Digital plastic

Got me one of them spiffy USB turntables for Christmas and suddenly my shelf of useless vinyl isn't so useless anymore.

This thing is ridiculously cool. Right now I'm listening to the 12" remix of The Mighty Lemon Drops' "Inside Out" on my computer. (Last time I heard that was, unexpectedly, the Gilmore Girls finale.) Vinyl to iTunes. Life is good.

So I've been sitting here with the stack o' records -- all the stuff that, for one reason or another, I never managed to upgrade to CDs and/or never got around to selling before the used vinyl market crashed: Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Fables of the Reconstruction, The Clash, I Predict 1990, The Blind Leading the Naked, Beauty and Sadness, More Songs About Buildings and Food ...

Plus all the stuff I could never find on CD -- like The Swimming Pool Q's "Firing Squad for God." Or the first three Tonio K. albums:

i wake up every morning
i go to sleep each night
the communists, muslims
and warmonger texans
are still tryin' to ruin my life
'cause all the king's horses and all the king's men
and all the king's idiot sons
ain't never in all of their glorious battles
solved anything with a gun

That's from "Trouble" off of Amerika, which I hadn't heard since the last needle for my old turntable died (even though, it turns out, you can find it on CD now).

Oh, and I haven't tried it yet, but this turntable also allows you to play cassettes and load those songs into iTunes as .mp3s. I haven't opened my Big Box O' Cassettes since the Chevette with the tapedeck died. I'm not even sure why I was keeping those, but now I'm glad I did.

I'm vaguely worried that the RIAA Police are going to show up to confiscate my new turntable. Devices like this deprive them of their "right" to double- and triple-charge consumers for the same music every time the technology changes. The songs on my shelf o' vinyl were all bought and paid for, but just the once, and in their view that probably constitutes theft or piracy or somesuch.

Comments

[Linkmeister]

I was tempted, but I got an Audio-Technica turntable with Audacity software to do the same sort of thing. I suspected that many of my records were too scratchy to be desirably transferable, and I have not been too surprised. Roughly half of the 30 or so I've tried have unacceptable pops and skips.

Blast.

[Zonko]

I'd heard about a project to find and digitize as many Gospel records from the 1940s(ish) as could be found, before they were thrown away, broken, or simply scratched beyond even the ability of a souped-up USB turntable to read. It sounded like a really neat project, but I had no idea USB turntables were out on the public market.

Now I'm tempted to get one and go buy up the local thrift stores' vinyl records.

[Todd Larason]

The Blind Leading the Naked
There ya go! Now you'll have some Violent Femmes in one of your lists and I can stop feeling like such a nag.

My mom got one of those, and was in the middle of ripping her extensive vinyl collection when building an extension of the house interrupted. It's a great thing - I'd never heard very much Harry Nilsson before she started playing the MP3's of her records. Plus, as she always says, records were a highly mature technology at the time, so the recording artists really knew how to make them sound exactly like they wanted. In fact, what with all the remastering (e.g. cranking up Jimi Hendrix's part so it's out it front, whether or not it should be), she doesn't even listen to the radio anymore.

[Robin Z]

Curses and imprecations! 6:20 was me.

[Will]

I have a bunch of LPs & my old turn table just died

What model did you get exactly might as well get the one you did.

Thanks in advance

PS love your blog

[Sarah Dylan Breuer]

Wow. I thought I was the only other person left who listened to Tonio K.

[Nenya]

WANT!

[Reynard]

When CDs first came out, It was the answer to my prayers. Finally, a technology that promised portability (and eventually delivered at a semi-reasonable price), compactness (about twice the music, depending on the piece, in about 1/4 the space) and -- most important of all -- clarity of sound. No more of those irritating clicks. pops or skips (unless, of course, you get a bad disc or scratch one up until it can't be read by the laser), and (except in a number of the early discs) no more of that damnable hiss that tended to cover up the higher treble, or the distortion that sometimes ruined the bass. Now I could hear *ALL* of the instruments in Berlioz's Requiem (or Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, or Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries") instead of just the "middle sonic range". True, there are a number of vinyls that I wish had made the transition (an old Disney Storyteller LP of "The Rescuers" comes to mind), but I've never regretted trading in my LPs for CDs. LPs are about trying to hear through the the noise. CDs are the sound of the music itself.

