[teknophyl]

Ok, here goes. I listen to Trance music. I am in California and Trance music dominates in Europe. Many of the full versions of the songs I like are only available in vinyl format. I do not have a record player. I do have a CD player...who doesn't. Is there a service, a website perhaps, that can record a song from an LP onto a CD for a reasonable fee? If so, what kind of quality can I expect? If not, am I screwed and never going to be able to listen to Kamaya Painters - Cryptomnesia, on my way to class or on the train-ride home? Any help is appreciated.

 

[TimSchirmer]

dang.... if I still had my art di/O and my MD recorder, i could do it... lol, this is what the di/O was made for.

Here's what you should do:

Get a decent quality portable MD or CD recorder (marantz makes some, but they cost $$$$$) You can get cd recording decks on ebay as well. (there is a while section for them in home audio/video)

If you have a mixer (or preamp) with a phono stage, use that.... and record the analog signal to your MD or CD recorder, and record from the turntable.

Trust me, it would probabally be cheaper for you to set up a mini-studio than to have a professional service do it.

Seriously though, the cheapest solution would be to just buy a turntable and a phono preamp, and forget about all of the above, and listen to vinyl in it's pure analog goodness.

 

[redshifter]

tim's right. trance and electronica produced right sounds best on vinyl, at least on my system.

my advice to you would be get a good minidisc deck and protable, and a decent turntable and phono preamp. vinyl to md atrac type-r sounds wonderful, and preserves a lot of the vinyl's warmth. a good record cleaner is also recommended.

 

[minya]

Quote:

Originally posted by teknophyl Ok, here goes. I listen to Trance music. I am in California and Trance music dominates in Europe. Many of the full versions of the songs I like are only available in vinyl format. I do not have a record player. I do have a CD player...who doesn't. Is there a service, a website perhaps, that can record a song from an LP onto a CD for a reasonable fee? If so, what kind of quality can I expect? If not, am I screwed and never going to be able to listen to Kamaya Painters - Cryptomnesia, on my way to class or on the train-ride home? Any help is appreciated.

Easy, sort of. You need a turntable and a preamp. Plug the turntable into the preamp and the preamp into your computer's line-in. Acquire some wave-editing software (Soundforge, Cool Edit, Wavelab, whatever), hit "record" on the software, "play" on the turntable, and voila. You're recording vinyl. Much better and more convenient than those damned "home audio CD recorders" that force you to use those insanely priced "audio CDRs."

Using the above method, you can (skillfully and carefully, of course) use plugins to clean the vinyl down to a level where it's near indistinguishable from CD.

- Chris

 

[miroslav]

Hey, teknophyl, what specific songs you have on your mind? Trance scene really rocks in Europe, so I`d be surprised to see great songs released on vinyl only.

I have only one cd copy of a vinyl and it sounds horrible.

But it was dirty cheap, so not much of a loss.

 

[punosion]

I have Sasha's "Xpander EP" on both vinyl and CD. My friend has some Ety 4-S and a Total AirHead, my other friend (Mandos) has my old Porta Corda and Beyer DT-770's. Can't wait for them to hear vinyl and see how much better it can sound than CD

 

[teknophyl]

Pretty much all of my exposure to trance songs is from the internet radio station digitallyimported.com so I don't get to listen to as much as I would like to, nor do I get to keep up to date with the latest releases. I just found out about a week ago that Gouryella's new song, Ligaya, had been released. (An awesome song by the way, but I can only find the full version on vinyl.) All of Gouryella's songs are great, and eventhough Gouryella, Walhalla, and Tenshi are on CD, I'd still want to buy them on vinyl and support the preferred format of my favorite type of music.

Kamaya Painters - Cryptomnesia is an awesome song too and I've emailed the record label (Black Hole Recordings) and asked if the single is available on CD. They said no. The funny thing about trance music is that many of the same artists collaborate at different times and go by different names every time. DJ Tiesto and Ferry Corsten have collaborated a few times and gone by the names Gouryella, Kamaya Painters, Vimana, and probably some other names too.

"Venus of my Dreams" and "Alone in the Dark" by Airwave are great songs too that I've only been able to find on vinyl.

"Silent Cry" by Fire & Ice has been one of the hardest ones to find. I can't even find the LP so I doubt a CD exists.

