I eventually switched to compact disks, but could not afford to replace the entire record collection, so I maintained both collections and working turntable and compact disk players. As the years went by I played my records less and less, and even ripped all the compact disks into my computer for convenience. Many of my record albums are now replaced with compact disks now.

There are a few records that I keep because they sound better than a compact disk. There are very few of these, but they are special. It requires a really good moving coil cartridge and high quality preamplifier to get this spectacular sound, but I am proud to own a few.

There are many records that I keep because the labels have never printed a compact disk version of the album, or they did so, but for a short run and it is now out of print and impossible to find.

For these, I thought I would get around to digitizing them some day, and then I kept putting it off.
My Mom has re-prioritized this for me, and I love her for it. She had a few records she could not find on compact disk and she wanted them “turned into CDs” but knew one of her two computer geek sons could do this… and the first batch included some old Christmas albums she (and my brother and I) grew up with. Now I have a mission and a deadline… and set to work.

I ran into several road blocks. Converting the entire CD library over to computer files has been so convenient for me that I had not even used the plain old stereo gear in ages. The CD player, the cassette deck, and the turntable were all dusty and not working. I could not even find the phonograph cartridge I packed away so it would not get damaged in the last household move. A long weekend, and some time wrestling dust bunnies (are they still bunnies when they can swallow you whole?) and I am happy to report the gear is mostly working again. The cassette deck and CD player (both vintage late-1980s Technics) are once again working and sound fantastic. I forgot that MP3 is a convenient compromise that really does NOT sound as good as CD or even tape.

I found the cartridge, a Yamaha MC-705, and it’s replacement, a fantastic Denon D-110; I spent a few hours trying to adjust the tonearm on my Yamaha PX-3 turntable, and could not get it to work. Something is preventing the arm actuators from sensing when it needs to move, and the belt for the linear tracking arm is slipping. Service manuals and repair kit are now on order.

In the meantime, I wanted an even quieter belt drive turntable to record from, so I ordered a Denon DP300F with Ortofon 2M Red cartridge from NeedleDoctor.com and it came in just a couple of days. I did not really need the new cartridge, but I wanted to hear a different take and have a backup. I disabled the preamplifier that is inside the turntable, as my vintage Onkyo Integra P-308 has a vastly better preamplifier, plugged everything in and adjusted the tonearm in about an hour and started playing records and was immediately impressed with the quality of the sound.

For years I have used a Roland Edirol UA-1EX USB audio interface to connect my Mac Mini to my vintage Yamaha R-9 receiver (the main amp in my house). The Edirol can import and export sound, I had just never used the import function before now.
I plugged the tape out connectors on my preamplifier into the inputs on the Edirol, and fired up Audacity (free, open source sound file editor and converter for Linux, Mac, Windows, others) and was pleased to discover that the sound was already being “heard” on my Mac Mini. Simply press the “record” button and it began sampling direct to my hard drive. I had no idea how easy this would be. The hard part is getting a turntable working and balanced again.

I tackled “Jimmy Dean’s Christmas Card” (1965 Album) first for my Mom. I recorded each track by playing them one at a time, then pressing record and stop in Audacity. I then cleaned up the tracks a little (I must learn more about this part) and saved the AIFF files for each song, tagged and marked appropriately. I have modified this method now, and record a whole album side into Audacity, save the project, then cut up the project into individual song tracks as needed (it’s faster this way).

I copied the files into an iTunes playlist and burned my first audio CD album, then burned a label.
I enjoyed many fond memories while listening to the album I grew up with, and thank my Mom for getting me started on a new hobby for a while (digitizing the rest of the vinyl that I don’t have on CD already).

Thanks Mom!

What’s needed:

• a decent quality turntable (plain old analog players are best, USB turntables are junk)
• a decent quality phonograph preamplifier that matches your cartridge to line level outputs
• a sound sampling card, or USB interface, or device on your computer
• a computer
• sampling and sample editing software like Audacity (free)
• track ordering and CD burning software like iTunes (free)
• about an hour per album, minimally

Remember, turntables are sensitive to vibrations – so refrain from jumping for joy as the beautiful old music streams out of your speakers, at least while you are recording.

I cannot rave enough about how cool Audacity and iTunes are for this sort of job; and I am a raving fan of Edirol as well, excellent device and well worth the money. I am picky about audio gear, so you could probably do this for a lot less expense if you went cheap on record player, cartridge, and preamplifier; but remember, your time is valuable too. If you are burning an hour to do this why not spend the money getting the best master copy you can.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/media/02apple.html

My favorite bit is the very last line:

‘Mr. Card of Forrester, however, has a different take. “If it weren’t for Apple, God knows how bad the music industry would be,” he said.’

I’d no idea what ratios the money was being divided up before reading this, it is interesting.
I wonder how Apple’s ~30% take compares to major music retailers (Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Tower).

I will post a list of stuff we are giving away and/or selling in a bit (DVD player, CD player, Laserdiscs).

One huge win is that the picture is vastly better on both televisions now that I have used proper cables and removed old VHS decks from the loop (who knew they were so damned noisy?). A second huge win is that I never realized that I had our receiver hooked up incorrectly, and we’ve never heard Dolby Digital (aka: AC-3) surround sound properly before… and wow. I was wrong. It sounds much better than I previously supposed, and importantly, if properly encoded the voice track is vastly easier to hear than I previously thought. I hate that on so many movies and shows in stereo mode I cannot hear the dialogue because the music/gunshots/jet engines are so damned loud. True 5.1 surround (either Dolby Digital or DTS), hooked up properly actually helps a lot with this problem.

