Final Vinyl

Last night started to digitize some 20-year-old cassette tapes of unreplaceable music*. Have been threatening to do this for ages, then when I got it all together six months ago, couldn’t find the tapes! They surfaced in the move.

Old cassette deck –> RCA-minijack adapter –> Griffin iMic –> Final Vinyl

From there I’ll import the AIFFs into iTunes and add metadata, encode to MP3. Final Vinyl is a great piece of freeware, if a bit awkward. Gets the job done. First tape I stuck in got tangled in the capstan and detached at the spool. That one will need surgery once the hand is usable again.

* As a teenager I worked in a surf shop. “Al the reggae mailman” delivered our mail. He used to make these two-turntable reggae mix tapes with choice 70s cuts straight from the island. He would trade us tapes to play in the shop for wetsuits and other gear. This is not the reggae that shows up on Trojan and Studio One compilations – this is true rare groove stuff — music I won’t listen to often but that is burned in my soul from those years in the shop.

4 Replies to “Final Vinyl”

  1. hehe… funny you mention this! I bought the Griffin iMic, just this Saturday too!! It was the last left left at Frys. :)

    I needed to use my headset which includes a microphone for use with my iSight (so I can cancel out the echo of my speakers when doing video chatting). Problem was, the G4 Cube has absolutely no in/out jacks for audio! It only has two USB ports and two firewire. So I had to get that iMic USB thingie, in order to use a microphone. :o

  2. My christmas present for my parents is getting their vinyls down to a handy size (stack of cds and a dvd with backup MP3s) I am excited! The music sounds interesting? Doesn’t sound like copy-right stuff. Minde posting it? Any tips ‘n tricks on the recording??

  3. Martin, not sure what you mean by “doesn’t sound like copyright stuff” — copyrights last 75 years in this country (yes, I had suggested earlier that I might post some samples, but have decided against that, sorry).

    As for recording tips, just do experiments first to make sure you get the levels right before doing entire albums. Levels are everything. The key is to have the MP3s you end up with at around the same level as the rest of your MP3s.

    It’s a time-consuming process. Good luck and enjoy!

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