Extracting gems from vinyl

I finally got around to unpacking and shelving 30-odd boxes of 33 1/3 records, which have been seasoning in the barn since July. It’s delightful to revisit old favorites that I haven’t played in years, and today I rigged the wherewithal to extract sound to other media, via my Mackie mixer, an M-Audio USB preamp, and Sound Forge. I’m sure there are better ways to do this, and to do it better, but I was able to realize the scheme I awoke to find myself scheming this morning: recording a favorite bit from the Holy Modal Rounders version of “Hot Corn Cold Corn”: bupm bupm bupm de bupm bupm de bupm (ca. 1965, from The Holy Modal Rounders 2, Prestige 7410:B2).

This is really just another sort of quotation, and there must be a few thousand favorite bits that I’d love to share. How to regularize that, so as not to venture beyond Fair Use?

And for Proof of Concept, here’s an imperfect version of Moving Day, made by plugging the Ovation mandocello into the Mackie. I’ll make better versions eventually.

2 thoughts on “Extracting gems from vinyl

  1. Gardner

    Very cool, oook. Extremely cool.
    Holy Modal Rounders I know from their Doctor Demento hit “B**bs a Lot.” Sounds like there’s more HMR goodness where that came from. And the mandocello sounds like it’s got a new pair of strings: great twangy resonance and some nifty licks to boot. So much oook goodness. Retirement? I don’t think so. Fullest flowering yet? More likely.
    And the studio gear sounds like home…. We need some gear pictures. Hugh at the console. The Wall of Sound, oook style.

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