Recording Equipment

My dad recorded a bunch of his band's stuff to vinyl LP's at 78 RPMs back in the late 1950's. I just recently found these and would like to get them captured digitally before they deteriate and are lost forever.

I've got a turntable that does 331/3 and 45 RPM and I've seen some USB driven ones available but none that will take 78 RPM

www.liveright.info

Recording 78s

You'll need to go through a slightly different process with your old 78s, assuming you don't have a turntable that will play them at the correct speed. Record your WAV file at 45 rpm. Next, you'll have to resample your file to stretch it to the speed of the original recording. This is expressed as a percentage; i.e., 45 divided by 78.26 (the true speed of a 78 record), or 57.5%. If you're using Cool Edit Pro, you'll go into Transform, Time/Pitch, Stretch and enter 57.5 into the Ratio box. Click OK, and Cool Edit Pro will take care of the rest. Works like a charm, too.

I can't take any of the credit for that article, I found it here: http://www.napathon.net/LPtoCD.php


If you don't already have an editing program, try CNET. They have several nice free ones on there. Here's their link to get you in the right area::
http://www.download.com/mac/audio-produ ... =ltcol;nav

I copied my regular LP's to computer and can copy to CD or whatever media I want now. It just takes some time, in my case I had to play the entire album at regular speed not like copying or uploading from a CD.

Best of luck.

Yeah "Sentient Paradox", that is what I play with, Audacity. That program rocks and it is free to boot. I just mentioned the 'Cool Edit Pro' because it was in the article I had found. I got it, audacity, from 'CNET'.

I didn't read that part about the 78's before, just knew it was in there so I tried to help "dene" with his fathers records. I think it's cool what he's doing, only wish my dad left me some recorded music. Old jazz pianist! As my grand dad, flute/obo in old timey 1930's Chicago jazz bands. Oh well!

I suppose I could take my regular 33 1/3's and run them at 78 and get it done in half the time??? But it will probably loose some of the subtle sounds that make an album an album. No more hisss, heehee.

Anyway, I wanted to ask about the Audacity. Have you used it to mix real music, (I have only played with it), and if so, how well does it work? I have taken it to 16 channels and it sounds fine in playback through headphones. Thats as far as I got so far.

Granted, most of the tracks were mixed and matched stuff I had in the puter. And of course I reversed some songs to hear the devil talking to me, heeheehee... Nah, I reversed: Anastasia - Overdue goodbye and it sounded really cool.

Now I have to open a MySpace site, post all my music backwards, type everything backwards and name myself; "Retrograde"

Well ANY help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated, Ron.