Vinyl alchemy + I'm bored of most of my records

[Guest petesasqwax]

Today I took in 2 sacks of records (somewhere in the region of 60 records - in a mixture of 7"s, 12"s and LPs) to the local record store a good friend of mine owns and traded them in for 2 LPs. As I left I was thinking about how I could have got much more than the effectively £45 I got for the records I traded, but that I loved having been able to clear out a nice chunk of records I have listened to in years and probably won't ever listen to again.

It got me thinking about the rest of my collection and how I've been steadily selling between £50 and £200 worth of vinyl a month for a fair while now. Are there any records I've missed? That I regret selling? Honestly, I can't think of any. Of all the records I traded in today, I probably care about a dozen of them in total. None of which I'm likely to ever want to listen to again. The bulk of my record collection has become a representation of who I have been in the past but no longer am & I'm tired of it. It's like having the echoes of an old version of me lurking around me.

Can anyone else relate to this or am I out on a limb here having some kind of early mid-life musical crisis?

[Deft]

I've never had a monumental record collection, probably in the high hundreds rather than thousands. I have not really played any for years but I'm kind of neutral on them as they are not really taking up space that I desperately need for something else. None of them particularly valuable but good memories of my time at university and a few years before and after.

[Guest broke]

Over the last few years, I've sold more records than I've bought.

[joeClockwork]

I never buy new release vinyl but I still buy classic hip hop and a variety of older stuff.

 

I use all of my hip hop vinyl for mixes and cuts on my projects. I don't ever find myself listening to hip hop records at home, especially now I'm married. Can't imagine me and the missus listening to Live and Let Die over a nice bottle of red!

 

I think it would do me the world of good, psychologically, if I did sell my hip hop records but I can't bring myself to do it! Especially not while I've got so many mix projects on the go.

 

I want to learn SQL at some point so cataloguing my wax would be a good way to learn. Maybe after that I can stick the whole lot up on Discogs and see what happens.

[Guest broke]

I never buy new release vinyl but I still buy classic hip hop and a variety of older stuff.

 

I use all of my hip hop vinyl for mixes and cuts on my projects. I don't ever find myself listening to hip hop records at home, especially now I'm married. Can't imagine me and the missus listening to Live and Let Die over a nice bottle of red!

 

I think it would do me the world of good, psychologically, if I did sell my hip hop records but I can't bring myself to do it! Especially not while I've got so many mix projects on the go.

 

I want to learn SQL at some point so cataloguing my wax would be a good way to learn. Maybe after that I can stick the whole lot up on Discogs and see what happens.

 

You know you can use Discogs to catalogue your collection without selling it right? It'll even generate a .csv or .xls file of your stuff too.

[Guest petesasqwax]

Yeah, discogs is pretty amazing when it comes to organising your collection

[Jam Burglar]

I've got roughly 2 1/2 Expedit shelves worth of stuff. I never really thought about selling anything honestly, except for the dregs that I'm pretty confident I'd never use. That would mostly be records that I got because somebody gave me a whole box. I have 2 or 3 crates of that type of shit. Most of my stuff I bought on my own and it's pretty decent, jazz, soul, hip hop, 80s 12"s, kids records, soundtracks, rock. Of the hip hop, 90% of it is 12" singles and I like to cut over the instrumentals. The jazz and soul I'll listen to when I'm working on various projects. It might take me 45 minutes to put away a crate of stuff I've pulled and I'll put on a record to listen to while I do that. What I find myself listening to the least is the hip hop LPs. You can't really cut on it, and I'm not using it to make music. I listen to the hip hop LPs mostly in the car and unless I rip the vinyl it often just sits, waiting for the right mix. I have a real hard time getting rid of things though. I'm not as bad as a lot of people but I'll hoard some stuff.

 

I've gotten WAY more selective about what I'll buy these days. I just have so many damn records and lots of dope stuff. Instead of digging I should be sampling and making tracks. So, when I starting thinking about buying more wax I think of all the stuff I have on the shelf that I already know I can use and it puts me off. Unless its dope drums or bass-lines. I always buy those.

[honna]

... I have a real hard time getting rid of things though. I'm not as bad as a lot of people but I'll hoard some stuff.

 

I've gotten WAY more selective about what I'll buy these days. ...

^^ this is me for sure.

[Gizmo]

This has inspired me to write a whole piece about it. Watching the rain on Easter Monday has me pulling out classics and wondering just why the hell I keep hold of all this stuff.

[DJ Rock Well]

I do actually see where you're coming from Pete. I own some dodgy stuff that I won't listen to (probably) and my tastes have changed and particularly grown as I've got older. But for me, they're my memories and when I do occasionally get the urge to pull out old records that meant something ten years ago, I'm right back there when I listen to them.

 

I don't have a huge collection, but I've tried to get a little bit of everything that's caught my ear and that I rate. Now I've run a secondhand record shop for a while I've got to listen to a bit of every kind of music and a little bit of everything has made it's way into my collection. I guess for my musical tastes, it's like a kind of vinyl autobiography. There's always things missing or that I can't afford to add, but it's an ongoing process. I agree that buying with some self control makes for a better collection in the end, although when I was DJing regularly and had to buy records from actual shops, the rush for new records every week did dilute things a bit. The only thing I do religiously stick to these days is not collecting for collecting's sake, everything I've got is for listening to or at the very least, sampling.

