll recap. I continue to use iTunes for curating my library as it is mature and meets all my needs. I use the following simple, free process:

 

1) In iTunes, setup a playlist for all the tracks in the library - for a large library do this for each genre to keep the size manageable.

 

2) Set up the view options for this playlist so only those required for the database are visible, probably Album and Artist (or Album artist).

 

3) Click on a row and select all, and copy this.

 

4) In Excel, open a new worksheet, highlight the first cell and paste the data copied in iTunes.

 

5) Delete the first column (the track title)

 

6) Insert a header row before the first music record e.g. Album in col.1 and Artist in col.2 if that's how you copied the data.

 

7) Select all the records and use the advanced filter command (Data>Filter>Advance Filter) and check the 'Unique records only' box. Click 'OK'. Copy the resulting columns to a new worksheet (as the repeated rows have only been hidden not deleted) and edit this if required.

 

This database can be used direct or exported to a mobile device. To manage this database I use Tap Forms Mac on an iPhone, iPad and iMac with syncing via dropbox. I also keep a separate list of Album 'wants' in a similar format.