Not alphabetical.
Nope.
What?
Autobiographical.
No *>&;:#!^ way!

Ok nothing about the second coming but I made you look...

This is an odd thing to think about but then that's life. How do you guys store your CD's? I have found that the way I store CD's doesn't really make sense now that I don't carry them around any more.
Possible Options

• The original jewel cases. This used to be akward and they broke too easily, but now seems to be an option.
• Binders. These bother me because they always seemed to be more scratch prone. I mean I can't prove that they lead to scratched cd's but it sure seems like they would. Besides changing the order is really annoying.
• The right answer. The one I haven't thought of but one of you has perfected.
  

CD's... CD's... Oh, yes, those things.

Quite honestly? Here's the life span of a CD in my household:

1) Purchase CD.
2) Open jewel case. (Cue Denis Leary "Can't get the frickin things open" routine.)
3) Place CD in CD-ROM drive.
4) Rip CD to MP3.
5) Place CD back in jewel case.
6) Toss CD in a cardboard box in the closet.

In fact, pre-empeg, I always kept CD's in a CD changer. I had a Sony 200 disc changer, and then upgraded to a Pioneer 300 disc changer. No worrying about storing them. I kept them in artist order inside the changer, which was a little laborious. Now I don't even bother.

Gotta love any reference to High Fidelity.

I just keep my CDs on a CD rack in their original jewel cases. Alphabetical by artist. For the times when I need to re-rip something or look up a lyric, it's still easiest to reference and access that way. Putting them into binders or some other storage system is just adding a layer of complexity IMHO.

I guess I'm one of the few people who LIKES jewel cases. If I ever get a CD or CD-ROM that doesn't have a jewel case, I get an extra case for it and label it.

I guess I'm one of the few people who LIKES jewel cases.

I like them too, though I don't know why. It hardly matters though, since my CD's are all in a box in my garage now. . . well except for the six in my wife's CD changer

Can't get the frickin things open

Here are two tips:

1. Quickly and with good pressure, run the bottom edge of the CD along the reasonably sharp edge of something hard, like the counter of the music shop. Press hard enough that you bend the case slightly. This will slice the plastic wrapper open pretty well as the hard edge bounces along the ridged plastic of the jewel case.
2. Now that you've got the plastic off, you can disengage the bottom hinge of the case and flip it up and over, revealing the tamperproof sticker at the top, making it much easier to get off, as you can pull the case against the sticker rather than trying to get a fingernail under the sticker.

Same system here.
Alphabetical by artist, then chronologically by release date (popular).
Alphabeticaly by composer, then by composition order, then by recording release date (classical).
In jewel cases (or other original packaging) on CD shelf units. Box sets and irregular sized packages go on top of units. Add shelving as required...

I consistently employ both of these mechanisms when I buy new CD's. However, the fact that you needed to type a 120 word explanation as to how to open the damn thing underscores my point quite nicely.

Greetings!

For storage after ripping, I use three DJ cases and archive sleeves from Univenture. They do a lot of the CD jackets and packing material for large companies, and their cases are nice and roomy - about the size of a large suitcase.

I removed the artwork / booklets, put them into the archive sleeve with the disc, and dropped them in the case. This way, I have them (relatively) portable, secured in a very small space. Jewel Boxes I tossed for recycling. (Someone drove by in the dead of night and took more than 2/3rds of the jewel cases - I don't know if they thought there were CDs in them or not, but they were gone!!!)

It's easy to demonstrate, though.

Hmmm.. I am looking at DJ Express 400 with XG Viewpaks. The XG Viewpak seems like it would allow me to store both the booklet and the piece behind the plastic with the track listings. Is that right? Sorry if you don't have this model, but it seems like a good system.

All my CDs are in the jewelcases and not organised at all. About 400 of them almost went crashing to the ground on my last move. CDs in suitcase = a good thing

Greetings!

Yes, crashing while moving is not good - scattered with bits of plastic from broken jewel boxes everywhere!!!

The case is the same for all of the versions. The XG viewpacks are very similar to what I have.

The archival packs do not have the foldover piece. They just have a clear plastic pocket in front and back, with a protective pocket in the center. The outer booklet fits in the front pocket, the back artwork went in back, with the CD safely in the middle of the protective layers.

The trick, and this is a problem with all of the version of this system, is that the pockets are all the size of the CD! The back artwork is bigger, so it fits awkwardly, turned at a 90 degree angle. Also, any CD that does not fit this booklet format (either cardboard sleeves, oversized books, etc) does not fit well.

