How I do it.

Groovy baby!

Why I convert My records to digital audio

When it comes to music, some people take it more seriously than others and we are living in an 

age where analog sounds are starting to be fewer an further between.

I have noticed some "Audiophiles" out there debating whether or not converting their records

into a digital format is worth while or not.

Seeing this, I cant help but laugh to myself because in my mind.. you are preserving the record itself by 

saving it from being used too often, and you are still enjoying the music from the record even though it might not have a "true" analog sound, it still has the same pops and cracks that tend to remind us of pulling

out our parents Doors records and discovering the 60's in 1993 when your just a kid.

My goal in doing this is to preserve the sound quality as best as possible and to help preserve the condition of the records themselfes to help prolong their life.

What I do

First things first, I get my studio mixer, my record player and my collection. 

I hook up my the phono channel from the record player, into a small analog microphone pre-amp

that was my grandpas, run the amplified signal into my mixer, then into my laptop.

You can use any recording software you wish, but I hate freeware as the quality usually only goes up to

16 bit audio, where when you are dealing with music freaks, you want to try to preserve as much

as the natural sound quality as possible, so try and find something that will let you record and render in 24 bit audio, but if it is for your own personal enjoyment, by all means use Audacity.

When I'm recording a record, I do a test song first to get all the levels right as high as i can without anything clipping, and then I am ready to record.

I basically just let the record play, and monitor the input levels to insure there is no clipping or distortion.

After it is all done, depending on what someone ask's me to do, I go and divide the two recordings (side A and side B) into their respective parts and render each song individually, save it to CD or MP3 we are done!

The whole process takes about as long as it takes to listen to the record, plus how long it takes you to divide the songs and render them into your desired audio format.

Demographic?

Well, This is a new age in music and entertainment. Now we can carry music around with us anywhere we want to go without worrying about the condition of the original recording, because even that is digital.

The people most interested in doing this are:

 A) the Baby boomers, the ones born around the turn of the second world war who still listen to a lot of the classic bands and records and have that passion for that warm crisp analog sound. 

B) Djs and Producers have been doing this for a number of years, People like MC Hammer and Quincy Jones got very popular by sampling analog sounds and making them digital signals to tweak and twerk into their songs. And finally,

C) The modern day Musician and all round none mainstream kids/people who also share the same passion that their predecessors do, and love being a apart of the retro music lifestyle that comes with being a vinyl junky.

All in all, more and more people are converting their parents and even grandparents libraries for them because lets face it.. Digital, though far less special, is way easier to share, like, distribute and enjoy. So may as well enjoy your records without letting them chance getting wrecked or ruined, and maybe your kids will find a record player and rediscover the 60's in the 2020's.

-Ben Jammin Kraft