Beyond Category is a relational data base application used to catalog a music album collection. The term album is used in the traditional sense of a collection of recorded songs by an artist or group of artists under a single title. That is, a cd, lp, cassette or book of 78s. Beyond Category will store information about the album, songs and composers on the album, and names of other performers on the album. Beyond Category is named with a nod towards Duke Ellington, who truly is beyond category.
This program allows entry of album information including title, catalog number, label, genre, media type (cd, lp, etc.), value, location and grade info. Tracks for each album are stored with song title and composer(s), personnel, recording date, track/side, and timing.
Songs, personnel, and writers are all entered separately into the database and then linked into the album. This means that, for instance, a song title will be entered once and then selected as many times as needed on any album. If you have ten albums containing the song “Star Dust” and later on you realize that the tune is correctly spelled “Stardust” – you only need to update the spelling in one place and that will propagate the correction to all the albums where the song is included.
New users will need to create their initial database using the File->New DB option. Choosing the Enhanced option will provide a database preloaded with over 10,000,personnel names, nearly 19,000 songs with composers, and over 600 labels.
Feel free to contact me at steve@steve-albin.com with any questions or problems you might have. I enjoy supporting my program. I’m very interested in receiving any feedback regarding your experience with Beyond Category.
See Release Notes for change details
Installation
Macintosh:
For the Macintosh, the download will be a mountable disk image file or .dmg file named Beyond Category Software.dmg. Double-click Beyond Category Software.dmg; a new disk drive should appear called Beyond Category Software. Drag the Beyond Category icon into your Applications folder.
Windows:
For Windows, download the BeyondCategorySetup.exe installer and double-click to install all files in your system’s Program Files directory.
System Requirements
Macintosh:
• Mac OS X 10.14 (Mojave) or later
Windows:
• Windows 8.1 or later – 64 bit
A 32 bit version can be provided on request. At this time, I am not making it available for download until I know that someone is still using the 32 bit version. Contact me if you need a 32 bit Windows version.
Windows users with Windows Defender installed will need to override that protection when installing on Windows. I do not have a certificate for Windows so Beyond Category is not a code signed application. As Beyond Category is a free application, I can’t see the value in purchasing a code signing certificate at $100 or more per year to avoid the Windows Defender warning. Other than just saying “trust me” regarding any malware that may be included in Beyond Category, I can only offer the references of other satisfied users.