middle-aged hipster

[realthog]

The quietness of this blog for the past 24 hours or so is not matched by a similar quietness in my study. Indeed, the raucous environment here is one reason -- along with continuing flu-generated grottiness -- for the lack of postings.

I have, you see, invested in a new toy: a turntable that I can link up to my computer in order to make digital files, and thereby CDs, of my old LPs. On leaving the UK for the US I obviously had to get rid of most of these, but I hung on to some of the ones I was pretty certain I couldn't upgrade to CD. By now, of course, quite a few of them have made it to CD, but not all ... and anyway I've not bought all the relevant CDs. Since I'm feeling too crapola for much by way of serious work anyway, what better than to wallow in the delights of Bread Love & Dreams, Jade, Jonathan Kelly, Batdorf & Rodney, Bill Fay, Lazarus, Thomas Yates ...?

So, if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to "The Ballad of Cursed Anna" ...

Comments

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"the delights of Bread Love & Dreams, Jade, Jonathan Kelly, Batdorf & Rodney, Bill Fay, Lazarus, Thomas Yates"

Not to mention Mick Softley and Jeanie Greene -- mustn't forget Mick Softley and Jeanie Greene, must we?

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Hullo, I've followed you home...could you share the identifying details of the turntable? I've had a Phillips CD recorder for a number of years that I've used to digitize LPs, but I'm now having trouble finding media for it (imagine, a world full of CD-Rs and none of them pre-configured as "music" anymore). And I'm not nearly done digitizing all of Seals and Crofts, or Sheena Easton, or Rick Springfield, or my mother-in-law's 78s.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

It's an audio-technica Automatic Stereo Turntable System AT-PL50. I got it via Amazon, but from a sort of Dented Box Warehouse that acts in conjunction with them (so has their guarantee and their free shipping) -- i.e., I paid around $77 (I think) rather than around $100.

It comes with Cakewalk Pyro software that a lot of folk seem to have had trouble with; I'm not saying they're thick, but the only difficulty this particular tech duffer had was getting it to accept my serial number during setup (TIP: omit all hyphens and full stops when typing in serial number), and after that I had not a scintilla of difficulty.

In fact, for the recording part of things I'm continuing to use my old Stepvoice Recorder Free Edition, which seems to give a fractionally better sound quality than the Pyro equivalent. But Pyro's great for splitting the LP-side-long files up into individual tracks (should one want to be bothered doing this).

Ask if there's more info you'd like!

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

*glee*

Thank you!

Time for me to do a little homework--or, rather, put the spouse on it because he's a bloodhound for that sort of thing. We've got a turntable that may already suit depending on software and cables.

Goodness, I would adore having all the vinyl digitized. I'd buy a hard drive just for that, and LP myself into oblivion.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

If your turntable's functional and if you can hook it up to a more modern stereo centre/CD player, then you may be just about there: all you need is a lead from the CD player's output (the headphone or external speaker output) to the input socket of your computer. This is easily obtainable at your nearest branch of RadioShack or the like.

If you can't hook up your turntable to the music centre but it's one of those outfits that combines turntable with cassette player/recorder, you can go the route of making cassettes of the LPs, then sticking the cassettes into the music centre and recording from them. There's a certain loss of quality, for obvious reasons, but if all the equipment is top-notch then this isn't noticeable (and actually helps get rid of some of the hisses and pops!).

My own conclusion, though, was that I anyway needed a decent turntable that gave good sound quality and didn't hum, and that, all things considered, $77 wasn't too steep a price.

As noted, you can get a free version of the StepVoice recorder in order to digitize the stuff you play into the computer. Go to the SVR site (if you can't find it by googling, gimme a yell and I'll see if I can retrace my steps to the URL) and hunt around until you find the tiny print saying, "Oh, if you're really so ghastly that you want a free version without all the exciting bells and whistles that you'll never, ever use, click here to download it, scum." The software takes a bit of getting used to, but thereafter is a delight and dead simple. Or you can use the Pyro software that comes with the deck.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Ran all the good stuff by the spouse this morning, and he thinks all we're lacking is a cable of the proper sort to input into one of the laptops. We've got some sound-manipulation software for both the Mac (Garage Band or something similar, and Toast on the old desktop downstairs) and the Windows machine, so for now I think we'll chase down what we've had and just haven't exploited, versus what else we'd need to acquire.

Loss of quality was one of the reasons we didn't go this route ages ago, but technology has improved substantially in the several years since we bought the Phillips machine. Now that we've run out of media, though, it's time to pursue the newer solution. Thank you for all the tips and assistance!

:-D

[realthog.livejournal.com]

It was my pleasure, ma'am.

PS

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I meant to add that Target is selling all-in-one turntables/CD burners, which is another approach. However, the outfit's rather expensive -- it's all done up as a faux-antique -- and has the disadvantages that you get just the CD at the end of it all (you can't keep a digital backup in case your precious CD version gets damaged) and, of course, if you jog the LP during play you have to start all over again with a fresh blank CD, which is wasteful.