Converting vinyl records to audio CDs

[Wise Young]

Do you have a bunch of old records but don't know how to move them into your computer? This web site describes the record player that you need and how to do it with your computer. The record player has a usb output. Quite straightforward.

http://www.coverville.com/archives/2006/09/the_numark_usb.html

Wise.

[bob clark]

Old Hippie: I remember the good old days before CDs when I could clean the seeds out of my reefer using an album cover and a pack of papers.

Generation Y pothead: What's an album cover?

Old Hippie: It's a rather large cardboard jacket that we used to store our vinyl 33 & 1/3 RPM LPs in.

Generation Y pothead: Oh, and BTW, what are seeds? :)

I believe you can use any record player and just buy RCA to mini-plug adapters and record them through a soundcard or integrated soundchip on the motherboard. Providing it has stereo audio-in jacks. I was going to archive my old cassette tapes in this way but put it off for so long that I think they've melted into one big pile of plastic out in my hot FL garage. Leo LePorte did a spot on his old show "TechTV" about it.

Some people like the sound of vinyl and the ocassional scratch.... may remind them of kicking the record player while having sex with a special someone or whatever but personally I prefer the pristine sound of a CD.

Just recently I accidentally formatted over 8 years worth of mp3s. I'm starting my new collection now.

Anyone ever hear of a folksinger named Townes Van Zandt? I saw a documentary about him (http://www.sundancechannel.com/film/?ixFilmID=7151&rname=The+Film+Finder) on the Sundance Channel on DocDay Monday and he was full of talent. Too much booze and too many drugs and he died of "heart failure" at the young age of 52 back in 1997. Actually I blame it on the hospital of course. It's me, Bob. Just prior to his death he lived and traveled for 8 days with a broken hip, his thigh black and blue and he needed a wheelchair to get around in. After coming home from his 8 day "gig" his wife talked him into checking into a local hospital and they performed surgery on it. The same or the very next day he checked himself out of ICU because he had the DTs so bad and needed a bottle of booze. I don't know why she just didn't sneak him in one but maybe he just wasn't the type of guy who liked staying in hospitals or being tied down in any way. His wife said that by the time they got home, maybe an hour drive, his shaking had stopped and he was fine. The next day they found him dead in his wheelchair. See, you go to the damn hospital for a single day and the next thing you know, (or don't know) you're freakin' dead! :)

I was surprised to learn that he wrote "Pancho and Lefty", one of my all-time favorite songs. Since the 80s I thought that Willie and Merle wrote it.

[rollin64]

I was surprised to learn that he wrote "Pancho and Lefty", one of my all-time favorite songs. Since the 80s I thought that Willie and Merle wrote it.

i thought they wrote that also. :thinking:

[artsyguy1954]

Just the technology I need. I still have hundreds of vinyl records. Doesn't Sony make a Turntable with a built in CD-R drive that records directly from vinyl to CD?

[betheny]

My husband keeps threatening to do this.

Plus: I could finally quit schlepping the records around.

Minuses: My records survived WAY too many parties. Very few of them aren't available on CD. And if I throw out the album covers, what do I use to decorate for class reunions, Class of 1978?

Just ducttape those babies to the wall, make a few mix tapes, a keg of beer...voila. We're decorated!

[darkeyed_daisy]

Yall are free to envy me now!!!!

I still own my "Dance Fever" John Travolta ultimate dance instruction LP set and used it to throw a 13th birthday seventies party for my daughter. Had a heck of a time finding a player to play them on!!!

aaahhhhh but the video of them learning to dance seventies style is going to be the main attraction of the graduation party I am throwing in June...LOL

[Wise Young]

Here is a £70 audio to USB-powered box that converts audio input to 24bit/96 kHz mp3 format, made by TerraTec.
http://www.retrothing.com/hifi_audio/index.html
http://retrothing.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/terra.jpg

[Juke_spin]

Anyone ever hear of a folksinger named Townes Van Zandt? See, you go to the damn hospital for a single day and the next thing you know, (or don't know) you're freakin' dead! :)

I was surprised to learn that he wrote "Pancho and Lefty", one of my all-time favorite songs. Since the 80s I thought that Willie and Merle wrote it.
Hey Bob,

Thanks for the heads up on Van Zandt (lol, are all guys with this name doomed to an early death? William Fichtner (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001209/) .... Roger Van Zant in Heat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113277/)).

