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MAESTRO MANAGER'S FOCUS IS CLASSICAL MUSIC
Focusing solely on classical music enables the addition of unique features to Maestro Manager that enhance the listening and collecting experience of classical music lovers. Several of the features that distinguish Maestro Manager from other music collecting programs follow.
 
  
COMPARISON OF MAESTRO MANAGER WITH OTHER SOFTWARE PROGRAMS
FEATURES
MAESTRO MANAGER
OTHER PROGRAMS
EASE-OF-USE
   
LEGIBILITY
 •Understanding what's displayed is as simple as reading an album cover as ONE form displays all of the information written on an album's cover with a logical location for each item that relates to classical music collecting.  •Disjointed. Unable to display each classical-related detail found on an album's cover or else requires opening form after form to display similar content. Difficult to discern each composition's composer and the conductor, orchestra, and solo artists that perform the composition.
FASTER
•Expedites creating search criteria and generating reports as the user simply selects pre-entered classical-specific details from scrollable lists.  •Laborious. With few if any scrollable lists specific to classical music, users spend time typing in search and report criteria 
ADAPTS TO EACH USER
 •Adapts to characteristics important to each user by tracking and prompting the selection of albums based on user-defined criteria such as a friend's name, a sonic characteristic, a musical category, or other readily defined topics.  •Although several programs can adapt some characteristics, it's unclear whether you can use user-defined criteria to prompt the selection of albums.
ELIMINATES MONTHS OF DATA ENTRY    
ELIMINATES TYPING
 •Typing is all but eliminated. Instead, users click on boxes or select names from fourteen scrollable lists each devoted to a topic applicable to classical music.  •Lacking numerous scrollable lists and check boxes applicable to the classical repertoire, users spend considerable time typing in information. 
PRE-PROGRAMMED CLASSICAL REPERTOIRE
 •Unlike other programs, Maestro Manager's scrollable lists are useable immediately. They contain the names–correctly spelled–of hundreds of composers, compositions, conductors, orchestras, solo artists, album labels, album manufacturers, and other related items. •The few scrollable lists relevant to classical music, typically, lack usability until the collector enters each name used in each list via typing in those names!

ACCELERATES ENTERING ALBUM COLLECTIONS

•Three album-entry methods expedite entering albums. Even the slowest method is fast as it primarily involves making selections from pre-programmed scrollable lists. For a perspective, the use of CDDB* to enter a rock'n'roll album requires about the same time as Maestro Manager's slowest album-entry method.

•Entering album descriptions requires an enormous amount of typing. Users might have to type in names such as Tchaikovsky, Knappertsbusch, Oistrakh, and Concertgebouw Orchestra over and over, that is each time that name pertains to an album. All in all, entering an album collection is a time-consuming tedious chore that may never be completed.

ENHANCED FEATURES FOR LPs

 

 

PRE-ENTERED LPs
 •Pre-entered descriptions of many LPs on Decca, London, Lyrita, Mercury, RCA, Everest, EMI, and other labels are available for instantaneous entry.  •Lack pre-entered libraries of vintage albums. This  necessitates entering each album description manually–mostly via typing in each detail.
DESCRIPTIVE COMMENTARY
 •Each pre-entered description may include a wealth of information in addition to the details written on an album's cover. This includes descriptive commentary and an indication of whether a critic such as Robert Moon, Michael Gray, Sid Marks, Jonathan Valin, James Mitchell, or The Absolute Sound recommended an album as outstanding. •Lack descriptive commentary and recommendations by reviewers. 

TRACKS PRESSING VARIATIONS
 •Tracks specifics pertinent to each LP, such as pressing and label variations and other items unique to vinyl lovers. Ability to generate reports that list the pressing/label variations of each album.  •Unable to track and create reports that indicate pressing and label variations. 
EMPOWERS ABSOLUTE CONTROL

 

 

ANSWERS ANY QUESTION
 •Answers an enormous variety of questions created by combining up to 20 items applicable to the classical repertoire and collector. Determining which LPs contain violin concertos performed by Ricci on The Absolute Sound's Super Disc list that have awesome string tone that you should play when your friend Jasmine visits is as simple to address as determining the filing location of all CDs that contain works conducted by Stokowski.  •Minimal. Typically limited to creating search criteria from a few classical-related items, most programs can only answer the most basic questions.
NEVER MISPLACE AN ALBUM
 •Tracks the filing location of each album with the ability to pinpoint this to a specific place in a shelf, cabinet, or location. Able to limit search responses and the albums listed in reports to albums filed in specific storage locations.

•Unable to track filing locations. Simply displaying a description of an album owned by the user provides limited value if the user cannot locate that album.

•Unable to limit search responses and the albums listed in reports to albums filed in specific storage locations. 

ENABLES FILING ALBUMS IN ANY ORDER
•Enables filing albums in any order as users can locate albums independent of where they're filed. Instead of trying to keep all piano concertos together, file them in various locations such as under a composer's name, with albums that share the same label, in the 20th century music section, and with albums that are “For Sale”. Even if filed in this manner, it's easy to determine the filing location of each album that contains a piano concerto.

•One program tracks an album's filing location to a single item level. Instead of the “Bach section” of the “Upstairs Cabinet,” it tracks to the “Upstairs Cabinet.” This provides limited value. If the albums in the Upstairs Cabinet are filed by composer, the user would spend considerable time searching for an album that contains compositions written by Alwyn, Grainger, Elgar, Leigh, Balfe, and Bax. 

•Provides no flexibility in how albums are filed.

CRITIQUES BY REVIEWERS

 

 

•Tracks whether the user or any critics known for their critiques of classical music recordings recommended an album as outstanding. Able to search for albums recommended by specific critics and to generate reports that indicate critical recommendations.  •Unable to track or search for albums recommended by the user or other critics. 
* CDDB is an album-entry process familiar to some collectors though it is not a great benefit to collectors of classical music recordings.
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