[Gizmo]

http://djworx.com/should-i-keep-my-vinyl/

[JHouse]

I sold all my records several months ago, and for the most part, haven't looked back. They were my refined collection, ones that I've whittled down to, but I seldom played them. Maybe about once a year, if that. I just play different music now, plus I'm really diggin' digital DJn, when I hated on it for ages. Still though, my best memories were coming home after I purchased a grip of wax and then just throwing down, mixing it all together, from various genres. That was a key part of my progression, just constantly freestyling with new shit and makin' it work. Shoots, I might have to cop some new/used vinyl when I get another deck.

[djdiggla]

Over the last few years, I've sold more records than I've bought.

 

I've just given them away. Most people don't even want singles which is most of what I have.

[waxdestroyer]

Ive sold my entire 90s collection of hiphop for good prices and kept most of my 80s hiphop/electro.

Actually i bought more records than i sold recently from Philadelphiamusic wich is one of the biggest sellers on Discogs.

 

Now i got a proper Funk/Disco/Electro/Hiphop collection and won't sell them any time soon.

 

One of my recent purchases "Papa Austin with the Great Peso- Wrong Girls to Play With" on Tuff City

 

Thats proper hiphop!

[Guest Psychedelic Schizophrenic]

To be honest with you Pete I'm going through the same stage at the moment, cleared out a whole crate of CD's that I no longer play nor need now that I've gone digital years ago. I've been going through my records today, got a load of UK and US hip hop LPs and singles that I haven't played for years and probably won't play again for years. I've been thinking about sticking them on ebay too along with the CD's with all good intentions of using the money towards a flashy new PC rig that I want to build for DAW use and finish my studio that I've been saying I would do for years.

 

I very much doubt that I will ever DJ again now that I'm older as my circumstances and commitments in life like most people here have changed, now days I'm more of a casual producer and scratcher. Yeah sure they give me many fond memories of my younger days but records were meant to be played not stored, I would rather like to see them good to a better home where they might get played instead of sitting in crates gathering dust.

[Guest Symatic]

Feel free to send me all your unwanted classics ill give you a pre-completed kinder suprise toy in trade

[Guest petesasqwax]

The thing is, I don't regret having a vinyl collection - I just wish I has different one! Some of the records I will never part with: the United States of America LP, Ultimate Spinach 'Behold & See' - they're not the rarest of records, but they're amongst my favourites and there are SO many more that I wish I had alongside them

[djdiggla]

Feel free to send me all your unwanted classics ill give you a pre-completed kinder suprise toy in trade

 

You know those are illegal in the states. I picked some up for the kids when I was in Canada. Some bullshit about no toys in food.

[INFA]

I have considered selling my collection a few years back. I was djíng anymore. Very glad i didn't sell them. I use them a lot. Most of them i still dont play but there a part my history and have decided that i will never sell records again. Also started collecting again and placed 7 orders today on discogs (about 50 records)

[Jam Burglar]

Seems like a lot of it depends on if you're making sample-based music or not. At some point you end up with more records than you could possibly use to justify listening, or even DJing purposes. The thing that makes me hold onto a record is the fact that there's probably a 2 second part on it that I might "need" some day. At least, that's what I like to tell myself.

[Guest broke]

The thing that makes me hold onto a record is the fact that there's probably a 2 second part on it that I might "need" some day. At least, that's what I like to tell myself.

Yep, that's a big part of why I'm keeping a lot of my records.

[Creature13]

Yeah, discogs is pretty amazing when it comes to organising your collection

For Sure!! And when looking for additions as well.

 

Mike

[joeClockwork]

 

The thing that makes me hold onto a record is the fact that there's probably a 2 second part on it that I might "need" some day. At least, that's what I like to tell myself.

Yep, that's a big part of why I'm keeping a lot of my records.

 

 

Same here. A few LPs I have only contain one killer track, maybe two, and the rest is gash. And in a lot of cases the 45 of said killer track costs more than the LP! It's frustrating because you can't sit back and listen to the LP end to end without having to get up and skip to the next track.

 

Re. the Discogs thing, I just wanted a project to help me learn SQL.

[DJ Rock Well]

Although this was more about which vinyl to keep, I guess the other question is whether to keep vinyl (especially the valuable variety) when it's everywhere digitally one way or another.

 

I must admit that I listen to a lot of music on my phone, computer or even just YouTube these days. It's easier that playing the record sometimes. But hipster pretentions aside, I do just like the vinyl format. Apart from anything else, I generally manage to hang on to my records over time. Whereas I generally seem to lose or break all CDs eventually. Or scratch them. Equally hard drives can fail, YouTube vids get taken down, etc. It's probably part nostalgia from DJing in the vinyl only era, but once I have the record I feel like I 'really' own that piece of music.

 

Also, a good handful of my favourite records I've never found on CD, streaming, YouTube, etc.

[INFA]

It's probably part nostalgia from DJing in the vinyl only era, but once I have the record I feel like I 'really' own that piece of music.

 

Also, a good handful of my favourite records I've never found on CD, streaming, YouTube, etc.

Same here, never had any feelings for cd's other then that it gave me the possibility to listen to the tracks.