The Listening Process

[danny316]

I'm looking for some pretty general advice on managing my CD collection. Between a hard drive crash, an ever-increasing pile of CD's I've bought cheap but not listened to yet, no cataloging approach my current laptop can load, and buffering issues with streaming music from a desktop to a laptop, it's become abundantly clear that I need to re-do how I'm managing things.

I'm mainly looking for advice on how I can fix my process, and perhaps for some ideas and insight on how the rest of the group is handling these issues.

Keeping track: For a while there, I was using a spreadsheet. I've also tried out Rate Your Music, with mixed results. My issue is that I want one place to keep a wishlist, opinions, and (plenty of) information on what I physically own on CD/cassette/LP. I'm yet to see a solution that handles all three things in one place. The spreadsheet was also appealing for fast listmania.

Storing digitally: Right now, I'm using a large external hard drive hooked up to a relatively new desktop PC. There used to be a second music folder (including most of my digital music - drat) on that desktop's C:/ drive, but that blew a few months back. I like the idea of not clogging up my laptop's hard drive with tons of media, but buffering seems to be an issue. I keep thinking that there must be a media player or plug-in out there that actually copies the files locally and then deletes them after playback, but surprisingly I've had no luck finding one. There's no back-up (beyond the original discs) in my system yet either.

Adding new music to the collection: I was using a process that involved ripping to my laptop, listening to the album a few times (this used to happen at home, while doing homework or getting ready for bed, but now that I'm spending most of my time in front of a PC at work, I'm not running to the PC at home as often), and then transferring it to a drive on the main PC. I'm generally finding that I'm not getting far with this approach (maybe one album per week), and lag in getting things ripped and then transferred leads to growing piles of CD's around my bedroom and files on my laptop (which seems to be inevitably almost entirely out of hard disk space). Also, somewhere along the way I stopped actively buying current music - something like 95% of my recent buys are from yard sales, and while my parents appreciate all the new "classic rock" showing up, I'm feeling a bit out of touch with what's going on now (I still listen to enough podcasts and NPR thingamobs to have a clue, but I've only bought 3 2009 releases so far - I don't even get to play top 10 list anymore :-( ).

I feel like I'm forgetting additional issues I need help on, but here's a thread. Where can I start at fixing this?

[murlough23]

I've found the Music Journal threads to be extremely helpful for making sure I don't lose track of the things I still need to digest. However, that's only because I'm mostly listening to releases from the current year at any given time. Older stuff was still getting lost until I devised a system to keep track of my entire digesting pile in iTunes. Basically, I make a smart playlist for an album as soon as I rip it from the CD (or download it) and title it something like "(D) 2000 Pearl Jam - Binaural". The (d) stands for digesting, and alphabetically pushes that stuff to the top of the list, sorted by year. I could just as easily access the album through my main library, but it's easier to keep it where I'll notice it until I've listened enough time to grade it - then the playlist gets removed.

I don't know if iTunes is one of the things that crashes your machine, but I'm sure a similar approach could be taken (perhaps less elegantly) in other media players.

[ewok20t3]

This is somewhat along the same lines as this thread. Do you guys accumulate as much music as possible or do you prefer quality to quantity in regards to your music collection? Do you delete music you rarely listen to anymore from your iTunes library? Part of me wants to be able to put my iPod on random and never have to skip a song, but another part of me wants to keep everything I own on there in case I want to hear something I never listened to as closely as I should or someone I'm hanging out with wants to listen to something that I would have taken off. Opinions?

[murlough23]

Do you guys accumulate as much music as possible or do you prefer quality to quantity in regards to your music collection?

I accumulate when I don't already have a lot in the queue that I'm trying to digest, or a lot of upcoming releases that I'm anticipating. When I do have a lot on my plate to listen to, I want to be sure it gets the attention it deserves, so I tend to be more resistant to recommendations of new things. But depending on the reasons behind the recommendations, I might keep them on a list of stuff to check out later when I have more time. The Music Journals have helped with this greatly, and I will go back and check past years to see if I can download stuff I wanted to check out but never got around to, when the current year's queue starts to stall out.

Do you delete music you rarely listen to anymore from your iTunes library?

