Cool Xmas gifts: My USB turntable

durante

Sensing a chance to get rid of the 1,000-plus vinyl records in our basement, my wife Colleen bought me the coolest Christmas gift I've had in a while: a USB turntable. This is a regular turntable that plays 45 rpm and 33 1/3 rpm records but, in addition the regular phono jacks which you'd connect to your amplifier, there's a USB cable dangling out the back of the unit which you connect to your computer. Find some decent audio software — I'm using Audacity for the Mac (which, though useful, is still might flaky) — and, presto, you're puttin' your vinyl on yer iPod.

Of course, as any vinyl fan knows, one of the chief attractions to that format is the album cover itself. The CD jewel case area just can't compare to the canvas that is the cardboard that encases your 12″ of vinyl.

Now for some of my records, neither iTunes nor any of the databases that store album art, has a digital cover version so I'm taking pics of them and posting them here. (Well, actually, I'm posting them via my Facebook account but this is the public link to them.) Up tonight, the following:

Jimmy Durante: At the Piano In Person (top left)

Sal Solo: Sandamiano

Topper Headon: Drumming Man

Otto Klemperer • Philharmonia Orchestra: Beethoven: Symphony #3

Various Artists: Dynamic Sounds (K-tel 1974 collection)

Various Artists: Hurt So Bad – Rock Of Ages Early Sixties Soul

Various Artists: I Want To Take You Higher – Rock of Ages American Soul

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3 thoughts on “Cool Xmas gifts: My USB turntable”

  1. Our sixteen year-old son bought himself a USB turntable a few months ago, and has been busily transferring all of our vinyl to his MP3 player. Sixties rock and old blues, mostly. He's even borrowed a few of my parents' old jazz and Ska albums to digitize.
    I have the coolest kid on the planet.

  2. …more importantly, if we shared our newly digitized vinyl collection with each other would we be charged under the new copyright act? /ge

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