Favorite LP not on CD? DIY!

"The times, they are a changin'" sang a grammatically challenged Bob Dylan several decades ago. Since then the only constant in our lives has been change.

When I was growing up, my uncles had collections of 78 rpm records collecting dust. I wondered what it was like going through a technology change that suddenly made your possessions obsolete. Then it happened to me. First my hundreds of LP's were slightly replaced by cassettes or eight-track tapes. Then came the bigger Compact Disk revolution. What to do?

Several online friends mentioned that they had been using a turntable system with a USB port to copy LP's to CD. I checked at Amazon and found a few of these. The Audio-Technica system was one of the lower priced one. It is currently available there (2/08)at just under $100 plus shipping. I ordered it on a Sunday evening and it arrived on Tuesday.

Of course much of the music from LP is now available on CD. Even the most esoteric recording has an audience somewhere. But what about the rest?

Now, if you can operate a turntable and your computer, Audio Technica has made it possible for you to turn your LP's into CD's.

If you are proficient in a CD burning program, you can use the Cakewalk Pyro software that comes with this system.

It is a quick hookup to your computer using the provided cables. The turntable requires some slight assembly. You can then play records through your computer, or use the program to save the audio to your computer and then to CD.

There is NO instruction book. All of the instructions are online, so that makes it difficult at times if you have a question about the process.

Transferring an LP to a CD is not a quick process (you can usually put 2 LP's on one CD). The recording is done in real time. Then you must break the music up into the individual tracks. If you don't do this, you end up with one track with all the songs on it with no way to go from one song to the next.

Cakewalk can be used to reduce the sound defects on your LP's.

All in all - this is an inexpensive and fairly simple way to do a project. Have plenty of blank disks, because you will make a few mistakes to begin with!

Happy recording! And welcome to the 21st century!