I recently got a digital sound recorder to convert some of my old vinyl LPs to mp3. I had re-acquired a good portion of my LP collection in CD form. Now those CDs sit idle just as the LPs do because it's too convenient to listen to them in mp3 form. I can no longer see paying out to re-buy music I already bought in LP form. Of course some of the collection isn't readily available in CD or mp3 form anyway, so a digital recorder is a good way to go. Case in point is a favorite LP from my youth: "Tarik" by Saxophonist Dewey Redman (see photo above). This LP has been issued in CD form, but a check of prices shows that it's going for about $50 new or $25 used.. yipes, that much for some music I already have in my collection ? Try searching the 'ITunes store' for one of my favorite cuts on the LP: "Lop-O-Lop" by "Dewey Redman".. The Apple ITunes store turns up zilch. Hmmm.. "Think Different", but not TOO different it seems, or you'll be disappointed !
Amazingly, my old turntable started right up and played the vinyl disks like it was yesterday (times about 10,000). Long forgotten rituals were performed: blowing off the LP, periodically brushing the accumulated dust off of the needle (um, that's the thing that follows the physical track on the LP fer you youngstas). Some of my favorite LPs were in pretty bad shape. Being favorites, they were played a lot so there were lots of pops, fading and the occasional skip. The 'Stack Overflow' guys Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood recently noted amusingly that Vinyl LPs are coming back into fashion in some younger crowds who claim that there's something special about hearing the music on vinyl. J & J then made some joke about writing a program to layer in some pops and scratches on top of clean mp3 sound.. I say 'yeah, how about some skips too to make it really authentic !'
It'll be fun converting the collection. Some of that stuff I haven't heard in decades. It'll be a kind of closure to know that I'm playing each LP for the very last time...
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