Yes. If it's not something I liked enough to buy, I'll delete it out of principle - not wanting to keep an illegal copy around forever and ever. If I bought it but still don't listen to it all that much, it'll eventually get deleted from iTunes and from my hard drive just to save space. The competition for space on my iPod is even stiffer, though I will keep stuff I'm still trying to digest in there, because you never know, a song might come up on shuffle that didn't strike me at first within the context of its album.

Part of me wants to be able to put my iPod on random and never have to skip a song, but another part of me wants to keep everything I own on there in case I want to hear something I never listened to as closely as I should or someone I'm hanging out with wants to listen to something that I would have taken off. Opinions?

This is a trial and error process for me. I keep mostly newer stuff (the past 2-3 years) on my iPod, and unless I really love an artist's full discography, will generally remove their older albums when a new one arrives from the same artist. My wife is the only other person who is in the car with me for sustained periods of time, and since I ask her to help play DJ for me on road trips and other long drives, we generally take turns picking albums. So I've kept some old stuff on there that I know she likes, which I like too but probably wouldn't keep in the iPod if it was just me in the car. (Albums by Out of the Grey, Cindy Morgan, ZOEgirl, etc. - I still like this stuff but don't pull it back out as often as she does.)

What's nice is that adding and removing stuff from my iPod is as easy as checking and unchecking playlists, so as long as I organize everything neatly in iTunes, I could theoretically have one or more iPod libraries that I switch back and forth between. I don't do that, but I will take stuff off of there and later put it back when the removal of newer stuff I turned out not to like frees up more space.

Helpful hint for the iPod: I tend to get annoyed when segues, interludes, etc. get picked on shuffle - anything that makes an extremely illogical or abrupt transition, so I find the "Skip when shuffling" option to be extremely helpful in iTunes. I've actually gone so far as to combine tracks in a WAV editor for albums where songs don't sound right without their intro/outro tracks (such as the latest Relient K), to make shuffle less painful.

NP: "Eastern Hymn", David Crowder Band

[bloop]

This is somewhat along the same lines as this thread. Do you guys accumulate as much music as possible or do you prefer quality to quantity in regards to your music collection?

For the most part, I listen to things I would be likely to enjoy based on the recommendations of others.  It's probably why there isn't a lot in my D & F categories.

Do you delete music you rarely listen to anymore from your iTunes library?

I don't really have an iTunes library since I add and delete albums from my iPod manually.  However, I'm pretty lax about deleting albums I don't listen to anymore from my hdd, just because I don't see any pressing need to.

[murlough23]

It's probably why there isn't a lot in my D & F categories.

Not having enough there is what sometimes spurs me to check out the latest Kutless album. Sometimes it's fun to listen to stuff that you expect to suck and give it the whipping it deserves. (Then again, I've been surprised on rare occasions.)

NP: "The Veil", David Crowder Band

[ewok20t3]

I probably should've added that I have a 500 GB External Hard Drive and a 120 GB iPod. So I have a good amount of space to use, even though my iPod still wouldn't be able to hold my whole music collection.

[murlough23]

That puts my 16 gigs to shame. However, even on a long road trip, I can't even come close to listening to all 16 gigs of it. There's stuff on my iPod that I've never actually listened to on the iPod - it's really there to increase the unpredictability of Shuffle, I suppose. I kind of like that the small size accommodates my most frequent listening habits, but forces me to prioritize.

[ewok20t3]

I kind of like that the small size accommodates my most frequent listening habits, but forces me to prioritize.

Yeah, I think that's part of my problem. I don't have to do much prioritizing with my iPod. I probably have a thousand different artists on there and probably only listen to 200 or so on a somewhat regular basis. That leaves me with a lot of music that I'm not a huge fan of popping up on shuffle. On the other hand, I like that I don't have to worry about taking something off of my iPod that I may randomly get in the mood to hear, or that a friend or my wife may want to hear. I don't want to complain about having too much memory, because I do like having most of my music collection at my fingertips, I'm just trying to figure out how best to manage everything.

[murlough23]

You might consider marking the stuff you're not a huge fan of, but might want to listen to occasionally, with the "Skip when shuffling" option.

NP: "Oh, Happiness", David Crowder Band

[ewok20t3]

You might consider marking the stuff you're not a huge fan of, but might want to listen to occasionally, with the "Skip when shuffling" option.

