Play It Again, Linux Saco ME

Posted by : Maggie Biggs

The other day I was poking around in my attic when I came upon several boxes of old LPs I had stored away. On a lark, I decided to pull them out and listen to some old tunes. The music sounded better than ever on my turntable, but it got me thinking.

Many of the old LPs I have are no longer available. Some of the records were produced by small jazz labels that are not around anymore. I wondered if there was a way to preserve my collection by saving copies of the rarer recordings.

The answer, of course, is yes. Using some basic cabling (available from nearly any electronics store) and my Linux box, I was able to save the recordings. In fact, I was even able to improve the sound quality of several older LPs.

Get organized

Before you dive into saving your records, you should determine what you want to do. For example, do you just want to save the recordings to a hard drive or a Zip disk for later retrieval? Do you want to create MP3s to play in a portable MP3 player? Or do you want to create audio CDs that can be played in the CD player you have at home or in the car?

If you are going to save the records to CDs, you'll want to consider how you will organize your CDs. Do you want to save a separate CD for each record? Or do you want to save your favorite tracks and create compilation CDs?

Furthermore, do you want your saved CDs to have the jewel cases you commonly find with CDs? Most office-supply stores sell CD jewel cases that yo...

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