About four or five years ago I started the massive task of recording my old LP albums digitally but life, an insane 60+ hour per week work schedule and heart surgery, got in the way. Recording my albums went by the wayside with only about two dozen recorded, cleaned up, and remastered. Both of my turntables have been sitting idle and gathering a very thick layer of dust. Seriously! My *ion turntable doesn't have a cover and the last album I was working with has such a heavy layer of dust that I'm not even going to try and clean it up. Bad attitude to have? Definitely. It also got scratched too badly to play so I'll just look for another copy.
Why record and digitize the albums? Why don't I just listen to the albums the way they were meant to be listened to? The main reasons: #1. I can't play to a vinyl LP in the car. I've seen pictures of turntables that were mounted in a car in the 1960's but that technology (thankfully) didn't last and is extinct. Can you imagine having listening to your favorite album on the way to work and getting back to your car to find the summer heat has melted the album? #2. Even if I could play the albums somewhere other than at home I have no desire to carry a heavy crate of albums around with me. #3. I grew up playing one album at a time and having the music stop every twenty minutes or so because the disk needed to be flipped or exchanged for a new one. It didn't bother me then but it bugs the fire out of me now. Gimme a five hour playlist any day!
Sound a little ridiculous? Yeah, I guess it is even though they are real reasons. All joking aside, there are serious reasons I want to record and digitize them. The first is that they aren't portable. A turntable and music I can only listen to in one place doesn't fit my lifestyle. The second is that vinyl albums get scratched no matter how much care is used when getting them out or putting them up. If you're lucky you only wind up with clicks and pops instead of a scratch that makes the needle skip on the album.
No, that's not right. The main reason is that I enjoy working with audio files and like tweaking the sound to my version of perfect. The other reasons are just as important though.
There is another aspect of this as well. "Why not just stream the music, buy it on CD, or download it (legally) from a music service like Amazon or iTunes?" is something I was asked when I started this the first time. Aside from the fact I don't want to spend thousands to buy digital copies the main reason is that too many of these albums aren't available digitally. Not at all.
You are probably asking what lit a fire under my feet and got me back to working on all of this again. Aside from the fact that every time I have sat at my computer I have seen the turntable and album gathering dust and thought that I really need to get back on it but have said, "Later." and loaded a game or movie instead. What got me going again is that I have recently acquired hundreds more albums to work on from a thrift store that is closing next week. I plan on getting another load before they close.
I now have several boxes of albums that are mainly from between 1940 and 1970. These boxes are full of old country, jazz, big band, and other artists who are all but forgotten. Their works appear to not be in demand enough for the modern music companies to have gone to the expense of re-releasing them. Many of these fall into the category I mentioned earlier: Not available in a digital format with the exception of singles that were released and are available in compilations.
No, I'm not going to be recording all of them. A lot of them are albums I will never listen to, especially the two dozen (or so) from Lawrence Welk. My grandmother would have disowned me for saying that but they just aren't my style. Others appear to have been so poorly cared for that I doubt the recordings could be cleaned up enough to be enjoyable.
Regardless of what I do or don't record I foresee several months of recording time on my horizon. At least it will keep me out of trouble, mostly.
