music collection

Flagio

Hi, I'm looking for a system to build a database with my music collection: vinyl records, cd's, 12", LP's etc. Every physical record has data like year, catalog no., country. But also related data like the track names and artists. Tracks could have related data too, like roles of performers. I have the feeling OC is so flexible it can be used for that, but will it be the right choice?

Take this page as example: http://www.discogs.com/release/1294694 and http://www.discogs.com/release/add for the form (logged in)

How would I translate that structure to the OC terms?

Thanks for your time, Flagio

seth

Hi Flagio,

I think OpenCollection would work for your project, although depending upon your overall requirements you might want to consider rolling your own recording-specific database, or perhaps a custom cataloguing user interface for OC. OC is designed for collections with lots of different "stuff" - typical museum collections in other words - and so the user interface and data model are generic, making minimal assumptions about the types of material being handled. This is a good thing when you expect to be cataloguing a sculpture in the morning, an audio interview in the afternoon and a digital document in the evening, but can be less than optimal when you are exclusively cataloguing one or two types of material.

If you decide to us OC you could model your discography database along these lines:

The recording-track relationship could be handled using hierarchical object relationships, with the tracks as sub-objects of the recording. Since object hierarchies can be of any depth you could even model multi-record sets if you wish (record set at top of hierarchy; individual records at level 2 and tracks at level 3). Each track would be a full fledged object with access to the same cataloguing tools as any other object, and tracks can show up in search results as independent objects, with links back to the parent object(s).
The credits section would be modeled using the entities authority (OC's master database of people & corporate entities) and object-entity relationships. You would define a relationship type for each type of relationship (eg. book by, orchestrated by, lyrics by, performed by, etc.)
If you need to model productions, for soundtracks for example, you could create a productions authority via the OC's occurrences authority. Simply create an occurrence type of 'productions' and define any needed attribute types and off you go. We have a few users doing just this and they seem happy with the arrangement.
You'd catalogue the record label using the entities authority.
You could catalogue country using the place names authority (a hierarchical master database of geographical places) but unless you have a lot of countries or wish to generate maps based upon the info (I'm guessing you don't) then it may be simpler to use an attribute.
You'd probably use object classification (aka. "object types") to record the format of the recording unless there are so many formats that they don't fit into a drop-down menu. Since you can key the set of acceptable attributes for an object to the object classification, you probably would want to use object classification if possible.
Ideally you'd catalogue style and genre using a controlled vocabulary (a set list of standard terms), but you'd have to either locate an existing list or create your own. If that's too much work you could also use attributes and hand-entered values to record this information. If you have a lot of material and care about consistency and search/browse quality then you really should create or obtain a controlled vocabulary.
If you want to attach an image of the record cover and/or label you can add the scan as a "representation"; you could also attach a representation of the recording itself in MP3, WAV or AIFF format. OC will automatically create an MP3 from the uploaded file (if it's WAV or AIFF) for web-based playback as well as retain the original. OC doesn't support the FLAC format yet, but it could without too much work if you needed that format.

Hope this answers the question!

seth

Flagio

Thanks for your answer Seth! It surely answers my questions. I'll try to set things up this way, the best way to learn all about OC me thinks.

Greetings, Flagio