Program organization and change over

My jukebox is for home use and I am hoping it will be with our family for many years. It's not used commercially.

I've got a huge lot of 45's from Craigslist which I am currently going through. I'm sampling them each individually. Records with worn/dredged out grooves and/or scrached are tossed. All the others, particularly those which contain only random pops are washed, tested, and if necessary washed and tested again. If they can be cleaned to "like new" condition then I store them in new paper sleeves. It may take me a month (or more) go through them all but it's the only way I know to minimize general wear.
I plan to store them vertical in a RubberMaid type container organized in alphabetical order according to artist.

My jukebox magazine holds 80 records. I already have hundreds of really great titles and more to come.
The jukebox currently plays about 20 selections a day... but that's because it's relatively new to our family and I expect the use to eventually taper to a few a week.

A couple arbitrary questions if you don't mind.
1. I was wondering how you change your home jukebox programs. Do you reference the popularity meters and exchange the singles which are not being played or do you change out the whole magazine after an amount of time?

2. What do you personally feel is the best program organization(If you have any organization at all)?

For example my jukebox contains 160 titles for 8 sections.
I keep a variety of the best titles in section #1 because the Wall-O-Matic flip-cards keep program #1 viewed as default. Given that, I have 7 other sections and I wonder how do you organize the sections in your jukebox? Do you organize it by sections and genre, some other way or don't bother with taking the time?
Suppose you have 6 or 8 songs by the same artist. Would you put all 6 or 8 in the program at once or only a few at a time?

I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" way to organize but what do you feel works the best for you, and the people who operate your jukebox?

Steve: I have a lot of 45s, all tracked in an Excel spreadsheet and sleeved with title strips in boxes of 100, and use different ways of selecting what goes into the jukebox.
One way is to go through the list and pick out the first 100 (or 80, depending on the juke) that I feel like listening to at the time, pull them, and load the machine. This works for graduation parties because the kids can help pick out tunes they like.
That takes quite a bit of time, so another way is to just load a box. This is faster and has the advantage of getting playing time for lesser-popular records. I keep Christmas record together so I can quickly load and unload a machine with them.
Actually, to avoid the angst of taking favorites out of the rotation, I keep multiple jukes loaded throughout the house (my dear wife is incredibly patient with me). If plays taper off, I change out the records. That way, the machines all get a lot of attention and tend to work better. Good luck getting your records organized and be sure to get a lot of plays on your machine!
Patrick

Also important: If you are using a Seeburg, is to stagger the hits evenly from left side play to right side play so you put even wear on the needles.Needles are sold in pairs-- you don't want to wear out the left side needle by putting all the hits on the top of the title strip. Just a thought.Norman

An exercise worth doing, is changing all the "A" sides to "B" sides. You can do this by just turning all the records round and leaving the title cards as they are, just remembering to hit "B" when you want "A"

This is one of two good reasons for buying newer copies of favorites, as reissues often have back-to-back hits so both sides get played. The other reason, of course, is to avoid shedding tears when a malfunctioning gripper makes a pile of shards out of an old favorite single.
Patrick

I try to stagger the A and B sides when I make title cards. Gives my 425 Grand Prix a more even work out I guess. No particular order in loading. I just change out what I don't play for something else. I keep a 33 1/3 record in there just to exercise that part. What do you wash your records with? I use Dawn and water. I try to do that only sparingly because I hate to mess up the labels.

Thank you for the replies, you all have some great ideas and information.

I have printed my program labels with the sides mixed up. I have new diamond Seeburg Pickering T needles so I plan to use the total count meter to measure 500 plays and swap needle cartridge sides. I think the combo of mixed labels and swapping needle sides will help to wear evenly.

Looks like I'm down to my last hundred or so records to test/clean. Thanks for the organization tips!

Steve,
Like all Seeburgs with that meter, it is NOT a "total count" ( of selections PLAYED), but a count of "selections MADE". Also, most of those meters I have seen are no longer functioning correctly--watch it for about 500 plays, or, if you really want to use it, replace it. Ron Rich

Steve, I don't recommend swapping styli. I did this commercially till about 18 years ago when on the advice of a fellow radio eng. I examined the wear profiles under a microscope and found them different in the A vs. B.

Swapping them risks putting a sharp chisel edge against the grooves.

Since you are probably making your own title strips, just stagger them.

Rob/NYC

Rob,
Gotta dis-agree with you on this--
My partner, and I, ran aprox 100 'burgs, for over 20 years, and swapped needles "religiously" at every other record change out. I doubt I purchased 5 sets of needles during that time. Of course, all phono' s suspension was set per I & O manual, and pressure was set at 1.5 to 2 grams---Also, we made sure that the damper was working (which I know you dis-agree with). Ron Rich

Let's see: A hundred machines, twenty years of operation and you replaced a total of 10 styli?

You must have had them set up in libraries and monasteries

Either that, or they unfortunately sounded like jukeboxes.

Rob

Hi Rob,
Yes--ab-sol-lutly, they sounded like "jukeboxes" (Seeburgs !) ! That's exactly what we wanted them to sound like ! We had a constant "rebuilding program", which consisted of mech change-outs aprox every 1.5 to 5 years, and whole machine replacements ( with a rebuilt one of the same model), as needed. We ran most of these in a chain of restaurants, that ranged more then 300 miles in three directions(north, south, and east) from our base, with very few "service calls". Ron Rich