A number of years back I dug out all my old vinyl and with a ton of effort and time I managed to rip most of it into mp3 files on my PC. It involved rooting out our old turntable and connecting it in the living room, then running miles of RCA cable into the bedroom where the computer is located. I’d have to bolt back and forth to manage the start and stop and the software was always a struggle to manage. In a nutshell, it was a labour borne of the love of the music…but boy did it come with some major labour pains!
Then a couple of years ago I was at a friends surprise birthday party and we ended up in the basement poring over his old records… and reminiscing about all the great music from the 80’s. Most f what we listened to wasn’t exactly mainstream. Mostly club music. Made sense since that’s where we hung out. I had brought him a stack of CD’s filled with all the stuff I had collected, but he still had a treasure trove of music I hadn’t been able to dig up, mainly because most of what I was still hunting for was relatively obscure.
I also stumbled onto a nifty toy when we were in Las Vegas two years ago, a turntable with a built-in pre-amp that could be used via USB. So when we got back to Vancouver we went hunting. We didn’t have to go far though. While the one we saw in Vegas was strictly USB, we found one at Tom Lee Music (a block away from home) that had both USB and RCA output. SOLD!
The problem was that when I took the vinyl from him to record, I had all the time in the world on my hands…but then I acquired two big contracts and all my spare time vanished. So the records have been languishing in a cupboard for the past three years.
Well, I have some spare time again…and I’ve been thinking about those records again. So today I dragged out the turntable and hooked it up to the Mac for the first time. I opted to use the line in instead of the USB as a test and because I can control the input volume from the preference pane. Tickity-boo and I was in action. Using Audacity I was up and running in moments and I am halfway through recording the first album, Unexpected Lovers by Lime circa 1985. Roxio Toast also worked like a charm within about 30 seconds.
All this…on my MacBook no less.
Have I mentioned that I love Mac?