It’s been a long time coming, but I finally have a record player.
Every time I visit my mom, I’ve been slowly pulling albums from my dad’s collection. As a professional musician, college music educator, and enthusiast, you can only imagine how many boxes of vinyl are floating around my parents’ basement. (The answer, according to my mom, is too many.)
Here are details of my vinyl ripping rig.
Hardware
My turntable is an Audio-Technica AT-LP70XBT.
I am casting the audio over to a Sonos Move 2 speaker via Bluetooth, but also have the ability to go line-in with the Sonos Line-In (USB-C) Adapter.
I also have a nice RCA to 1/8" cable I bought from Crutchfield that's feeding the Sonos adapter / my line-in on my MacBook Pro (I could just use the 1/8" headphone jack on my Mac, but why not add another dongle?)
Software
While searching for a solution to rip vinyl, I stumbled onto a recommendation in a DJ Subreddit for Vinyl Studio. The professional DJs were raving about how easy it was to look up your recording on Discogs, import track names / artwork, and split/clean the tracks of snaps, crackles, and pops.
During my demo of Vinyl Studio, I thought I'd challenge the software with some clicks and pops of a minimalist electronic album. John Cage answered the bell.
My first impressions are that this software is worth every bit the cost ($64.95) of the Premium License. Just listen to that John Cage track! The vinyl itself needed some cleaning - my most conservative guess is that this record was last played sometime in the early 1970s. For a 50 year-old album, this rip sounds incredible.
Conclusion
It's a great time to dig through my dad's vinyl collection and an even better time to have so many used record store options nearby. If you're on Discogs, add me!