Let me restate: the same old DVDs that have been annoying the hell out of me because I can’t hear the dialogue are once again thrilling because the AC-3 encoding is finally working on my surround sound receiver! I can hear the dialogue again.

Sadly, our old receiver can only decode Dolby Digital (AC-3). It does not handle DTS, nor any of the newer encodings. Additionally, the old receiver only has two digital inputs (one optical, one coaxial) and my DVD player and DISH receiver are both optical outputs… so I only get one or the other; and have to re-connect cables to change that. Time for a switch or a new receiver (which is what spurred this whole research project to begin with).

I looked at brand new receivers… which differ from the receivers I was familiar with the last time I went shopping. In the early 1990s, no one bothered to connect video to a receiver. You simply used it for audio; and the video went into your television directly (less noise, better cabling types). Now that has dramatically changed. Modern receivers handle video very well, sometimes even better than your television set.

Having said that, your video will never be better than the weakest link in the chain from your signal source (DVD player, Cable receiver, whatever) all the way to the screen. Since my TV is old, but working beautifully (and so NOT getting replaced soon), the new receiver’s extra special HDMI up-scaling features are meaningless to me.

Additionally, new receivers are just beginning to get a fabulous new feature: dynamic volume control (called by slightly different names from different makers) will dampen the sudden onslaught of annoyingly loud noise when commercials interrupt your favorite shows. This feature is so new, it is only on some of the receivers (most Denon, some newest Onkyo and Yamaha) and it is likely to get revised a little before everyone has to have it. So there is good reason to wait a year or two before buying a new receiver.

No receiver that I can find will decode AAC 5.1 (used for discrete surround sound on streaming media). This is very important to me because I suspect more and more movie rentals will be on demand over the internet, and AC-3 and DTS do NOT lend themselves to streaming very efficiently. I think I will buy a new receiver when they can handle AAC 5.1 as well as Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master Audio. That way I can play DVDs, Blue-ray discs, and stream videos with whatever set top box ends up winning the marketplace for movie rentals on demand and internet content. Both AppleTV and Netflix are pioneering very interesting efforts in this area.

I am also completely uninterested in Blue-ray at this time. In a year or two I may change my mind, but right now it is too expensive, too proprietary, and too hyped up in marketing noise. It also encourages two new surround sound standards (TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio) that will replace DTS and AC-3, but are expensive right now. Waiting will let those decoders get into more and more affordable receivers. So the features of a new TV and new HDMI receiver with fancy HD video processing are mostly lost on me.

Good news, I can shop craig’s list and ebay for cheap receivers from the last few years to get more digital input ports and to get DTS decoding (a lot of my existing DVDs are DTS) as well as AC-3 (that I have now). My hearing impaired friends will love listening to DTS and AC-3 DVDs we have now once we get the vintage 2000-2005 receiver installed for relatively little money.

I love being busy “doin’ good works” (as Jayne would say) but I also like having time to keep up with the aquarium, visit friends, attend Buddhist meetings and attempt to maintain the garden. Friday, Erci and I visited a new dance studio, the Fred Astaire studio on Lee Highway, and we got an incredibly warm welcome though the traffic was a monster. Part of the traffic snarl was because of exceptionally pretty warm, moist fog in the area.

Saturday we both fought headaches all day, and I made the run up to the La Belle Compagnie meeting at Rob and Sam’s home where they fed us royally and living history planning was done. This morning we finally got to a Soka Gakkai Buddhist discussion meeting and did some much needed grocery shopping together for the first time in ages, then I did some gardening while she got her nails done.

Erci has finished her business law class and has only two more 6 week classes to finish her MBA, and I finally see light at the end of the long dark tunnel of MBA widower status… yippea!!! I think I will have to take her on a drunken, debauched, dance cruise someplace warm where you can wear almost nothing and drinks have little umbrellas in them… anyone want to come along?

The cats have been very cute and affectionate lately, it is very nice. There is the smell of beef stew permeating the house, and excellent music on the stereo (“Aux Cyclades ƒlectronique” by Bertrand Burgalat) and life is very, very good. I am very grateful.

Over the years, though still fond of Tears for Fears music, I gradually forgot about the song as I learned to love REM, Moby, U2, the Police, Steeleye Span, and many other bands in no particular order. I should have heard about and seen Donnie Darko when it was first released, but I did not… and had no idea what I was missing. It is excellent science fiction, though it was not billed as science fiction at all (or I would have seen it). For the film, Gary Jules and Michael Andrews did a slower, acoustic cover of “Mad World” that ended up on the Donnie Darko Soundtrack and became very popular in 2003.

This song is so hauntingly beautiful it makes me cry, regularly. I just thought I’d share….

Here is a live version of the same cover:

Here is what I think is the original Tears for Fears version (or one from 1982 anyway):

Hat tip to Mark Blacknell who posted a alternative video to the Jules/Andrews cover in honor of the end of the Opus comic strip:

Hope you have tissues handy…

Scanned the support forums, every solution they suggested did not apply in my case (my songs were checked, the “use only checked songs” button was not checked, editing the playlist showed nothing unusual). As a last resort I deleted my smart playlist and created a new one with the same settings and name and… it worked.

Strange, but perhaps this solution will either help someone else noticing the same problem or someone will send in a reason why it happens and how to fix it without deleting and recreating the playlist.

As a side note, nothing gets rid of bad 1970s era ear-worms like medieval music! Miri it is!