Daniel A Posted July 17, 2003 Report Posted July 17, 2003 Given that the complete Bruyninckx jazz discography is said to be released on CD-ROM later this year (or is it out already?), there seems that there are two main options for those who want a fairly comprehensive and easily searchable discography. The price mentioned is EUR 400, a bit more than Lord’s (which is around USD 300) but perhaps not that big a difference. Aside from the more practical aspects, like how user-friendly they are – I suppose not much is yet known about the CD-ROM Bruyninckx – which of the two is the most comprehensive? I know I’m probably supposed to get them both, but that’s out of my budget for now. My interests are primarily in fairly mainstream jazz from the 50s and onwards, and perhaps also some music that borders on fusion. Quote
JohnS Posted July 17, 2003 Report Posted July 17, 2003 I have Lord and I think it's pretty good. Easy to use, looks okay, the main problem as far as I'm concerned is that you can't copy and paste. From a thread on a now defunct bulletin board I know that Bruyninckx has some fans. No doubt they will psst in due course. Quote
Michael Fitzgerald Posted July 18, 2003 Report Posted July 18, 2003 (edited) Easily searchable - for what? Lord limits what you can search for, Bruyninckx is just a set of .pdf files and you use Acrobat to search for *anything*. Lord hides the contents of the database, Bruyninckx lays the info out there. Lord may seem quicker but only if you do what it wants you to do. I have both of these CD-ROMs as well as other discographies (2+ sets of printed Bruyninckx, Raben, Bielefelder Katalog CD-ROM and books, various label and artist books). I use them all, and consult many other sources too. There is no end-all, despite what some of the Lord reviewers say. Unfortunately, all those reviews that I've seen are done by people who are not discographers and who don't have any experience with the Bruyninckx CD-ROM (as Les McCann said, "Compared to what?"). They're done by jazz fans. Lord seems to have targeted fans as his market, and I can't really blame him since he's out to make some money. His PR machine is on a whole 'nother level from that of Bruyninckx. The following is an old (2 years now!) comparison. I wrote a more detailed one for an Austrian publication. I haven't updated it since the Lord 3.3 and next installment of Bruyninckx came out. Some things I mention have been fixed, some haven't. Some probably never will. Lord 3.3 has some additional features such as multi-search, which can be very useful. http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Essays/cdromdiscog.htm Lord 3.3 has the entire alphabet, Bruyninckx now has all letters from A-T. Happy to answer any further questions on the subject. Mike Edited July 18, 2003 by Michael Fitzgerald Quote
Daniel A Posted July 18, 2003 Author Report Posted July 18, 2003 Thanks for your input! And thanks Mike for linking to that review. That Lord doesn't allow you to copy and paste seems like a huge drawback. Is Bruyninckx categorized as the printed editions, or is just a plain A-Z? The latter would perhaps be preferrable since I suppose it at least allows you to list everything under a certain artist's leadership at once. Quote
Michael Fitzgerald Posted July 19, 2003 Report Posted July 19, 2003 No, it is like the full size (A4) Bruyninckx print editions - each letter of the alphabet is a separate .pdf file and the version of Acrobat Reader with Search allows for cross-file indexing so you can do a global search in (for now) 20 alphabetical letters. Those mini-books were a bit odd in their forced stylistic division of the music. As I understand it, they were done by and at the specific request of the Japanese. I don't believe they were an update of the full-size edition, just a dividing and size reduction. Mike Quote
mikeweil Posted July 28, 2003 Report Posted July 28, 2003 That Lord doesn't allow you to copy and paste seems like a huge drawback. The latest Bruyninckx CD I have doesn't allow copy and paste either! - the one before did. As I understand it he's afraid of others copying and selling the disco at his expenses, which is okay. Sometimes I think it would be much more convenient to have the discos online and pay an annual fee for using them, password protected etc. Updates would be easier, or you could pay only for what you download, or whatever. For me this would be the third step after printed books and CDROMs. Quote
Michael Fitzgerald Posted July 28, 2003 Report Posted July 28, 2003 (edited) I suspect, though I haven't tried it, that the Bruyninckx is fully copy- and paste-able with the full version of Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader). Can someone confirm? Online is definitely the next step. In our own small way, some of us are already there...... Mike Edited July 28, 2003 by Michael Fitzgerald Quote
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