Discogs - Help, Tricks, Secrets And Tips

I been entering some some of Lp's into discogs for my reference purposes mostly. I have about 60% of my recent/new stuff in.

I have about 1500+ older records from my original collection (non barcode), parents, etc but its hard and frustrating for me to read the matrix info with older eyes, so I'm not sure I will try to put all those in other than highlight selections. Any help, tips for doing this ?
 
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JohnnyCashFan said:
I been entering some some of Lp's into discogs for my reference purposes mostly. I have about 60% of my recent/new stuff in.

I have about 1500+ older records from my original collection, parents, etc but its hard and frustrating for me to read the matrix info with older eyes, so I'm not sure I will try to put all those in other than highlight selections. Any help, tips for doing this ?
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If you download the app you can use the barcode scanner to find a quick match. This unfortunately doesn’t help for anything prior to early 70s though.
 
This makes me a crappy Discogs user but unless I have a specific reason to be variant hunting on older albums...I kind of just plug in the code on the label, look to see if the label image matches, and go with it. Obviously if I am to sell I re-check but most of the time finding which user entry (which may be wrong) it matches wasn't worth the time.
 
Melt Face Molly Drop said:
If you download the app you can use the barcode scanner to find a quick match. This unfortunately doesn’t help for anything prior to early 70s though.
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Yes, I have the app as well. Most of my older, original stuff though is no barcode.

What does everyone do to help read matrix info ?

waruv said:
This makes me a crappy Discogs user but unless I have a specific reason to be variant hunting on older albums...I kind of just plug in the code on the label, look to see if the label image matches, and go with it. Obviously if I am to sell I re-check but most of the time finding which user entry (which may be wrong) it matches wasn't worth the time.
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I have cheated and done that on a few 😊
 
waruv said:
This makes me a crappy Discogs user but unless I have a specific reason to be variant hunting on older albums...I kind of just plug in the code on the label, look to see if the label image matches, and go with it. Obviously if I am to sell I re-check but most of the time finding which user entry (which may be wrong) it matches wasn't worth the time.
Click to expand...
I used to do this but it’s come back to bite me a few times.
 
JohnnyCashFan said:
I been entering some some of Lp's into discogs for my reference purposes mostly. I have about 60% of my recent/new stuff in.

I have about 1500+ older records from my original collection (non barcode), parents, etc but its hard and frustrating for me to read the matrix info with older eyes, so I'm not sure I will try to put all those in other than highlight selections. Any help, tips for doing this ?
Click to expand...

I use a flashlight. There is a softer LED on the side that is bright enough, but not overly bright that works well.

For CD matrices, I use a few old add-on macro lens magnifiers that are for my DSLR.

20220709_213050.jpg
 
For older things without a barcode, I've decided not to be too anal about it tbh. I'm not sorting through 50 versions of The Cars Candy-O on discogs to find my exact pressing (even with correct run out info you have to look at multiple versions) so am just going with one that makes sense. Should be a good time saver. I'm not a seller so as long as I know I have a copy thats the important part.
 
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JohnnyCashFan said:
For older things without a barcode, I've decided not to be too anal about it tbh. I'm not sorting through 50 versions of The Cars Candy-O on discogs to find my exact pressing (even with correct run out info you have to look at multiple versions) so am just going with one that makes sense. Should be a good time saver. I'm not a seller so as long as I know I have a copy thats the important part.
Click to expand...
A bright lamp and the right angle works for me, and these eyes are old too! Rather than search through all the listings, for titles with many of them, I usually type in what’s in the matrix I’m looking at. That usually narrows it down quite a bit. Still imperfect because sometimes, nothing comes up, or the few that do aren’t it, or the runout matches but the label doesn’t. Then I’ll find another way to it and wonder why the hell it hadn’t come up when I typed it in. There’s no tried and true fast solution as far as I can tell. Patience, young grasshopper 😜
 
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