I found out today my father has dementia and I’d like to do something for him. He’s always been musical, playing guitar in a rock band in his youth and becoming a classical composer in later years.
I’m planning to get him a replica of his Gibson SG special from his younger years, and I have a 45 demo single from his band that probably hasn’t been heard for 40 years. It might be in bad shape. I think it would be great for us to learn (relearn in his case) to play it together
I haven’t owned a turntable for over 30 years and only have a few vinyl records, including this one from my dad.
So my question is, what’s my best route to get this into a fllac or similar? We live quite far apart so remote jam sessions will be needed!
I have a Supernait 3 on my 2nd system which has a phono stage if that helps.
So sorry to hear about yourDad. If you dont know anyone with a TT, then perhaps you could ask your Naim dealer to see if they wood digitise it for you under the difficult circumstances you find yourself in.
If you are happy to divulge your rough location, then another forum member that are local to you may be able to volunteer. The forum moderator can put people in touch with each other.
I was about to say, if you can let us know your general location, someone local may be able to assist.
Dementia is cruel and can take many different paths and varies greatly between different people.
I live in North West Oxfordshire and would be happy to digitise the single for you.
Good luck.
Unfortunately I’m pretty much housebound at the moment due to my wife’s anxiety, and sadly that same anxiety extends to visits from folks we don’t know, so as much as I’d love to engage with the community it isn’t realistic at the moment.
I should clarify that for now I’m looking for a technical solution. What kit do I need without buying a £25k linn turntable that I’ll only use once?
Edit: I have no issue with people knowing I’m in the Watford / South Herts area and am happy to connect with others. I just wanted to be realistic about that that looks like for now
If you simply want to record to a digital file, you could just buy a simple turntable with the capability of recording to mp3.
If you head to a well known auction site and search for “Bluetooth Record Player with Stereo Speakers Turntable for Vinyl to MP3” you can buy one for about £50
As others have mentioned there are quite cheap turntables which can digitise LPs/vinyl singles, though clearly the quality might be limited though I doubt that’d be much of an issue (how will your dad play back the recorded file? A cheap digital music player or maybe the track written to a CD might be best options).
If you wanted to step up a little without spending vast amounts of money I’d probably look at a cheap USB digitising turntable from Audio Technica or Sony, though for one single it may not be cost effective.
Does your dad still have a turntable of any kind with analogue out? If so a cheap analogue to digital converter hooked up to a computer/laptop USB port sing analogue audio in fom the turntable would likely to suffice with better quality than a really cheap digitising TT.
Many here would I’m sure do it for you for free if you could post the single to them - it would be understandable however if you didn’t want to entrust a personal item with strong nostalgic value and wanted to do it yourself.
Sorry to hear about your dad’s dementia, it’s a cruel disease, is he managing reasonably well currently?
It’s a shame you can’t get out and ask your dealer to do it for you. But I sympathise. Mrs. FZ has similar issues and I know you have no way to get around it
Although I have a pretty decent digitising rig, in my office I also have a TEAC TN-4D turntable which is very low cost and has USB out. My first go at digitising was just to run a USB cable from that to my laptop with free Audacity installed. It worked a treat. Maybe a second hand TN-4D and then leave it up to you whether or not you change the stock cartridge (I would).
If you can’t borrow a turntable or convince a local audio dealer to help out, get an Audio Technica AT-LP120XUSB turntable. Not expensive and will do the job. It has a built in phono preamp and A to D converter. Clean the ripped file up as necessary with Audacity.
Please could members respect forum rules. Thank you.
If you have a laptop or other computer and it has a microphone input then it likely already has some kind of basic A-D converter built in. Just take the signal from the phono stage into the mic input. You’ll need to use a program such as Audacity, which is free to download and use.
But of course you would need a turntable and phono stage…
Best for just a single record is to google for a transcription service. These are people who transcribe old media to digital files. You just mail them the record and they do the rest. It should be much cheaper than buying a turntable!