[RipVanW]

I recently finished ripping my entire CD library to FLAC.  It's the first step in a return to listening to my music again.  The rest of the audio chain is still a work in progress and nowhere near audiophile quality, but it will get there over time.

Now that everything is ripped, though, I'm at a place where I can start expanding the collection again.  We still have at least one really good record store where I'm at, and while on vacation recently in a nearby city I discovered another.  The problem when searching through the bins of new and used CDs is remembering what I already have.  With nearly 600 CDs, and at least 80 of them being genre compilations, it's difficult to remember what CDs and songs I do and don't have.

I know that if I put my entire collection on my Android in MP3 format that there are quite a few apps out there that have search capability.  However, I have no interest in putting my entire collection on my Android.  For me, that's a playback device of last resort (as are lossy MP3s), and I'd rather use the space to take photos and videos and such.

What I'm envisioning is for the collection to remain on my PC (or in the future, NAS), and for a Windows (or even Linux if there are better options there) program to scan the metadata and create an album/song/artist/composer database which can then be exported to an Android phone.  On the Android there would be an app that provides search capability using that local static database.  When I'm in the record store I would just pull up the app and use it to see if the CD I'm looking at is a good choice, or if half of the tracks on it are duplicates of what I already have.  There may be cloud solutions out there but I'd really rather avoid them.  I try to avoid anything cloud-based whenever possible.

Does such a set of applications exist?  If so, does anyone have any suggestions? 

[Vincent Kars]

Your media player might be able to export a playlist to CSV, load it in Excel.

MP3tag can export to html, use the search function of your browser to locate a cd

Mayby you can fake a media player on Android by exporting a .m3u, load it on android without the files

[Scott F.]

Since you are on the Android platform, I think there is a Google Chrome app available. Thru Chrome, you can do Remote Desktop and read your PCs hard drive contents. I haven't tried that as I use JRiver. The Gizmo app reads all my music files and allows me to interface with my server selecting songs/artists/playlists. It's well worth the 50 clams for the program.

[Mike-48]

Here is how you can solve that problem, and without making copies of anything:

• Install BubbleUPnP (DLNA/OpenHome/Chromecast control point) on your Android phone. Pay the small registration fee.
• Install a DLNA media server on the computer where you have the music files. I use MinimServer on my NAS, though any DNLA/UPnP server will work. (Of course, that computer must be ON and connected to the network to search it remotely.)
• To check the above are working, make sure you can now use home-network streaming to play your music files on the phone, using the control point and media server you installed in (1) and (2).
• Now, install BubbleUPnP Server (a separate program) on any computer on the same home network. It's simplest (but not necessary) to install it on the computer with the music files. This program makes your existing media server(s) available over the network when using BubbleUPnP Client. It is password protected.
• Set up port forwarding on your router to allow remote access to the machine with BubbleUPnP Server.
• Using its settings menu, configure BubbleUPnP on your phone to access the remote server you have set up.

Now, when you bring up BubbleUPnP client on your phone, it will find your remote server. You can then search that to see if you already have a particular disc.

That may seem like a lot of steps, but none of them is difficult. And when you're done, you'll not just be able to search your music collection, you'll be able to play it anywhere with decent connectivity. That includes playing music from your home server on headphones attached to your phone, and also to anyone's system who has a DLNA/UPnP or OpenHome renderer (Lumin, iFi, Auralic, Linn, Allo, ...) and will let you onto their network.

[Yog Sothoth]

I use Clementine music player on my computer at home, and there is an Android app for controlling it remotely.  It allows rudimentary searching of your music database.  The searching id not very sophisticated, but I use it for the exact purpose you are describing and it has been very helpful.

There are actually two apps for it, from different developers.  I've been use Clementine Remote, but I may give the other a try and then choose the one I prefer.

[WGH]

Rube Goldberg would be proud of all the answers so far.




Download the free Karen's Directory Printer
Save the music directory to disk and copy the file to your phone.
https://www.karenware.com/powertools/karens-directory-printer

[WGH]

JRiver has the ability to export the music library to Excel

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=90270.0

The Excel spreadsheet could be stored remotely on Google Drive or on your phone. The Excel Android app is free.

[SlushPuppy]

Get the Discogs app: https://www.discogs.com/app

You can scan the barcodes of all your discs pretty quickly and have it available on your phone and it has marketplace pricing for discs you're looking to buy.

[Yog Sothoth]

Get the Discogs app: https://www.discogs.com/app

You can scan the barcodes of all your discs pretty quickly and have it available on your phone and it has marketplace pricing for discs you're looking to buy.

Good to know, thanks!  I didn't know they had an application!

[Mike-48]

Regarding complexity and Rube Goldberg --

It all depends on how you think about it and where your system is going next. The solution I proposed (setting up a DLNA system + BubbleUPnP Server) has the advantage that you are querying the music library itself, not a copy or printout. Thus, it's never out of date. Nor are you opening general access to your PC, only the one port with a password. Nor do you have to scan or catalog your music as another step.

If one wanted home-networked audio, one would have to do most of it anyway, and adding BubbleUPnP Server would be the only extra step, costing nothing but half an hour's time. Why would one want networked audio? How about listening to your music in a different room, either through your phone or an inexpensive DLNA renderer? Once you have it, you can feed music to any number of systems on the same network.

Of course, if someone definitely wants to play files only through USB or on the machine where they reside, setting up a DLNA system with remote access probably is unnecessarily complex. But I have tried other ways of doing this! The printouts I carried with me were always either out of date or hard to search for what I wanted, whereas remote DLNA access lets one search in any way the client and server allow. With the programs listed, that's almost unlimited flexibility. So there are real benefits, which for some users will outweigh the increase in complexity.

[howburger]

Roon’s newest update allows you to access your local files over the internet. I haven’t dedicated the time and potential necessary patience to work out any potential bugs. Here is the link. https://roonlabs.com/arc

Harold

[toocool4]

I use to have the same problem of when traveling buying things that I have been after, but forgetting that I already picked them up a while back.

I know you don’t want to go cloud, but I use Music Collectorz https://www.collectorz.com/music, it sits on my home computer and syncs to the cloud server. I have never bought a duplicate since getting this software, now if I by duplicate it’s because I am after a better copy. I can pull it up on my phone and do a live search of my database.
I got in early enough that I only had to pay a one-off fee, now you have to pay a yearly fee. I still pay a yearly fee as I like what these guys do and I want them to keep going. A yearly fee means you keep getting the latest upgrades, if I stop paying I still get to use the software but don't get software upgrades.

Here is a link to my live database https://cloud.collectorz.com/toocool4/music, where you can search etc. Don’t laugh as I have a few embarrassing things, but hey they go back to my youth and I am not going to dump them because I am embarrassed about them. Click thumb nails to see contents of album.

Music Collectorz is an amazing software, and I would not be without it now best investment I did for my music.