If you’ve ever joined me on a Teams call from my home office, you’ve likely noticed the wall of vinyl records behind me. This post aims to answer the most common questions I get on calls, offering a glimpse into my music collection and the technology used to play it.

The Collection

My vinyl collection is more than just a backdrop; let me give you a tour:

The Main Attraction

The wall you see behind me during video calls is just the beginning:

What you don’t see on calls

Adjacent to my desk, a second wall of records adds to the collection:

Box Set Bonanza

For those special editions and compilations, my bookshelves house an array of box sets:

Exploring the Collection Digitally

With over 2,827 items cataloged on Discogs↗ ; the collection caters to every mood and taste and I don’t find myself with nothing to listen to. A while ago I got bored during a winter weekend and using ChatGPT created a custom website that brings my collection to life digitally. Using data from Discogs, Wikipedia, Apple Music, and Spotify, https://www.russ.fm/↗ offers an interactive exploration of my vinyl collection.

Discover a Random Album

If I ever get stuck and can’t decide what to listen I added a feature that allows you virtually randomly grab an album from the shelves until you find something you want to listen to:

Date added:

Album Details

Click “Album Details” to learn more, or “Grab Another Album” to explore further. Hover over the cover for more information on the album if you can’t recognise from the sleeve cover!

The Tech Behind the Tunes

For those interested in the development side, here are links to the code that does the scrapping and serves the website:

GitHub - russmckendrick/discogs-scraper: A basic scraper for generating files for my website 🎸.

A basic scraper for generating files for my website 🎸. - russmckendrick/discogs-scraper

favicon  github.com
GitHub - russmckendrick/records: This is the source code for russFM, a site dedicated to showcasing my personal record collection. 🎼🔥

This is the source code for russFM, a site dedicated to showcasing my personal record collection. 🎼🔥 - russmckendrick/records

favicon  github.com

Don’t forget to check out my weekly listening habits in the “What have I been listening to?” section of this website.

The Audio Setup

To truly appreciate these records, a quality audio setup is crucial. Here’s what brings my vinyl to life:

This setup is complemented by additional Sonos speakers throughout the house, a system I’ve been building for about a decade.

Summary

The result of all this? It can get loud!!! 🔊