Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The scope of the project remaining


The attached picture should give you a perspective on the magnitude of the issue I'm trying to deal with. In addition to the 6 cubes, the bottom two shelves and part of the third shelf of the book case on the right are all LPs. What is on the bookshelf plus about one of the cubes is what I haven't yet burned to CD. The four cubes on the left plus one on the right are what I have done so far. I think that puts me at about the 60% mark. The cubes with drawers are CD's and cassettes. The vast majority of the CDs and about half of the cassettes are not in the picture at all. The turntable on the left is what I'm currently using and the HP Digital Entertainment Center is the black box on the opposite side of the TV from the turntable. Yes, that's a 42" LCD monitor in the middle. The Bose surround sound speakers are also visible although the sub and the rear speakers are out of the picture. The PC is my DVD player, CD player, and currently contains about 8200 music tracks. I think some of you guys probably have more music, but I figure I've got thousands more tracks to load from LP and I've barely scratched the surface on the hundreds of cassette tapes (and that is after I pull out the redundant ones.)

I refrain from referring to this as a chore because it is such a treat to pull out an old album that I haven't listened to for several decades and enjoy it while burning it to CD and then getting it uploaded to the PC and have it thereby become vastly more convienient to enjoy into the future. Listening to Poco's Crazy Eyes recently was kind of a jaw dropping experience. I suspect I hadn't listened to it in well over 25 years! My copy was in very crisp condition. Still, the magnitude of what I'm dealing with is a little intimidating. If I could simply average one album a day (which I don't think I could do consistently) I'm looking at multiple years.

I'm also in the market for a good tag editor that can conveniently do search and replace type stuff across the directory structure.
Getting to the point where smart playlists are really smart is something of a nerd-nightmare but like so many nerdy things, when it's done right it's pretty slick. (Or at least this nerd thinks so!) It's really changing the way I listen to music.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams Are Made of This (RCA AFL1-4681 - 1983)




I did "Be Yourself Tonight" and realized that I could catch up on my album art photos and back fill this one.
This one is available from Amazon for 19 bucks and had bonus tracks. The download is 10 but maybe I should download just the bonus tracks!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

From Andy J.:

A snippet of an response to a question on the Pgh Post-Gazette site from their techie/audiophile guy, about converting vinyl to CDs...

To record your records, get a $39 Griffin iMic and connect it to your computer's USB port and to the "record out" connections of the tape loop on your receiver. I recommend Roxio Easy Media Creator 9 software to record and process the MP3s. It is $79.

Clarence White and the Kentucky Colonels (Rounder 0098 - 1980)


Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Jerry Douglas - Fluxology (Rounder 0093 - 1979)


Currently unavailable at Amazon even through resellers. I can't find it on Rounder.com either. This was Lans', but I love this album.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Long, long ago in a galaxy far away...

I returned to Phoenix in my brother's compact car with four pieces of furniture, a small fire safe, dozens of books, two pair of speakers, eight hi-fi components, several hundred LP's, even more cassettes, and somewhat less than a hundred CDs. (Being the opportunist that he is, Brad claimed about half the CDs. Being the opportunist that I am, I did my best to stack his half with stuff I already owned a copy of). Since Lans generally listened to tapes, many of his LPs have probably only been played once (when they were copied to tape). In many cases the jackets are in mint condition and presumably the vinyl is also. I burned three Roy Buchanan LPs to CD over the weekend and I thought the sound quality was rather spectacular. But I digress... There were hundreds of VHS tapes that were mostly musically oriented. Along with many concert videos there are also many instructional videos. I think he has a Tony Rice instructional video in there somewhere but I had to leave the video tapes behind, due to space and weight limitations. Ironically, the componetry I brought DID include a VCR (I'd previously divested myself of analog video.) But I digress again... While making the decision to not bring the video tapes with me on this trip, I schnagged ONE video from his collection: "A History of Ketel One". I think I'll look into converting it to DVD.