[Mike Tyson]

Hello peeps.

I'm after a set of Technics 1210's please. Any model considered really. Sold my old ones a while ago and regretted it ever since 

Cheers,

Mike

P.S Any decent mixer would also be considered, preferably s Pioneer DJM 500.

[Bubba]

I've got 3 Technics and a DJM 500

One deck is not holding pitch, but this is a fairly cheap repair apparantly.

I'm not selling them yet, but may do in the future - I never use them any more because I don't go clubbing or buy vinyl any more.

If I can bring myself to part with them then I'll give you a shout.

I need to transfer around 3000 12"s over to digital then I'll be selling all my vinyl too. That should be fun!!

[Aussiegav]

can't believe you gonna part with your records!!!
most, i presume, are now rare as a nympho who loves being dragged out on perfect cold grit days and sucks you off while you're resting.

[Bubba]

The problem is that the decks/vinyl take up so much room which is just dead space since I don't use them any more, so it's got to be done.

It will be painful parting with some vinyl but if I've got it all digitised then I can still play them using something like Traktor and one of those deck/mixer console thingys. Then I can use all my old shit with new stuff too which would be great.

Some of my stuff will be very rare, especially the old skool and techno stuff.

[Mike Tyson]

Bubba, it is the most painful thing to part with your vinyl. I had no where near as many records as you but when I sold all my old gear it broke my heart 

But I agree with the digital revoultion thing happening, a lot of my friends have CD decks and there so easy to use and its so cheap to downlad tunes its crazy. I guess I'm just a vinyl junkie really, say as you!

If you ever do the deed and wanna part company with the beasts, let me know.



Word

The rare stuff sounds cool. I got given an X-press 2 record called trance euro xpress or somet from 1996!! I mix prog house mainly and it kinda works!!

[Falling Down]

Mine are both separated at the moment - one upstairs and one downstairs but I doubt I'll ever sell them.  I did contemplate it when I first got married ten years ago and we were very skint and I'm glad I didn't.

Like Bubbs I don't go clubbing anymore but I still buy rekkids as there's quite a lot of stuff that doesn't make it onto CD (and not just electronica) and I'm lucky enough to have a room downstairs that's just for music so I built some wooden racks into the wall space.

[Mike Tyson]

I'm in the process of converting my basement into a decks room/bar/general doss area hence the hunt for the wheels of steel. I've still got a fair bit of work to do so I'll keep hunting.

[dobbin]

I'm in completely the same situation in that I have decks (only 2 though) and a broken shit mixer, but have just moved house and dont really want them cluttering up the place. They dont get used but I feel like selling them would be like admitting middle age!

I really need to digitise everything too. Any advice on this anyone? I would say record using soundforge (paying attention to the levels), normalize it and then compress with Lame to MP3? Should probably move this discussion to the technical forum...

[bigphil]

I nearly sold my 1200's last year but I couldn't bring myself to.  I'm dusting them off this weekend as I'm playing at a mates party in Cornwall in a few months and I need to remind myself how to mix.  I've also just spent a small fortune on Juno getting some stuff I heard in Ibiza a few weeks ago.

I agree everything is going digital and I'm all in favour, however, I had a bad nights mixing on a pair of lurvely CD decks at Bar Matrix in town last year and have since sold my cd deck because vinyl is just so much more tactile and easy to use.  I did like the loop abaility though.  And Tractor is pretty good but you do need a reasonable set up so that you can listen to the two channels.  I thought that two turntables, a laptop with Tractor and a cd deck was very versatile indeed.

[dobbin]

What do you think to this Ableton thing? that seems a very popular piece of software...

I thought they all mixed stuff on ProTools, but it seems Ableton and Final Scratch are where its at. Both Ableton and Final scratch have some hardware component I think. Just had a look at this traktor website and I think it looks good, but for the sound card requirement you mention. On that note, can you recommend one that has multiple channels?