(But make no mistake, I think that the Industry does overcharge -- especially for Popular music -- and they're getting *exactly* what they deserve because of their refusal to adapt their business model to changing retail-end technologies.)

[rubberband]

Wow, someone who actually owned PoolQ's! I almost never try to guess where a blogger lives/lived, but you gotta be a GA man to know about the Q's. I bought two albums in cutouts in Clemson, and the record store guys said the live shows were excellent, but I never had the chance to see 'em. Did you?
Good times. . . .

[PurpleGirl]

I kept a bunch of my favorite vinyls, mostly classical (medieval and early music) and some folk/rock from the 70s. I did get a preamped turntable to plug into my book shelf compact system (I'm rather low tech when it comes to music), but this means I can transfer stuff that you can't get on CD to my computer... ah, how sweet it will be to hear it all now.

[Cat]

A USB turntable...now that is seriously tempting.

Until now I've been just downloading all the songs that I once bought on a different medium. My ethics professor, who was ironically very against downloading for reasons he couldn't quite articulate well enough to satisfy me or the guy who taught my tutorial, explained it: when you buy music, you're getting two things, the physical medium and the license to access the content thereon. It's the license that you pay so darn much for, so if the physical medium is lost or damaged or obsolete, it shouldn't matter; you've still got the license that you paid for.

But that's in theory. In practice, I'm having a heckuva time finding the more obscure entries in my old hair metal catalogue, and some solo Jon Anderson, especially Olias of Sunhillow, for my money the most beautiful album ever released.

[bad Jim]

I never got rid of my LP's. I just keep an operating turntable hooked up to the stereo and put on a platter whenever I want to hear a particular piece of music. My nieces and nephews actually think it's kind of cool.

Back when I bought most of them, I'd play them once to record them to cassette, so they're in pretty good shape. As for the clicks and skips: you know you can actually wash them in soap and water?

I have way more CD's than LP's now, but I don't have a portable recordable music device. After fifty years of listening I'm my own Walkman.

[Jeff]

How much does one of these gizmos go for?

[Chuck]

You all out to start a vinyl-to-mp3 collective - just keep passing on the turn table to the next guy. You don't need it forever. You could set the order of receipt by blind donatinos to a charity, and it goes in order of the most generous. Then most likely everyone pays less, a charity benefits, and you all aren't left with some old record player you won't need anymore, and, best of all, you can stick it to the man!

[ian]

I've just got one of those, but being in the UK, I had to pay in Pounds what you pay in dollars. Even so, worth it to hear 'Indian Lady' from Don Ellis again.

[spinetingler]

Tonio K! w00t!

One of my favorite musician interactions was getting a phone call from Steve about a tape that I ordered but never got.

He called back again later and left a message on the machine - yes, somewhere I've still got the tape.

-------------------------------------------------
I bought LITF based on the Steve Simels review in Stereo Review - anyone else do that?

[Jeff]

Is it wrong for me to post this (click on "Front" picture)?

Not saying that it applies here, but I just saw it and....

[Mark]

Years ago I bought a really good turntable (this was pre-CD) and I still have it. A top quality turntable really brings out the best, which you notice when you listen to crummy MP3s.

I only buy records I respect so I actually listen to them as opposed to using them as background music or distraction. As a result 90 percent of what is on my ipod are podcasts. The only music to make in there is stuff like the current Duke Ellington "Anatomy of a Murder" CD that I am getting know.

A good turntable is amazing.

[Brandi]

I wish that someone would combine the USB turntable with the battery-powered portable turntable; it'd be nice to test-spin some of the more curious thrift-store LPs with the turntable, then take it home, put it on house current and rip away. (Amazon's suggestion of the iMic audio-to-USB cable might be the best solution.)

[Brandi]

Whaddaya know, looks like ION has made the portable USB turntable. It must've just come out too, as there's no reviews yet...

[Corbie]

You don't have to have a USB turntable to rip vinyl to .mp3s, but it helps.