A few other good ones are
Cygnus X - Orange Theme (Moonman's mix is awesome)
Balearic Bill - Destination sunshine
Mekka - Diamondback (Angeles mix)
Solar Stone - Seven Cities
Sonorous - Glass Garden
Yahel - Voyage
Three Drives - Sunset on Ibiza

Minya, I was about to ask how you knew that my computer had a line in, but then I remembered that you can read other people's profiles...duh. I've been thinking of doing what you recommended for a while now. I've been reading all the posts about good entry level turntables, and I've been pleased with the suggestions since they are all in a good price range for me. I'm still new to turntables (duh, again) so I get pretty lost when I start reading about tonearms and cartridges and styli, oh my!

I probably won't be getting a turntable till next year when I move to a bigger place, so I have a year to study up. Thanks for the replies everyone. And btw, if it doesn't take an hour to answer...what does a preamp do?

...(No, seriously)

 

[minya]

Quote:

Originally posted by teknophyl Minya, I was about to ask how you knew that my computer had a line in, but then I remembered that you can read other people's profiles...duh. I've been thinking of doing what you recommended for a while now. I've been reading all the posts about good entry level turntables, and I've been pleased with the suggestions since they are all in a good price range for me. I'm still new to turntables (duh, again) so I get pretty lost when I start reading about tonearms and cartridges and styli, oh my! I probably won't be getting a turntable till next year when I move to a bigger place, so I have a year to study up. Thanks for the replies everyone. And btw, if it doesn't take an hour to answer...what does a preamp do? ...(No, seriously)

I don't know exactly what kind of trance you're interested in, but for a "one-stop shop" regarding psychedelic/goa-trance, http://www.saikosounds.com is your only choice. Awesome, fast service (even though they're from Hong Kong) and amazingly cheap prices.

Anyway, a preamp is (I think, I may be wrong) simply a device that amplifies a turntable's output for use with anything that does not have a specific "phono in." If you've ever tried to plug a turntable into anything that wasn't a phono in, you may have noticed that even at the loudest volume level the output was barely a whisper. A preamp fixes this. (I need a good one, too...)

- Chris

 

[teknophyl]

I've come to the conclusion that I would be a fool not to enjoy my favorite type of music on it's original and best-sounding format: vinyl. I'm definitley getting a turntable in the future. So let me get this straight. The turntable hooks up to the pre-amplifier, which hooks up to the headphone amplifier, which hooks up to the headphones? Are there any components missing in there? And all these connections (except for the amp to headphone one) are made with RCA/composite analog interconnects? I can honestly say that I'm very anxious to hear the difference between a CD and vinyl. Unfortunately, my wallet threatened to smother me in my sleep if I buy everything in my current conditions...and I really don't want to find out if he's joking or not.

 

[mlchang]

This is off-topic I know, but reading this thread prompted me. I agree that collecting trance on vinyl is great. But what if anything will products like the Pioneer CDJ-1000 do to the vinyl market? Now, this product has been available for a little while, but it still is expensive and not accessible to non-big name DJs. Other "DJ CD" players have been around too. I've used some of them and none of them capture the feel of using vinyl and a good turntable. However, the 1000 actually does. Seriously. I mean I saw DJ shadow use one a couple of weeks ago, and scratch with it as if he were using a turntable. So I'm sure Vestax and others are working on something like this. I wonder if it will have any impact.

But back to teknophyl's last post. That's about everything. Not every preamplifier will have phono inputs (for turntables), but most do so you'll want to look for that. And you do use RCA cables to connect everything.

 

[Gluegun]

Yes, one has to get a special preamp that has a *phono input*... it looks just like a normal RCA, but should say Phono on it... it makes a difference. Radio shack makes a good battery one...

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Well, it shouldn't just say "phono", it should compensate for the RIAA eq curve. There are standalone devices that do this (known as phono stages, phono preamps, etc.). You really don't need a preamp if you have just a phono stage, you can plug it straight into the headphone amp.

 

[redshifter]

hi teknophyl

there are a few things you need for a good starter analog setup:

- a good turntable--some good older belt driven tt's can be found used on ebay, such as thorens, or newer tt's like rega.

- a good cartridge--this is the little gizmo that holds the needle. grado has some great ones at good prices.

- a good vinyl cleaner--tuberoller recommends the orbitrac 2 at less than $40. i tend to trust this guy's opinion.

- a good phono preamp. this baby "decodes" the sound by using the riaa eq. for a super cheap solution do a search here for the radio shack "little rat".

there are of course better ones, and older receivers that have a phono input.

- if you are using headphones, run the phono preamp into a cha47 or meta42 headphone amp, or a more expensive commercial amp. otherwise use a regular receiver into speakers. personally i prefer speakers for vinyl (don't stone me!!).

well, there it is. it shouldn't cost too much, and if you do a search for turntable setup you'll be enjoying pure analog trance in no time. good luck.