My mother recently came out to visit me and, as usual, she brought a truckload of stuff for me. A big part of that most recent junk drop-off consisted of my dad’s old collection of records…most of which consisted of songs he performed on as either the lead guitar or as lead singer.

While it was great to get the old albums, I haven’t had a way to play a vinyl record in around 20 years now. I grew up on tapes and CDs more than record albums, and now all of my music exists solely on my iPod. Needless to say, I was left in a bit of a bind because I had never heard many of my dad’s performances.

Lucky for me, after a quick search online, I came across a truly marvelous piece of nerd gadgetry: the Audio Technica AT-LP2DUSB LP-to-Digital Recording System with USB. After reading the product description for the Audio-Technica USB Turntable on Amazon.com, I became very excited. You see, not only would it allow me to listen to my new old records, but it was also enable me to transfer that music from vinyl record to MP3 or WAV format. That’s right, I would be able to convert all my vinyl records to digital format. And, even better, it sounded like the process would be a piece of cake.

Which is awesome because I do love me some cake.

A few clicks of the mouse later and I had placed my order for the Audio-Technica USB Turntable. I’m a cheap bastard and always use Amazon’s free shipping, so I had to wait 5 days for the AT-LP2D USB Turntable to arrive at my door.

Opening up the box, I was happy to see that assembly would be quick and easy. Putting the USB Turntable together took me about 2 minutes. It was so quick and easy that I was sure I must have done something wrong or missed a step…but, nope, it really is a simple process.

The Audio-Technica USB Turntable comes bundled with 2 audio software packages for converting your LPs to MP3 (or any other) format: a licensed version of Cakewalk Pyro and the freeware Audacity software. I went ahead and installed Cakewalk Pyro even tho I already had a copy of Audacity, just to see how it worked.

Grabbing a 45 record from a nearby box, I popped the copy of “Dreamingest Man In Town” by Nick Masters and the Country Showmen (if you’re not familiar with the Country Showmen, they were actually Bill Haley’s Comets who performed under a different name when they played country music). From there I hit record in Cakewalk Pyro and play on the Audio Technica USB Turntable and, two minutes and thirty seconds later, I had a WAV version of the single.

Whoah. I couldn’t believe it was that easy, so I tested it again with the flip side, “Go Back To Philadelphia.” You know what, it really is that easy. The Cakewalk Pyro software is incredibly simple to use, while still giving you the ability to tweak the output and get rid of those annoying crackles and pops most vinyl records have.

The only semi-downside to the USB Turntable is you need to have a set of powered speakers plugged in to it in order to hear the music while you convert to digital format. You don’t need to hear to do the conversion, you can watch the process in the audio software’s levels monitor, but it does make things a little easier, especially if you’re just grabbing one or two songs from an album.

I am incredibly pleased with my purchase of the Audio-Technica AT-LP2D USB Turntable and can’t wait to convert the rest of the record collection. This is a fantastic way to archive your old music. I was so impressed by the package that I’ve decided to pick up their USB Cassette Player next. I’ll post a report as soon as it arrives and I’ve had a chance to test it out.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of LPs and want to get them converted over in to a digital format (WAV, MP3 or about 10 other formats), then you absolutely need to check out the Audio-Technica USB Turntable to convert your vinyl records over to MP3 format.


-Mat N., the Nifty Nerd
http://www.theNiftyNerd.com

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