"Making Technology Accessible for
Seniors"
You probably have a large vinyl record collection and want to listen your favorite jazz tunes or popular songs. The problem is in order to do this you would have to first find the record album in your collection, then place it on the turntable, turn the stereo on, find a place to sit, and then listen to music with cracks and pops, then get up and turn the stereo off, place the record in the album cover, and file the album back in your collection. There must be an easier way to listen to your collection and not wear out the records in the process. Have you thought about storing the records digitally? With a computer and special type of turntable you can create digital recording that can be played on any entertainment center, computer or portable handheld digital player.
You need three items. A computer, a USB turntable and software. That's it! Any computer sold today will handle the software required to record vinyl records. The USB turntable you can get at Amazon.com or many of the electronic stores online or local stores. The turntable recommended is the Numark TTUSB Turntable with USB Audio Interface. I have seen them selling for around $170. The turntable comes with the recording software called Audacity. Free the software can also be downloaded from the Internet.
You need to install and configure the software on your computer. In order to save your vinyl records as MP3 files you will need to download some special software called a LAME MP3 Encoder codex. Depending on the computer and following the instructions supplied with the turntable you should be able to have a successful installation. If you don't want to do this yourself, Senior eSolutions can help.
After you have installed and configured the computer just following the instructions in the manual. It is best to clean each side of the record before recording. You now have software that can take most of the cracks and pops out of the recording but clearning before helps. The software is quite advanced and you can control many of the recording processes that only a few years ago where available to commercial recording studios.
The recording process will take you some time to do depending on the size of the collection you have. You can play the records at 45rpm when recording and playing back at normal speed but you need a fast computer processor and it's hard to monitor the sound. So just set your laptop on your stereo and listen to your records while you record. You will probably play records that you haven't heard in a very long time.
For further information I recommend the book Burning Down the House by Eliot Van Buskirk. The title is a little misleading, though, he is refering to "burning" audio recordings to CDs or DVDs not your house.