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How do you manage a large digital music library?

Nara

Nara

pfm Member
I have around 2,000 albums all stored digitally. With so many albums, I find it difficult to choose what to play and seem to disproportionately play newly added music. I did not have this problem with a physical collection as I would quickly scan the shelves and remind myself of my collection. But browsing my music in this way on my computer/phone doesn't seem have the same effect.

I thought about curating a core collection of around 100-200 albums and separating it from the main collection, but Roon doesn't support that sort of organising.

Shuffling the songs in my library when driving/running/cooking etc digs up some forgotten gems that I later play in full. Any other tips on how to hold a large library but still play a good range of it?

[For me, the benefits of a digital collection over a physical one far outweigh this drawback before anyone points that out.]
 
I still have thousands of CDs and records. All the ripped stuff, of which there is loads, just gets put on shuffle. Can never be bothered otherwise. None of the apps I've tried are any use at browsing.
 
I occasionally fantasize about designing a app with a spatial paradigm for browsing music (rather than just lists), which would enable the same kind of spatial memory that a shelf of CDs/records engenders. Ie how you can just sort of subconsciously home in on the music you want to listen to rather than having to browse left to right, shelf by shelf every time.

Sadly, I have neither a clear idea of the design nor the time/energy to implement it.
 
Nara said:
I have around 2,000 albums all stored digitally. With so many albums, I find it difficult to choose what to play and seem to disproportionately play newly added music.
...
I thought about curating a core collection of around 100-200 albums and separating it from the main collection, but Roon doesn't support that sort of organising.
]
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I use JRMC to manage my 4500 albums.
With my physical collection at that time I never had the problem of selection. You just know in which "region" which CD is on the shelf. But it was also much smaller ;-)
Use for your favorite albums a separate "tag". Then you can start a sorting with it.
Shuffle I also used more often. Is always surprising what you have so everything in the collection ;-)
 
I use jRiver and there's a number of options from creating multiple, separate libraries, to playlists or rating songs and sorting by rating or genre. It would be easy to set up the concept of a core collection. The database is very well implemented and it's very fast.

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library
 
I suppose the market for a digital music library that provides a good user interface to thousands of albums is pretty small, so no-one bothers to produce one. I did think this was the sort of thing roon was supposed to provide, but according to the OP it does not.

If you really want to recreate the UX of a physical collection, you could create a wall size touch screen, showing your entire collection. Where's my patent lawyer?
 
JRiver for me because, in conjunction with JRemote, it is possible to browse by whatever criteria one desires. As long as the tags are filled sensibly and consistently, and with a classical collection in particular that takes a lot of work. A working knowledge of regular expressions certainly helps.

I have considered various streamers such as Aurender, Auralic and others but none, as far as I can see, offer the flexibility to browse in the way that I choose. Of course, those highly priced streamers may offer slightly better sound quality, but for me limitations in browsing rules them out. The other problem is that one would be at the mercy of their software developers. Awhile back Sonos changed their software, ignoring the concerns of their beta testers, and at a stroke made the system all but unusable for those of us with a classical collection.
 
Thanks all for your replies, interesting reading how you manage the collection. @ciderglider Roon certainly lists artists A-Z, albums etc and has a great genre filter. It's an impressive piece of software. However...

Imagine you want a choose a new book, and 15 minutes to do so. What would you rather: 1) being in a book shop, free to walk around, pick things off the shelves, read the back etc. Or, 2) browse a list of books A-Z on a 6inch screen?

The analogy isn't quite right because I'm not talking about new music to me, but with a really large collection it can sometimes feel like new music. I was wondering if anyone had any solutions to this sort of problem? I don't necessarily think software is the only answer.

Does anyone make a list of albums they want to listen to, so when sat in your chair, you have a clear focus? I certainly do that with films (and to a lesser extent books) but have never done so with music. Any other ideas? Thanks!
 