It is a nice system, as long as the booklets fit gracefully. If you would like to see a sample, PM me with a mailing address. I have a few different types of these lying around (archival and black viewpack that I can remember off hand...).

I'm on my way to my "vision" of how to store CDs. I'm pretty excited about it, actually.

I don't use CDs, for obvious reasons, but I have a ton of them and want to keep them organized. I listen to a lot of classical and early music and "Alphabetical" is misleading, to say the least. Alphabetical by what? Artist, Composer, Soloist? What about CDs with multiple composers? It's truly awful.

It seems to me that the best way to organize CDs (if you have a lot of them) is the way that parts are organized in well run manufacturing environments. That is, with a part number. Metadata about the CD can be stored in a database at the individual track level. Since this is a lot like mp3 tags, the CD tracking database and mp3 metadata database can be the same thing. For each track, we have in the database:

- Track information (number, title, duration, year, bitrate, mp3 filename, etc, etc)
- Source information (CD name, year, etc, and a physical catalog number)
- Artist(s) appearing on the track
- other information, for instance a "lent to" to track CDs that I lend.

OK, so now I can find an mp3 using nice sql querying rather than a dumb heirarchical file structure (the same issues with organizing CDs also apply to organizing mp3s).

The CDs themselves are each tagged with their catalog number and arranged in that order, which is a sequential number assigned by the database. Initially, this can be random, but as you add more CDs you will find that the newest CDs have the highest catalog numbers.

If I search for a track or a source, I know instantly what the CD catalog number is and since the CDs are in that order it is very simple to find it.

The best part (that I'm picking up this weekend) is how I'm storing the CDs. I'm really excited about this.

I love to read, so I have lots of bookshelves stuffed with books in my home. I had an idea that I could design a CD cabinet that looked like a turn of the century Mission style library card catalog. The drawers are sized to perfectly hold a CD jewel case, and they can also easily hold CDs or DVDs in archive envelopes.

There are 3 rows of 5 drawers and a cabinet with doors below. The cabinet section below the CD storage drawers has two hidden shelves for sheet music or for boxed sets. There is a hidden drawer inside of each door to hold things like guitar strings, picks, metronomes, tuning forks, etc, etc.

I don't have the space for a wood working shop, so I commissioned the piece from a local artist who specializes in Mission style cabinet making. I showed him my design and we worked out the details together. I saw it completed for the first time a week ago and it is beautiful. Entirely quarter-sawn oak with a wax finish. The CD drawers are all dovetailed and slide on waxed ways. Each door front has a card catalog pull on it made from antiqued brass, each with a little space for a label.

The next steps to a perfect CD/mp3 situation are:

1. Silent player for the stereo that gets the mp3s from a noisy server in another room.
2. Build and populate the SQL database.
3. Integrate the SQL database into the great linux console mp3 player "mp3blaster". I want to be able to build playlists on the fly using an "advanced search" functionality that references the database. This is the hard part, but mp3blaster is community developed and others are interested in this approach.

If anyone cares, I can post some pictures of the cabinet after I get it moved to my place.

Jim

My problem is that after:
-taking only my favorite CDs with me to college so long ago (to avoid losing any to misplacement or theft)
-transfering between multiple vehicles and their CD changers
-buying new CDs at school
-transfering between CD book cases
-carrying a couple CDs in one case for convenience sake (bad for the CD)

I now have about 300 CDs in 2 or three different houses, 4 different cars, on loan to several people, sitting under furniture, and any number of other places. Several times I've tried organizing the largest single location of my CDs, but on closer inspection I find that half of the cases are empty and the other half are missing sleeves.

Organization is not my forte

May I ask what you do for a living???

Are they hiring? :-)

Haha! No no. I have an apartment at school, my parents' house, and my girlfriend's house. Then I have my parents' cars, my own car, cars we've had in the past, etc.

I suspected it might sound like I owned 4 houses and 5 cars or something

So to answer your question: nothing I'm finishing up higher education at the moment. Actually, I finished as of 9:30 this morning. I'll be graduating this Sunday.

I'll be graduating this Sunday.

Congratulations!

So to answer your question: nothing I'm finishing up higher education at the moment. Actually, I finished as of 9:30 this morning. I'll be graduating this Sunday.

