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I may have mentioned somewhere along the way here that, for Christmas, I received a USB turntable to begin the task of digitizing all the vinyl records I've got kicking around the basement. Turns out you don't need a USB turntable to do that – you're regular turntable will do just fine with the right software and a $10 'Y' adapter (you want two RCA females to 1 'mini' male) from your local electronics retailer.
But as I digitized the music and tossed that into my iTunes library, I realized how attached I'd become to the album art, the gatefold sleeves and the good-old-fashioned 'bigness' of vinyl. Those who grew up buying vinyl records will know the tactile pleasure of spending hours in a record shop flipping through stacks of vinyl.
I'm not going to be able to digitize that tactile sensation but I can digitize the album art. So that's what I'm doing with “David Akin's Album Art Emporium“. I soft-launched this via Twitter in the spring but I figure I've got enough content up there for this (slightly firmer but still soft to the touch) blog-launch.
As I note on the site:
“I began digitizing my vinyl record collection in 2008. For many records, various online services would automatically retrieve album art and other information once I'd dumped the digitized files into iTunes. But in too many cases, the information was either absent, incomplete, or substantially different from the original vinyl. So with the help of a digital camera and some image editing software, I'm digitizing the album art as I digitize the actual music. This site contains the digitized album art. (There is no digitized music or links to digitized music here so you can just move right along if that's what you're looking for.) “
The home page for the site contains thumbnails and links to the 48 most recent additions. There's three indexes – one each for pop, jazz, and classics. And, to top it off, I've got a hand-crafted, home-made RSS feed you can pick it up for whatever's next.
It will remain a work in progress. Here are thumbnails (left) of some recent additions ..
You're photographing these, manually?
I ask only because they'd be too wide for the average consumer flatbed scanner.
Manually, my friend! It's a labour of love. And, as I'm not exactly the world's best photog, results will vary!
They all look good so far.
Is it too much to hope for a metal category in there, somewhere?