I used to love the view in the old iTunes that showed covers you could 'flip' through. Was really quick and I could flip to the section I was thinking of. No idea why they got rid. Anyway I usually start with genre now and then sometimes just shuffle or scroll through artists. I still have my entire nearly 2k CD collection out though. :)
 
Does any library software give you a list of albums or artists that are similar to what you are listening to? I suspect some do, but I wonder if it is any better than Amazon's "people who bought x also bought y" links, which tend to be rubbish.
 
boneman said:
I used to love the view in the old iTunes that showed covers you could 'flip' through. Was really quick and I could flip to the section I was thinking of. No idea why they got rid. Anyway I usually start with genre now and then sometimes just shuffle or scroll through artists. I still have my entire nearly 2k CD collection out though. :)
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Called Cover Flow. I have a built in iPod connection in my car and an iPod Classic plugged into it in the centre arm rest out of sight, using the cars jog wheel near the gear lever I can scroll through albums on the cars info screen just like it’s a big iPod screen - about the best way to choose music in any car we’ve had.
 
ciderglider said:
Does any library software give you a list of albums or artists that are similar to what you are listening to? I suspect some do, but I wonder if it is any better than Amazon's "people who bought x also bought y" links, which tend to be rubbish.
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Roon does a lot of clever stuff like carrying on playing tracks similar to the ones you’ve chosen and also suggesting artists you may like based on who your are currently listening to, not perfect but I have discovered a lot of new artists this way. Talk Talk gets the following suggestions

​
 
Nara said:
Thanks all for your replies, interesting reading how you manage the collection. @ciderglider Roon certainly lists artists A-Z, albums etc and has a great genre filter. It's an impressive piece of software. However...

Imagine you want a choose a new book, and 15 minutes to do so. What would you rather: 1) being in a book shop, free to walk around, pick things off the shelves, read the back etc. Or, 2) browse a list of books A-Z on a 6inch screen?

The analogy isn't quite right because I'm not talking about new music to me, but with a really large collection it can sometimes feel like new music. I was wondering if anyone had any solutions to this sort of problem? I don't necessarily think software is the only answer.

Does anyone make a list of albums they want to listen to, so when sat in your chair, you have a clear focus? I certainly do that with films (and to a lesser extent books) but have never done so with music. Any other ideas? Thanks!
Click to expand...
I have a decent streaming setup but still prefer vinyl, mainly on the weekend where I can spend a few hours spinning LPs, I’ll often look out a bunch to play during the week, influenced by stuff posted over in the Music forum.

It’s a bit convoluted but I have occasionally done it in Roon using the Home section. Play a couple seconds of an album and it gets added, move on and repeat until you have a screen or two of choices lined up and then play from the bunch in any order, saves searching around.

Really though the searching, categories, suggestions and tagging mean a streaming session is very different to CD/Tape/LP for me, I really use music services for new releases/discovery/gaps, rips on my NAS are more like LPs, I use Focus to choose SACD/Vinyl Rip/DSD etc and scroll through the album covers to choose what to play. Don’t do playlists aka mix tapes nor single tracks or shuffle play unless on a DAP, guess it’s habit that once an album starts it tends to get played all the way through.
 
I'm with you on this Nara - flicking through albums made it easy and I used to end up picking something different - streaming my ripped cd's I find myself picking the same few so often. As Amber Audio says, cover flow on an ipod did much the same on a screen.
I'm trying to create lots of playlists but it's still not the same..
 
steveinspain said:
I'm with you on this Nara - flicking through albums made it easy and I used to end up picking something different - streaming my ripped cd's I find myself picking the same few so often. As Amber Audio says, cover flow on an ipod did much the same on a screen.
I'm trying to create lots of playlists but it's still not the same..
Click to expand...

I agree with this very much too. I've returned to a CD transport and choose my CDs off the shelf, when I'm in the mood to sit down and listen anyway. I do prefer vinyl most of the time but then I do have a very much better vinyl front end.
 
I'm the opposite in that I actually prefer browsing my music through the Innuos Sense app and find that I now listen to cd's that I'd all but forgotten about.
All my cd's are ripped to the server and I've actually been on a mission to buy a lot of 2nd hand cd's that previously I only owned on vinyl.
I nearly always use the web browser on a laptop rather than tablet or smartphone - I think a bigger screen is definitely more user friendly.
 
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