Ripping Yarns

I've just started ripping (for non-geeks: recording) some of my old vinyl LPs and 10" and 12" singles into digital format. I've connected my old Goodmans turntable to the line-in on my computer via an equally old battery-powered pre-amplifier (see picture), and I'm using Audacity to do the actual recording and editing according to some great instructions I found online.

I'll admit I'm no connosieur, the equipment was cheap and is old, and I'm doing the bare minimum (i.e. check the sound level on the input, then record, trim, split into separate tracks if necessary, save and next!). Even so it's time consuming - unlike copying CDs, you have to record everything in real time - and I'm getting every snap, crackle and pop from the needle on the surface of a (sometimes quite warped) disc. Well, that's the magic of vinyl. I suppose it's like life: you can choose to focus on the hiss and crackles, or you can choose to enjoy the music instead.

It's a good excuse to go back and look at my collection of records again. It's been a while since I bought anything on vinyl, and most of my stuff dates from 1991 to around 2003. There are some obvious choices for digitisation - I have a bunch of Disco Inferno EPs that I still play relatively frequently - but it's also been nice to rediscover some things that I'd forgotten about (for example the first three Bardots singles, Bang Bang Machine's "Geek" EP, Pale Saints "Hunted", blah blah) and that Suede really did make some amazing music with some brilliant B-sides. (You do know what a B-side is, don't you?).

It's also fun to revisit of the whole rather labour-intensive process of even just playing a record, with its endless manual interventions (remove it from the sleeve - and maybe an inner sleeve - place it on the turntable, check the speed, lift and drop the needle, repeat for side two ...) - it's a reminder of an era when I suppose I felt like I had more time to just sit and listen to music, rather than having it on as background to some other activity.

Of course there's a lot of mediocre stuff in there too, and I'm not sure how far I'll get on even the good stuff before I'm completely fed up with the process. In some cases it might be easier to try and buy the tracks again on CD. But right now I'm making reasonable progress, and it's great that the music that I loved can have a whole new lease of life.