It's Tough To "Rip" A 45 RPM Record

How easy it is to rip CDs and come up with hundreds of tracks for your iPod or to play on the computer. It's quick and relatively pain free.

But try doing a 45 rpm record. It's free music, since you've already had the record for years, but it takes real effort. Today I did maybe 13 or 14 records.

One thing that's a headache is the record player I use to record these. It's a cheap model that you used to be able to get at Amazon. It's called an American Audio TT Record. There's no way to monitor it that it's actually working. So things can go wrong. You can think you're recording something, then you get the SD card to the computer and there's nothing on it. That happened a couple times. I don't know if it's really sensitive or what the problem is.

I've definitely got in the habit of double checking, making sure the record button is on. So that's not the problem.

But let's assume it works, which it usually does. Just recording the record on the card is only the beginning. It has to be edited, popfixed, amplified, one thing or another, then all the MP3 tagging, a cover picture, etc. It's like an endless process, as opposed to CD ripping. To rip 27 or 28 songs off a CD is a matter of minutes. To record the same amount off records is hours.

Of course you have to listen to the records in real time. It'd be nice to be able to record them 48x, then slow the track down (or have the computer do it for you). What would that be like? It'd be wild.

Once you get them done, it's a good thing. But getting them done is painful!