[bigphil]

Ableton seems very good.  I've heard a few EMs (Sasha and Damian Lazarus I think) and they both sound good.  My mate Mark plays around with it too and his mixes sound pretty good and it seems very versatile and user freidly, when compared with other software like fruity loops.  The Whittaker and Nine Toes have got Final Scratch I think, or at least they were messing around with it a couple of years ago, so they'd be better at answering that questions as I've not used it.  I've also not got a clue about what good sound cards to use.  I used to occassionally get Computer Music magazine and there were recommendations in there and I think there were some that had multiple channels but I can't really remember.  But at Around £5 per mag I gave it up pretty quickly.

[soapy]

tips for successful digitisation of cherished vinyl:

1 - have lots of free HD space; with a 250gb extrenal drive costing what, a mere £75 this shouldn't be a problem

2 - choice of capture program; i'll vote for audacity; it's free and very good, you'll get a fat ~50mb .wav master file

3 - audacity also do a lame encoder, you'll need this as well for .mp3 compression

4 - soundcard; even a £300 acer from ebuyer will have something like a realtek jobby installed, more than good enough for our purposes

5 - leads; a decent set from maplins, say £15

6 - interface; ideally you'll still have that amplifier you ran your decks through, whatever, you'll need some way of converting the pissy mV signal from the turntable into rca line level - my personal recommendation if you don't still have an amp with phono input (and even if you do, this is your once only attempt to capture the heart and soul of your vinyl before ebaying it, so spend a little cash maybe) would be teh gram amp2, prolly the best £150 you'll ever spend on a hi-fi component, ever; even its little brother, the gram amp1 at £100 delivers a sweet output

7 - your treasured turntable; it must be capable of still keeping rpm with no slippage, or stop right now!

8 - the cartridge, ensure it's in good nick, or get a new one

9 - ensure the arm balance is set just right

10 - the really important bit, your records; are they clean, if not clean them before your even think about recording to digital


misc: setting levels on your soundcard/amp set up is trail and error, fortunately audacity has bar meters so you can get see when the sound level is clipping. after a couple of trys you'll be ready for the copy. yes it is time consuming, but considering that once your record collection has gone , all you will have left are the .wavs, so you really want the best possible master file

and: removing major pops and glitches is easy enough, tehre's some decent tools inbuilt to audacity

also: ableton live is an excellent program, again it's best used with .wav files

etc: for greater portability, applying FLAC will losslessly compress the data to approx 66% of the .wav file size, dependant on compressor settings

[fatneck]

Would the above set up work for getting old, original-rave-tapes-from-back-in-the-day onto a digital format?

Have a couple of tapes from the glory days at the Drome circa '93-'95 and need to have some other method of playing them than my old tape deck as the tapes are liable to fall apart with any more playing and I'm desperate to preserve them some how, whilst still being able to listen to them now and again?

Would be nice to share them with people as originals from the Drome are rare as fuck...

[soapy]

post from another forum, some time ago:


AN IDIOTS GUIDE TO CONVERTING TAPE CASSETTES TO AUDIO CD

You have your crusty cassette tape recording from 20 years ago or more, lets say you just found it in the back of your old car or stuffed down a sofa. Probably an a-Ha album or something by Prefab Sprout.
Or perhaps you just want to relive the days of the old skool raver, by shoving a couple of Vicks inhalers up your nose, donning a decorator's mask, dungarees, and dancing all night to the sound of a Hoover played backwards that you recorded way back in '89 from a pirate radio station broadcasting from Strangeways prison.
Your secret is safe, it matters not what is on your precious tapes.

What matters is - you need to make a CD copy of it, as you will never be able to replace the tracks again.

Here's how to do it. It's easy. The following is how to do it professionally.

Sure, you can cut corners if you like, but the idea is to maximize the hidden potential of your cassette recordings and preserve them forever digitally, using a few tricks most people don't bother with. Follow these instructions to the letter, and chances are you might not even be able to tell they were once just tape recordings once they're burned to CD...

