categorizing my vinyl collection onto an Excel Spreadsheet?

I'm planning to put my growing collection of vinyl into an Excel Spreadsheet on my mac but I don't have a clue how. Any suggestions?

 

Probably have to manually enter in the data. I do the same on Google Sheets (excel but "in the cloud").

You'll want to think ahead about which fields you'll need. I use Artist, Title, Year, Source (CD/download/vinyl), Type (album, single, hitscomp), Catalog Number, Mastering Notes, Misc Notes, and a final column where I put an "x" if I've ripped/needledropped that release.

 

Have you figured out why you want to do this? Is it to aid you finding a track, where you don't recall the album, or find an album name where you don't recall the artist?

Once you know the reason you want to keep the data, the way you store the data follows....

 

It really depends on what information you want to put on there. This is mine - I have separate tabs for CDs and vinyl and then one which I combine the two so I can do a count for each artist.



I find using filters (Data > Filter) really useful and also use Pivot tables for counting by genre - doing a multiple to show year and genre is quite illuminating on what I'm buying.

 

Is there any way to automatically have the artists be alphabetized on a spreadsheet? Im relatively new to Excel.

 

It;s really easy to sort data for anything that you input - so yes on that spreadsheet above I can sort on the year bought, year recorded, artist, title, genre etc etc...like this for artist and then by year recorded - you can do multiple levels.

 

I'm planning to categorize alphabetically by artist.

 

Yes. Just enter all of your items, in any order at all (though the same data type has to be entered in each column), row by row, after having entered a word/phrase indicating the data categories you want to be shown (band name, album title, year, etc.) in the header row, select all the relevant cells, then click on "Data" and then "Sort" to open the "Sort" dialog. Proceed from there. If you need more help than this, you may want to Google "excel tutorials data sorting".

 

OK, that's easy then - you can sort and re-sort data whenever you want...so long as you remember to select all rows and columns with info in otherwise you could end up with artists and the wrong titles!

If you ever need any advice just message me.

 

or you could just catalogue your collection in a site like www.Discogs.com

from there you can export as a spreadsheet also, plus it can give you information on current market values (at Discogs)

good for insurance cataloging also if you need to?

 

What are you planning on using it for? Unless you want to get really intricate with personalized data (IE when you got it, where you got it, how much, last listened to, and the like), you'd probably be better off with Discogs or Rate Your Music.

 

Are the albums already on your shelves in Artist alpha order?

 

I have a portion of my 5000+ collection on Excel Spreadsheets. I inputted it all by hand. But I don't use the 'sort' feature as I'm concerned it may throw off the other fields of data. So, I just enter everything manually.

I have separate spreadsheets for Rock (which includes all Pop, etc) , Country, Easy Listening, Male/Female Vocal (like Sinatra, Peggy Lee, etc)

Only the Rock and MF Vocal are complete and up to date. It took me an entire summer to catalog the Rock (1500 plus titles)

I could care less about when the LP came out.. or when I bought it.. or whatever. But.. I do enter the LPs chronologically in the collection. I think there just isn't a need to know that Blood on the Tracks came out in a specific month of 1975, when you are out buying LPs.

I use only a few fields:

Artist, Title, Catalog # (which includes label style, translucent, etc) , Deadwax Matrix Side A, Deadwax Matrix Side B, Pressing Plant.

When you are out at a shop.. those are the only things you really need to make sure you aren't buying the same LP over and over again.

Periodically, I print them out and place into a binder which I bring around with me. The binder is nicknamed "The Wally Binder" by my wife, because I'm always talking about Wally cuts or Ludwig cuts, or some other mastering engineer.

 

Sounds like the best/easiest way to go for someone unfamiliar with spreadsheets.

 

Just clicking the box in the very upper left corner (above the 1 and to the left of A) highlights the entire spreadsheet and you can sort via any column or columns and it will include every cell.

 

Microsoft Access used to have a pre-made template for a music collection with fields for artists, title, music category, format, label, number of tracks and notes. It took some time to manually enter everything I had at the time but I keep it up to date.

 

No

 

I do have discog's and didn't know you could export until now.

 

As long as you select all the data in the spreadsheet, the sort feature will pull everything into the correct place. It will even tell you if you neglect to highlight an adjacent column that contains data. THe only wrinkle here is that if you have a blank column and data in a column further to the right, it won't be able to warn you if you miss selecting it for a sort.

 

I do this too but it's been about a year since I updated anything. I sometimes wonder why I really do it.

 

I believe there's a way on discogs you can do this by touch screen entering on a pad device,then export in a clean excel, without all that typing, that way the price median is available at the same time your entering. If this is for insurance, photograph whole collection wall or racks, then close ups of the high priced stuff

 

Yyou might want to a section for Notes. I use mine to note best sounding version. Or select cuts, good for Various artists collections where you got them for only song or two. I like to collect Bob Dylan stray cuts etc.

 

If the OP doesn't have the LPs on the shelf in alpha order, but wants a spreadsheet with them in this order, isn't the task made easier and/or redundant merely by sorting the shelves?

 

Easier? No. Why would it? That's what Excel's "Sort" feature does in mere seconds.

 

Is it threadcrapping to say that I'm envious of all the leisure time you folks must have?