Nicely done! Too bad you have to go into the real world now. You'll be wanting to go back to school once you realize how much it sucks.

TigerJimmy-
Yes, alphabetical by composer has problems with multiple composers, but there is usually a primary composer and one or more secondary pieces. This hasn't been a huge issue for me because I have far more popular CDs (1200+) than classical (~200).
I would have problems with your system in that it requires the computer database access. Not to mention the extra effort in creating and applying labels. Maybe I'm just lazy...
That sounds like a sweet cabinet, though... I'd like to see the pics after you have it all set up.

In fact, pre-empeg, I always kept CD's in a CD changer. I had a Sony 200 disc changer

Pre Empeg, I had already invested in 4 of those things, 3, 200's and a 300. I've never got round to ripping the whole lot - the Empeg contains a very large "best of".
The chief feature, however is the slink-e, which controls and catalogues the whole lot, plus all the MP3's on my network, with the facility for attaching notes and cover pivtures, it works fantastically well, but the software could do with all sorts of improvements, development seems to have stopped.

I was the music director for the radio station at school. One of the benefits of that position was to open all the CDs that came in.

I got really good at opening them on the edge of a desk, or with a lighter (which I was never without during school). The lighter method is great for looks from the 'audience'.

Yeah. I was real close to getting involved in that type of thing. My 300 was approaching fullness, and I looked at some of the ways to control them with PC's and such.. The empeg was right around the corner at the time though. Upon visual inspection, I realized I'd rather have it all in a DIN-sided unit that can play at home or in the car, rather than several large carousel CD changers.

I put all my CDs in FLAC format on a big 200 gig drive. then the CDs themselves, I now store at Goodwill.

Greg

Now that I got the rio central I don't need the disks in the house anymore so I will be doing the throw them in a big cardboard box method. I used to have them on a big shelf in the original jewel cases.

Back when MP3.com was cool and independent, and the Internet boom hadn't busted yet, I went to this MP3 Summit thing in San Diego. They gave everybody a big bag full of gimmes. From that bag, I still use the bag itself (it's rubberized, so it's good for wet gym clothes), an RCA Lyra 10-CD case, and an Adaptec CD wrapping opener. This is a customized gizmo with a protective plastic guard around an internal razor blade. When you press it on the size of a CD jewelbox, the plastic guard moves back just enough to expose the blade and let you make nice cuts through the shrinkwrapping and the stupid sticker across the top of the CD as well. Heaven only knows where you could find one of these, but it's a fantastic toy. Before I had that, I just used a pen knife (back when I had the knife on my keychain, when you could actually fly with a small knife in your pocket).

When you press it on the size of a CD jewelbox, the plastic guard moves back just enough to expose the blade and let you make nice cuts through the shrinkwrapping and the stupid sticker across the top of the CD as well. Heaven only knows where you could find one of these, but it's a fantastic toy.

Actually, that was the prize for winning the empeg trivia contest at this past week's NY meet. Only this one was a Rio branded one. genixia won and he seemed pretty pleased with the it.

slink-e

I'd just got round to buying one of those when Hugo convinced me I didn't actually need it. It's stuck in a wardrobe now with the Sony 200-changer.

The CDs, though, are all still in jewel-cases on shelves above my hifi (alphabetic by artist then chronological) -- it's much easier to browse physical titles and dial it up on the Receiver than it is to browse on the Receiver's screen itself.

Peter

Mine all live in their jewel cases and are stored in boxes of 50 on top of the bookshelves in my studio - ordered solely by purchase date. As I fill each box, I get a new one and it goes on top. I mean, how often do you really need to go back to a CD (excluding the odd re-rip)

I keep my CD's in artist order.

My DVD's, on the other hand, are in Bacon-order.

By this I mean that I have my DVDs grouped by actors, for example:

Dogma (Alan Rickman) Die Hard (Bruce Willis) Pulp Fiction (Samuel L Jackson) Jackie Brown (Robert De Niro) Ronin (Jean Reno) Leon...

You get the idea.

Heaven only knows where you could find one of these, but it's a fantastic toy

I think you'll find they sell them in good stationers, we use them in the office for taking cuttings out of newspapers without marking the page underneath.

Back when MP3.com was cool and independent, and the Internet boom hadn't busted yet, I went to this MP3 Summit thing in San Diego.

Was this before or after you owned an Empeg? You probably rubbed elbows with some of the empeg guys and didn't even know it.