You will need:

A small screwdriver, 3mm flat head (watchmakers drivers are best) for azimuth tweaking.

A decent cassette deck:

Don't bother if it's a crap deck, you need one that will allow you to realign the azimuth. You'll learn all about azimuth adjusting in a minute. The deck you need should have a little hole about 4mm in diameter right where the tape heads sit, allowing you to twiddle the screws as the tape plays.
If the tape deck is made by Saisho, Alba, Matsui, Amstrad, or any other cheap brand, just chuck it away, it's not much use, even as a doorstop.

A decent sound card on your computer: or any 44.1k digital recording device like a DAT machine, a real-time CD recorder, or even a minidisc recorder.
Recording direct to your computer is best... more on that later.

Additional equipment that is useful: an equaliser, and if you have the cash, a surround sound processor and a compressor can brighten up and even out the most dull recordings, too.

Before you do anything, bear in mind you might not have played the cassette for a while - so loosen up the spools by fast-forwarding each cassette right to the end, then rewinding it back to the beginning.
This takes out any undue strain in the middle of the recording which could either slow it down or cause it to "wow" the sound, or dip in and out of alignment with your tape heads.

Your tape heads need cleaning before you actually play the tape. Use lighter fuel for the Zippos with a cotton wool bud - though if you're about to convert your entire cassette library into MP3 files (thereby guaranteeing you sainthood status in the world of MP3 filesharing) the very best stuff to use is Isopropyl Alcohol, often sold as "Isoclene".
This is the stuff they use to clean the heads of £60,000 broadcast decks in TV stations so it'll work a treat in your humble little Akai deck.
It's about a fiver a can, though it has many uses (including killing wasps) and every home should have at least one tin of Isoclene, frankly.

Wipe the tape heads in the opposite direction to the path of the tape travel - and clean the erase, record, and play heads with a seperate bit of cloth or tissue, until they're shiny like buttons. You'll need to repeat this process for each 4 or 5 ninety minute tapes you play, for best results.

Once you are happy and ready to start recording, you need to hook your deck up to the computer's sound card (or digital record device - let's assume you're just using a computer for now).

Use fairly decent cables - normally PHONO cables from the deck to a MINIJACK connector into your soundcard, the more expensive soundcards will also have PHONO connectors.

Just make sure you connect in to your LINE LEVEL INPUT on the recorder - because a MIC input will just pre-amplify everything to a deafening level and sound horrible.
Depending on your choice of recording software you may need to select the type of input from your computer's interface, if LINE IN and MIC IN are on a shared port. If you're lucky enough to have any processing equipment such as that mentioned above, then obviously you'll know to plug that in between the deck and the sound card and tweak it accordingly... less is more though!!

Once you're happy you have got decent sound flowing from your tape deck to the computer, you'll need to be able to hear it as best you can... no good listening to the tape deck output, you need to hear what the computer is recording.
If you're dedicated enough to want to monitor everything through headphones, then kudos to you, but loudspeaker systems are more suited to long recording sessions, you can go and make a cup of tea and still hear what's being laid down.

Now we come to the most overlooked yet often most crucial part of making your tape recordings sound as fresh as the day you hit the record button - the azimuth adjustment.

A quick explanation - because it's likely a decent tape collection will have been made using a variety of different recording machines, you need to "tune" each tape to the nice clean machine you are using now to play them back, and by "tuning" them I mean you must align the tape head perfectly to each tape.

The way to do this is to CAREFULLY pop a de-magnetised screwdriver (try it to see if it attracts any little iron screws BEFORE poking it into your deck) into the little hole at the base of the cassette door - you may have to temporarily remove the door to get to the adjustment hole - in some cases there are several holes, the one you want has a screw and often some coloured paint to indicate azimuth - the actual azimuth screw is seated on one side of your playback head (the big silver one in the middle).
Servo based auto-reverse heads on a circular platter are not to be messed with - in fact avoid auto-reverse decks altogether.