NP: "Oh, Happiness", David Crowder Band

That's a good idea. I actually forgot all about that option until I read it in your earlier post. I was planning on trying to make a massive playlist of all of the stuff I would want on shuffle and playing it in random mode. Using the "skip when shuffling" option would probably be much easier.

[murlough23]

One thing that bugs me about the iPod (or at least, that I haven't figured out how to do yet) is the inability to shuffle within an album or playlist.

I did notice that it has a "Shuffle by Album" option, meaning it will randomly pick an album, but I got this to work once and never again. I can get to the option, but Shuffle still does the usual pick a random song. So what I do sometimes when I don't know what album to listen to, but don't just want random songs, is shuffle, back up to cover flow, pick the album that contains the song it picked, and start that album from track 1.

[ewok20t3]

One thing that bugs me about the iPod (or at least, that I haven't figured out how to do yet) is the inability to shuffle within an album or playlist.

Mine will do this. I'm not sure if yours works the same way mine does, but to shuffle a playlist I go to the main menu and then I go to Settings. Then it shows a shuffle option and beside it you can make it say "Off", "Songs", or "Albums". You set it to "Songs" then go to your playlist and play it and it should shuffle it. That should also work for shuffling the songs on an album. That's how mine works, anyways. I hope that helps.

[murlough23]

Mine will do this. I'm not sure if yours works the same way mine does, but to shuffle a playlist I go to Settings, then it shows a shuffle option and beside it you can make it say "Off", "Songs", or "Albums". You set it to "Songs" then go to your playlist and play it and it should shuffle it. That should also work for shuffling the songs on an album. That's how mine works, anyways. I hope that helps.

Nope. I usually select albums through Cover Flow; shuffling from there chooses from the entirety of albums in Cover Flow (which is everything). I only set up playlists for things I don't want to stop after a specific "album" is done - generally series of EPs like Jon Foreman's or Future of Forestry's. Starting one of those playlists and then shuffling goes to a completely different artist, as does shuffling when navigating the playlist. This is likely a feature that was added in a newer generation of iPods (mine is the 4th gen Nano).

Shuffling within a playlist works fine within iTunes itself.

[Wildcatblue7]

I go in spurts where I consume a bunch of new stuff very quickly and then settle back and relisten to what I have for a while.  I'm doing more of the latter recently for monetary reasons and because I've realized that quality > quantity.  Nobody gives a flying rat's ass what I have/don't have, and besides, it's my mp3 player...so I'll put on there what I actually like.  If somebody want to hear something they can look around in mine and if I don't have it in 17 gigs they can bring their own damn machine.  I get really irritated hearing a bunch of crap that is either mediocre or I don't really even like come up on shuffle, so I maintain my library and delete stuff fairly frequently.  That's bitten me before but not often enough to make me stop.  Life is too short to listen to crap you don't like.

So, basically, maybe you should consider not buying bazillions of new albums just because they're cheap.  Whenever I've done that I end up a)not really liking it beyond a song or two or b) never actually listening to it.  It's just better to save the money and pass it up.

[murlough23]

Life is too short to listen to crap you don't like.

Agreed. The hard part for me is figuring out what I like, and why. A lot of my favorite things now are stuff I couldn't get into on first listen, so I figure I have to give most things enough chances to get over the "initial weirdness" threshold. Unless it's music that I don't like because it's stale and cliched. But even that surprises me with subtle things I didn't notice at times.

[Wildcatblue7]

Agreed. The hard part for me is figuring out what I like, and why. A lot of my favorite things now are stuff I couldn't get into on first listen, so I figure I have to give most things enough chances to get over the "initial weirdness" threshold. Unless it's music that I don't like because it's stale and cliched. But even that surprises me with subtle things I didn't notice at times.

yeah, I tend to be a little more black and white.  If I don't like something after the first couple spins (like 3-10 listens, depending) then boom ----> outta here.  I've found that I don't have time to come back to stuff I just wasn't very impressed with UNLESS it's an artist who I typically enjoy.  For example, I wasn't all that thrilled with Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance the first round but tried harder because I already loved two other albums...

Conversely, I need to delete He Is Legend's Suck Out the Poison.  It really does suck and I've never gotten into it.  Might as well not even be the same band and I'm tired of hearing it on shuffle what feels like CONSTANTLY.  Gah.  Shut up.

