Category Archives: gear

Heavy Duty Vinyl Record Album Case

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carpeted-vinyl-album-case

This is slightly pricey, but hot damn! This vinyl album case holds a whopping 200 albums, has a carpeted exterior and lid, and I hear you can stack these two and three high and even use the case as a makeshift stool if you’re in cramped quarters in some dingy club. You’re naturally spinning the good stuff instead of being what Mr. Automatic calls a “Craptop DJ”. I want several. I would imagine these to be a bit weighty when filled to capacity, but the lid is removable for easier access to the vinyl…never a bad thing.

Of course, I’d fill mine with dub platters, bizarre Icelandic new waver bands, Isaac Hayes records, Italian bachelor pad soundtrack music and a Goblin album or two. Those club kids don’t know what to make of me.

Numark TTUSB Turntable

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numark-ion-ttusb-turntable

The Numark TTUSB turntable is a nice tool for converting your vinyl to MP3s.  I like the plug-n-play ease of using this USB turntable. It’s inexpensive, simple to use and will give you plenty of fun rediscovering the old vinyl you haven’t heard in ages. No, this isn’t really designed to be used as DJ gear, but you can certainly pad out your MP3 collection with the Numark TTSUB. Call it a DJ tool for home use only. I own one…and if I wanted to play DJ gigs with my vinyl collection, I’d break out a Technics. Sorry, DJ hopefuls—don’t take this out of the house. Why bother? Just convert your tastiest vinyl tracks to MP3, drop em to a nice big external hard drive or MP3 CD-R and be on your way. And yes, you can always burn a redbook format CD to gig with, too.

Golden Records Vinyl/Cassette to MP3 Converter

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golden-records

Golden Records is what I’d call a good entry-level vinyl-to-digital converter. If you have never tried to convert your vinyl records to MP3 or redbook CD formats, this is a great way to give it a try. Among the most attractive features of Golden Records is the normalizing function, which will give your new MP3s consistent volume for the entire album. Some of those indie/alternative albums like The Blasting Concept series and the amazing Homestead Records compilation The Wailing Ultimate are unfortunately the victims of wildly diverse recording and mastering techniques from track to track. Differing volume levels make listening to the tracks on MP3 a bit of a right pain in the arse—unless you use the normalizing function to make them all even across the board.

Audiophile purists won’t be so thrilled with normalizing as it can alter some of the dymamics of a song, but for most of us normalizing isn’t a bad thing at all. Golden Records is advertised as being designed specifically for vinyl and cassette transfer to MP3, including a handy set of fix-it features to get rid of clicks, pops and other artifacts.

If you’re an advanced audio nut you won’t need this software package, but Golden Records is great for anyone just getting started and needing a solution to get those all-time vinyl favorites running on your iPod in no time.

LP Mailer Resource: Sleeve City

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I’ve played in my share of bands since 1992 and I never, ever wondered how a record album got mailed out once it was ordered. Even when I was tempted to start selling vinyl on eBay, I never got round to asking “Where the hell do you buy the mailers?” Part of that may have been due to the influence of my friends in Pink Filth, who simply used any cardboard boxes they could get from behind the supermarket. We used to have these box cutting sessions to mail out orders on the band’s label–slash up the boxes to size, bubble wrap the goods and coat them in cardboard.

Except that doesn’t quite work when you need a good first impression from an eBay buyer or other customers…so for the discriminating seller, there are places like Sleeve City (aka SleeveTown.com) that sell everything from cardboard mailers to heavy duty, white-label style LP jackets. You can also get gig cases for your vinyl…sturdy anvil cases with closing tops that hold 100 titles. This site is worth a look for anyone selling records.