[Discuss] [OT] digitizing old 78rpm records? ELP laser turntable services?

Wed Apr 8 10:44:32 EDT 2015

Also, I remember reading about using a flatbed scanner to rip old
records. No pointers for you, but might be another area to research.
---
Steven Santos
Director
Simply Circus, Inc.
86 Los Angeles Street
Newton, MA 02458

P: 617-527-0667
F: 617-934-1870
E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com


On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 10:57 PM, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
> Thanks! That looks like a good starting point.
>
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 5:19 PM, Steven Santos <Steven at simplycircus.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> http://www.lp2cd.com/
>> ---
>> Steven Santos
>> Director
>> Simply Circus, Inc.
>> 86 Los Angeles Street
>> Newton, MA 02458
>>
>> P: 617-527-0667
>> F: 617-934-1870
>> E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 12:12 AM, John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
>> > Doesn't do 78s; it only plays at 33.3 and 45 rpm. And the needle would
>> > probably destroy the 78s while trying to play them.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 11:34 PM, Steven Santos <Steven at simplycircus.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> For $40 this might be worth trying:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0029QRA1U/transfermymusic-20
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ---
>> >> Steven Santos
>> >> Director
>> >> Simply Circus, Inc.
>> >> 86 Los Angeles Street
>> >> Newton, MA 02458
>> >>
>> >> P: 617-527-0667
>> >> F: 617-934-1870
>> >> E: Steven at SimplyCircus.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sun, Apr 5, 2015 at 9:45 AM, Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org> wrote:
>> >> > The frustrating (or amazing) thing about 78s is they are not
>> >> > "information"
>> >> > devices they are "industrial": They have big grooves that make big
>> >> > excursions and they whip by really fast, all to make noise rather
>> >> > directly.
>> >> > There is no amplifier in an old Victrola, yet it makes a room full of
>> >> > sound.
>> >> > The 78 record isn't just information, it is a big part of the sound
>> >> > reproduction system, and playing it is destructive. But you knew
>> >> > that.
>> >> >
>> >> > I have a related problem, I inherited a zillion slides from my
>> >> > parents'
>> >> > world travels. How to digitize them? There were two obvious routes:
>> >> > use
>> >> > some
>> >> > service or buy a slide scanner. Pricing the services was scary--not
>> >> > bad
>> >> > for
>> >> > a few but crazy expensive for a lot. Looking that reviews of scanners
>> >> > I
>> >> > was
>> >> > disappointed with the quality, and they can be slow.
>> >> >
>> >> > So I took the homebrew approach and crafted my own "scanner". Right
>> >> > now
>> >> > there is a lot of competition in the high-end camera market, so I
>> >> > bought
>> >> > the
>> >> > fanciest DSLR any normal person should buy with his/er own money, and
>> >> > I
>> >> > am
>> >> > taking pictures of the slides.
>> >> >
>> >> > A macro lens, a light box, a tripod, a black plastic food container
>> >> > with
>> >> > a
>> >> > hole in it upside down to move the slide up from the
>> >> > less-than-perfect
>> >> > diffuser (use distance to diffuse and throw small patterning out of
>> >> > focus),
>> >> > a remote release, wooden bracing to hold the camera more steady...and
>> >> > a
>> >> > bunch of futzing...and I can see the film grain.
>> >> >
>> >> > My wife and I can digitize slides as fast as we can individually pull
>> >> > them
>> >> > out of a Carousel, puff off the dust, place them in the upside down
>> >> > food
>> >> > container, and return them. In about the time that it would take to
>> >> > pack
>> >> > up
>> >> > a batch to send out, we are done with that batch. Well, not done yet,
>> >> > but on
>> >> > a recent long weekend visit to the ol' homestead we digitized over
>> >> > four
>> >> > thousand slides, and that's a good fraction of the total
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > As for 78s, I might be crazy...but a 78 side usually only runs
>> >> > 3-something
>> >> > minutes of low-fidelity sound. There isn't much fundamental
>> >> > information
>> >> > there, a high quality photo (or several stitched) of a record side
>> >> > might
>> >> > capture it all. Then it is a "simple matter of programming" to
>> >> > recover
>> >> > the
>> >> > sound! You could even crop out the label details for your metadata.
>> >> >
>> >> > Googling "optical record groove software"...
>> >> >
>> >> >   Amazing recovering of audio from paper recordings:
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > https://mediapreservation.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/extracting-audio-from-pictures/
>> >> >
>> >> >   A hacker who demonstrated he could get something audible from LP
>> >> > photos:
>> >> > http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/DigitalNeedle/index.html
>> >> >
>> >> > There are plenty of general purpose open source imaging processing
>> >> > libraries
>> >> > available, maybe there is specific useful software available from the
>> >> > Irene
>> >> > project??
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > -kb
>> >> >
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >> >
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>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
>> > Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
>> > PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
>> >
>
>
>
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
>