I got my dad set up with Audacity (google it, it's free software); he already had a receiver and regular turntable, and was able to get the turntable hooked up to his PC -- and he is NOT the most technically savvy guy (Mom does all the setup on their PCs), but he was sufficiently motivated to get this figured out that he is now happily ripping all of his old records / reel-to-reel tapes etc.

I was going to ask Dad to start ripping my/DH's old vinyl when he's done with his stuff, but my DH got me a USB turntable for Christmas, and I've started on our collection. There's a bunch of stuff that we haven't bothered to buy on CD yet, but which will be nice to hear again.

Btw, Audacity (theoretically -- I haven't tried this yet, but may play around with it soon) allows you to edit the audio files, reducing/eliminating pops and other stuff like that.

I agree. It's downright offensive to have to pay again for something you already paid for; and CDs are definitely overpriced. I like being able to buy used CDs on Amazon at what I consider more appropriate prices.

[James]

I've done lots of record to MP3 conversions using a turntable, a receiver, a cable going from the headphone jack of the receiver to my sound card, and the free program Audacity. I had to use a PCI sound card because the motherboard sound device doesn't give good results (distortion). This works with Linux as well as Windows. I'm pleased to see USB turntables becoming available. These should give better results with less work than I went through. There's lots of good stuff on vinyl that never made it to CD.

[spencer]

Wow, Fred, this is exactly what I spent much of this past weekend doing (now that I finally have a little time to do it - it's so time-intensive). I'm using a Mac and Final Vinyl to get the job done, though I do have to use Audacity from time to time to clean up the sound a bit. One odd thing about Final Vinyl: during the recording stage, if you've got the "Preview" option selected, it sounds like the music is being recorded just a liiiiittle too fast - for example, Frank Sinatra sounds a bit more like Bobby Darin. But then, after I've completed the process and am listening to the final MP3, it sounds exactly the way it should. This kind of freaked me out a little bit at first, since I thought my turntable was speeding up and I only just noticed. Now I wonder if it was a quirk of the technology or a defect in my ears . . .

[essjay]

Check out GoldWave (shareware) to clean up those pops-n-clicks. It has scary-good tools to clean up audio. I'd been using it for a while and my son asked for help with a video for school that had an air-conditioner roaring over his voice. In a couple of clicks, GoldWave removed the noise.

I bought a license for it on the spot.

[Comrade Rutherford]

The RIAA has recently decreed that any transfer of music from one recorded form to another is illegal. They now claim that ripping your store-bought CD into iTunes is theft.

So using a USB turntable is most certainly illegal, and even more so if you are digitizing any vinyl that was never put out on CD. In fact, I'd guess that the RIAA would consider just possessing a USB turntable would be an act of terrorism.

"In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.
The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html

[AKMA]

Tonio K FTW — and delighted to note that Sarah's a listener too.

We gave my son a USB turntable for Christmas. My secret agenda involved compelling him to rip any vinyl that survived the great "we're moving to Chicago and can't afford to ship 700 pounds of records" purge; New England Blues Prophets, the Five, the Cardboards, and old Jools Holland boogie-woogie records are coming back to life.

[cjmr's husband]

Just like to remind everyone that the RIAA is not Congress, or even part of the Executive Branch.

Now, if someone could point that out to THEM....

(Just ripped two of my legally-purchased CDs, about to make a new mix CD for the car)

[Jesurgislac]

Comrade R: the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

Yes, I remember hearing about that. I've never got into the illegal download thing, but it has occurred to me that since the music industry has decided I am already a criminal for having copied my legally owned music, there's no earthly reason now not to also share it.

[Rosina]

The article now has the following attached:
Correction to This Article
A Dec. 30 Style & Arts column incorrectly said that the recording industry "maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer." In a copyright-infringement lawsuit, the industry's lawyer argued that the actions of an Arizona man, the defendant, were illegal because the songs were located in a "shared folder" on his computer for distribution on a peer-to-peer network. (Bolding mine)

I just hope it's legal for my husband to play CDs I bought - I mean, that's sharing, isn't it?

[Jesurgislac]

My music files are located in a "shared folder" on my computer, where I could use them for distribution on a peer-to-peer network. That's because that's where Microsoft defaults put them.

[cjmr]

Maybe the RIAA should sue Micro$oft? That should tie up both organization's laywers for a good six months.