Should I keep my old record albums?

[SW FL Dem]

I have a crate full of old 33s, some classical, some 60s/70s/80s stuff. These were mine and hubby's in college. Many were my father's and are good classicals. They've been in our garage for years. I do have a emotional attachment to my dad's records since he has been gone for years, but I haven't listened to these in at least 15 years and we don't even have a turntable. Do libraries want these things or should I just put them on Freecycle?

[Tikki]

1. Like any antiquities.....

....keep those to pass down that may be of value (real or very sentimental).

From the rest...record on current media the sounds you love the most.

ex: I played each of my Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers (Tom Petty) albums only twice....to record them on cassette (then to CD)...then I carefully put them into storage.

Most libraries do not have the room that vinyl takes up. Check, though....also, check the internets for ideas.

Tikki

PS check your stored albums from time to time for storage conditions.

[CatholicEdHead]

2. Yes, they can be converted to CD's and MP3's if you have

the correct equipment to plug into your turntable. Then the music can live on even if you want to open some space.

[SW FL Dem]

4. unfortunately, we don't have a turntable or a receiver anymore. n/t

[Deep13]

3. Do you have enough to shingle your roof?

:evilgrin:

[evlbstrd]

5. Send them to me.

I've still got my vinyl. And a reciever, turntable, and means to digitize. They'll be in good hands.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. How do you send the signal from the turntable to the computer?

I'd love to make CDs of all my vinyl- I have hundreds of small press classical (mostly modern stuff that will likely never get recorded again) that I really want to save in electronic form.

[evlbstrd]

7. You need audio cables from the Tape Out jack on your receiver

to Audio In on your computers sound card. Then crank up your recording app and go. The good part is listening to the records all the way through again as you copy them.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. That's it, eh?

Dang. I figured it would be more complicated than that.

Thanks!!

How do you get the separate tracks of the vinyl into separate tracks for the recording? Is there an easy automatic way to do so, or do you have to manually do each track?

And what recording app do you use?

[evlbstrd]

9. I use EZ CD Creator (?) that comes with Toast.

It will try to dectect the gaps between songs and divide it into tracks. Or you can do it manually, which with a lot of my Zappa was necessary. Then you name the tracks. You'll have AIFF files to burn to CD. Or you can encode the files with iTunes.

There is also some good shareware available.

So, you're really treating your computer as a tape deck.

It's fun to have digital audio with pops and clicks.

[Rabrrrrrr]

11. Thanks! I'm bookmarking this one.

:-)

[evlbstrd]

13. I don't think I've been bookmarked before.

I'm glad to have been useful so early on a Saturday. Now I can head out to Costco for the bulk toilet paper.

[Doctor_J]

10. I did this with mine

I use the $10 musicmatch upgrade to do the recording. Works great.

[evlbstrd]

12. It's time consuming, but fun and worthwhile.

But I still play the vinyl, too.

[Doctor_J]

14. I used to tape Mountain Stage every week

and have digitized most of those. That's stuff that you can't get any more, and I consider it priceless.

[evlbstrd]

15. That sounds very cool.