My policy boils down to this: If I skip you on shuffle all the time and never even stop to hear part of the song...I'm not a fan.  There's no point in keeping it.

[murlough23]

yeah, I tend to be a little more black and white.  If I don't like something after the first couple spins (like 3-10 listens, depending) then boom ----> outta here.

We're not as different as you might think. 3 spins is quite generous, I think. Maybe some stuff that feels like it's going over my head will require more, but if I don't like it after 5, I probably never will. There comes a point where one can't force these things, even if everyone else here likes it and I feel like the odd man out.

I've found that I don't have time to come back to stuff I just wasn't very impressed with UNLESS it's an artist who I typically enjoy.

Sometimes I'll still keep that stuff around for completion, but yeah, usually it goes in the garbage bin. Sometimes the fact that it's subpar music by an artist I normally like can make me perceive it even more harshly than if it were some artist who was new to me that I could just dismiss as "not my thing".

Conversely, I need to delete He Is Legend's Suck Out the Poison.  It really does suck and I've never gotten into it.  Might as well not even be the same band and I'm tired of hearing it on shuffle what feels like CONSTANTLY.  Gah.  Shut up.

I like the title track. Beyond that, I generally feel that way about HIL if it's not from the I Am Hollywood album.

[Wildcatblue7]

Speaking of IAH, did you rip it to your computer or download it?  Because I am always frustrated at my rip because it cuts into the middle of songs...it's like the files were divided incorrectly.  I've tried deleting and re-ripping about five times and always the same result.

[murlough23]

Speaking of IAH, did you rip it to your computer or download it?  Because I am always frustrated at my rip because it cuts into the middle of songs...it's like the files were divided incorrectly.  I've tried deleting and re-ripping about five times and always the same result.

Ripped it to my computer. I did notice the track divisions being slightly off in a couple of places - like the very end of "Dinner with a Gypsy" containing a split second of the title track that follows it.

[Wildcatblue7]

Ripped it to my computer. I did notice the track divisions being slightly off in a couple of places - like the very end of "Dinner with a Gypsy" containing a split second of the title track that follows it.

Mine is off by as much as a minute on some tracks and there are frequent skips/omissions of parts of the songs.  My CD copy is absolutely fine...I am baffled by this.  Anyway.

/derail

[ewok20t3]

So, basically, maybe you should consider not buying bazillions of new albums just because they're cheap.  Whenever I've done that I end up a)not really liking it beyond a song or two or b) never actually listening to it.  It's just better to save the money and pass it up.

I totally understand where you're coming, but I have found quite a few gems because I took a chance on an album that was a dollar. I've found enough gems that it makes it worth it for me to keep doing it. Of course the majority of the albums have, like you said, only had one or two good songs or I never even listened to the whole thing. It costs a dollar to download a song I like on iTunes, so why not buy a whole album that I know has at least one song I'd like to have?

[murlough23]

I totally understand where you're coming, but I have found quite a few gems because I took a chance on an album that was a dollar. I've found enough gems that it makes it worth it for me to keep doing it. Of course the majority of the albums have, like you said, only had one or two good songs or I never even listened to the whole thing. It costs a dollar to download a song I like on iTunes, so why not buy a whole album that I know has at least one song I'd like to have?

I think the main concern here is that it may be taking time away from stuff that you would potentially like if you had more time to invest in fully listening to it. In other words, don't be so worried about what you might miss that you end up missing out on good stuff that's already in your collection.

[ewok20t3]

I think the main concern here is that it may be taking time away from stuff that you would potentially like if you had more time to invest in fully listening to it. In other words, don't be so worried about what you might miss that you end up missing out on good stuff that's already in your collection.

Ah, I see. I've really been trying to do better at that. In the last few days I've been going back and listening to some albums that I thought had potential but I never fully digested. Hopefully I'll keep at this and try to get better about balancing it all out. If only I could listen to my headphones at work like I used, it would be so much easier to get all of the listening in that I need to.

[Wildcatblue7]

What murlough said + I just think one good song on an-otherwise clunker album is not worth my money in any way shape or form.  If I'm really dying for the song someday I'll hunt it down, but I hate having the superfluous crap clogging up my space/shuffle.