Here's Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan doing Pancho and Lefty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMxJROHInM

You might get something out of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYeu75OJsfk

The Lyrics:



Artist/Band: Nelson Willie
Lyrics for Song: Pancho & Lefty
Lyrics for Album: Essential Willie Nelson

Livin on the road my friend, is gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath as hard as kerosene
You weren't your momma's only boy, but her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams
Pancho was a bandit boy, his horse was fast as polished steel
He wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know on the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dyin words, ah but that's the way it goes

All the Federales say, they could've had him any day
They only let him slip away, out of kindness I suppose

Lefty he can't sing the blues all night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho...
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/nelson-willie/pancho-&-lefty-2506.html

[bob clark]

Hey Bob,

Thanks for the heads up on Van Zandt (lol, are all guys with this name doomed to an early death? William Fichtner (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001209/) .... Roger Van Zant in Heat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113277/)).

Here's Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan doing Pancho and Lefty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPMxJROHInM

You might get something out of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYeu75OJsfk

The Lyrics:




http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/nelson-willie/pancho-&-lefty-2506.html

Hi Steve,

We're kinda hijacking Wise's thread so I'll try to make this short. Thanks for the "You Tube" link to the Willie & Dylan rendition of "Pancho and Lefty". I'll have to look around to see if they have a whole album/CD out. Their voices compliment each other in a strange way. I've played the video quite a few times already.... the audio quality isn't too bad. I'm about to email the links to my cuz in HI... he's a big Dylan fan with quite a library of his recordings.... even vinyl, but I doubt if he has this version of Dylan singing "P&L" with Willie.

If I were marooned on a deserted island and could only have one CD it would be Merle Haggard's "Epic Hits" that has "Pancho and Lefty" on it. I like all the tunes on it minus one... not bad for a single CD. But it is in effect a "Greatest Hits" CD so maybe that doesn't count. And I was a Rock and Roll hippie of the 60s and 70s who never listened to any country until I got into my mid 30s. SCI and age kinda slows ya down I guess. The Rock they sing these days is too "heavy" and loud for me. At least most of it.

I thought the interview of Townes was great. I was hoping that the cops who stopped his "caravan" and whose nicknames were coincidentally "Pancho" and "Lefty", after learning that the person they stopped claimed to have written the song, didn't believe him. And challenged Townes to prove it to them by singing it while playing his guitar on the side of the highway. They would have flipped out... and probably let him go without any tickets at all!

Steve Van Zandt of "E Street Band" fame and "Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul" is still alive and plays Silvio in "The Sopranos". How long he'll stay alive in "The Sopranos" is anyone's guess!

The youngest brother of Lynyrd Skynyrd founder Ronnie Van Zant and .38 Special's Donnie Van Zant, Johnny Van Zant grew up in the shadow of his older siblings, who emerged as major figures in rock & roll during the early and mid-1970s. The death of Ronnie Van Zant and other key members of the Lynyrd Skynyrd lineup in a plane crash on October 20, 1977 eventually put Johnny in the position of being one holder of the Lynyrd Skynyrd legacy, but he started performing long before he became a part of the reformed 1980s/1990s version of the band.

One dead, two still alive. But that's Van Zant without the "d".

Thanks again for the links.

Bob.

[orangejello]

A few years ago my nephew and I were poking around my parents' basement junk room when we came across a box of vinyl records. My nephew, who was six at the time and apparently never seen vinyl before, asked me what kind of stereo would play "those giant CDs."