Recycled Computing

Tools for Getting Your Vinyl Records into iTunes

- 2008.05.28

Like many old timers, I have a large record collection.

Okay, kids, let's stop for an explanation: Once upon a time, music was recorded onto analog vinyl discs called "records". These records were used to listen to all the phat recording artists of the time. In fact, many sixties survivors spent their time in dorm rooms listening to the Grateful Dead and admiring lava lamps. Today, these people have become "square" and traded in their Volkswagen buses for Volvo station wagons. They moved from the communes back to suburbia and have become your parents. Many cannot even remember the lyrics to Country Joe and the Fish's [not those Phish!] classic "Fixing to Die Rag". It is sad.

12" vinyl LPs and a CD

Hundreds of these "records" are stuffed away in closets waiting for you to discover them, grow your hair long, buy a Volkswagen bus, and call everyone "dude". Mine were calling to me. "Listen to me," they said.

I got out my turntable (record player, you techno savages!) and realized that I had to find a way to get this groovy (it's from the sixties, trust me) sound into my iTunes collection.

Macs are great for this sort of stuff, since you can record a source using GarageBand and then convert the AIFF files into iTunes. The only problem is how to match the RIAA equalization from the turntable needle.

Do you know they now have USB turntables around? Well, I still have my old turntable with RCA plugs on it - Griffin Industries to the rescue! I bought an iMic from them, installed the Final Vinyl software (provided by Griffin), and started to record.

iMac

The advantage with the iMic for someone who has older computer equipment is the ease of use and the Final Vinyl software. (I still haven't purchased GarageBand.) The iMic is a small white hockey puck design that has a USB plug on one side and a mini-stereo plug on the other. An adapter (included) matches the RCA plugs on my turntable. Faster than you could say "Sock it to me!" I was recording "Humble Pie - Live at the Fillmore!"

It is not all-smooth sailing. I had to play with the settings a bit, and I still haven't gotten a good recording of Richard & Linda Thompson's "Pour Down like Silver" (one of the greatest albums not to win a Grammy). I think I am going to have to turn off the automatic level setting.

Okay, that worked.

I also realized that I needed more gigabytes of storage. I went out and bought a much larger drive and an enclosure for my Pismo's modular bay. (Yes, MCE still sells these cute little things.) If you have any DIY experience with computers, placing a 2.5" drive in the MCE module is easy. Thirteen screws, a ribbon, and Pismo owners have a neat like internal/external hard drive. I use my old drive as a backup device for my newer, roomier drive. It would be perfect for Tiger's Time Machine, but that would require me to buy a G4 processor for the Pismo. I'm pretty happy with Tiger and with using the Backup program that Apple gives .mac members.

Now, back to recording analog to digital files. This might take some time.

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