Vinyl

[George-2.0]

I was sittin' going through my old LPs - enjoying the cover art. Not that you can't do interesting things with CDs (Aimee Mann's got some nice CD packaging that's won a few awards over the years), but I just love the large size, the gatefolds, the gimmick covers Alice Cooper used to do (ala the Schools Out LP, which open like a school desk, and the album itself was covered by a pair of panties.)

I was listening to some of my old Nazareth records. While known for blues flavored hard rock, they dabbled with a little of everything (Scottish Folk, AOR)

Seeing the covers, listening to the tracks, brought back memories...






I used to put the album covers on a music stand, and stare at the good ones while I played the record.


Of course, I had to give their album masterpiece a go, Hair of the Dog

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/vp6-8g-nw4A" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/vp6-8g-nw4A</a>

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I finally have a nice copy of the Beatles white album on white vinyl.   I've wanted one since the mid 80s when I would occasionally see one in a used record shop, but they were always way out of my price range back then since I was poor (the reason I was going to used record shops in the first place ).

I got the US release since near mint condition copies of those are not too expensive, I payed $60 for mine, the jacket is a bit worn but the discs are pristine.  The UK pressings are supposed to sound much better but they start at around $250 and go up from there.  Of course you have to take some of those claims that certain pressings are much better with a grain of salt, some of that talk is people listening to them on super high end equipment, I doubt the average person playing it on a a few hundred bucks worth of equipment would be able to tell the difference.

[The Lurker]

So tempted to get this...
https://theyetee.com/products/rocket-knight-adventures#

[Pak-Man]

There's an underappreciated gem from the mascot era of 16-bit games.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

I picked up an original Thick As A Brick album at a used record shop over the weekend, Tull did some crazy stuff with their albums, this one has a fake newspaper that folds out of the sleeve.

I have also acquired The Beatles red and blue compilation albums on red and blue vinyl.

And now for the direct ancestor of vinyl, shellac.  The records made from bug droppings, look up how shellac is made, it's insane to think about how many bugs had to be used to make millions of records over 60 years.

Been playing around with the stylus I got for playing 78s on my new turntable, recording some using the USB output, and then doing loads of noise reduction with Audacity.  It's been interesting, some that sound just terrible directly from the turntable can be made to sound pretty darn good with some filtering, noise reduction, and equalization.

Made a few videos using the audio I cleaned up:

This one from 1923 was in fair condition:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/J-AEOtF17zc" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/J-AEOtF17zc</a>

This one from 1935 was in good condition:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/BkJDQAabZSQ" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/BkJDQAabZSQ</a>

This one from 1955 was in terrible condition:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/wo1AyJlYo0k" target="_blank" class="new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/wo1AyJlYo0k</a>