Stick in a manufactured cassette, anything you know is reliably recorded from a major record label.

(remember - spool it fast-forward and back again to loosen it up first!)

Now play the first track. If it's something with plenty of high end (cymbals, hi-hats) then it will be easier to do the azimuth tweaking.

Slowly turn the little screw until the sound is as bright as it will go. Don't press too hard into the screwdriver, because when you let go, it will sound different. There is usually a spring pushing up against the little screw to keep it level.

You might need to experiment a bit - but don't turn it too far in any direction or the screw might pop out, then you'll be having no fun trying to get that little sucker back into the hole.
When you're convinced it's not going to sound better - you're now ready to record.

You will be amazed and astounded how much difference this azimuth tweaking makes to the fidelity of your recordings - yet most people just don't bother. It shows too - when MP3 file hunting for those elusive 80's tracks and playing them back, they sound like they were copied underwater by a three year old with messy hands.
Why bother putting useless recordings online, when with a few tweaks they can sound perfect!

You will need to adjust the azimuth for each of your tapes - though manufactured tapes are invariably recorded on the same azimuth alignment so if you're converting a load, it might be an idea to get these out of the way before tackling your crusty rave tapes you recorded on your old Amstrad hifi.

Once you've set the azimuth for that tape up - you shouldn't need to do it again (unless it suddenly goes all dull again).

Right - there are loads of different packages out there for recording audio on your PC or Mac - for the novice I would recommend 'Audacity', or for the Mac use 'Peak', for the pro system you'll have Pro Tools or a version of Cubase.
I prefer to use video capture software with the video function switched off, for several reasons, mainly the amount of effects and editing options this software offers you, but also because I figure if it can handle huge video files to record then it will have no trouble with stereo sound.

Record using the following setting:

For making CD recordings and to get the best possible sound reproduction - record in 44.1k aif(apple) or wav(pc) file format. You can always convert these to MP3 afterwards, but keeping your cherished CD master in full quality.

Bear in mind that recording at this high quality will require plenty of hard drive space - ideally create a "scratch disk" on your drive of a few gigabytes, should be enough to record several full albums at a time - roughly speaking a 5 minute track will need 40MB of aif/wav file and only 5MB of MP3, so do the maths if you're short on space.

If you insist that you only want to archive the tape recordings in MP3 format, shame on you, you can figure out the settings yourself!
But a word of warning - once you've copied your cassettes to MP3, and chucked away all those old tapes, if your hard drive suddenly dies then you've lost everything - at least with the CD mastering method you've got a full quality backup as well as a custom CD library!!

So, finally.... Start the tape off, and then hit record on your computer.

You can end each recording in the gaps between tracks to give you smaller files, or you can just record the lot and split them up later, depends how you want to do it, but this will probably depend on the recording - radio stations are non-stop and so harder to see where tracks begin and end in the edit - same applies to DJ mixes.
The editing is a creative process - try and use fades and appropriate stop points if possible, it's worth it.

It's also worth bearing in mind that a good method of splitting the recordings up every ten minutes or so is desirable, otherwise your burned CD will be over 70 minutes long but only one track - Track 1 - and the only way to get to a bit near the end is to sit and scroll through the entire recording...

Trick is to try it on one favourite album or recording session, see if you can burn it properly to CD or make MP3 files from it, then you'll be an expert, and you'll know how to fade in/out, and generally make it sound more professional.

Something to be aware of, especially if the sound quality dips in and out, and it sounds as if the cassette tape is about to be chewed up - the little square sponge pad that sits on a strip of metal just under the tape itself might be loose - inevitably some of your tapes will require open heart surgery to get the best out of them - leave them to last... you could operate on them whilst recording from the reliable cassettes.

Reseat the little metal clip that holds the tiny sponge in the retaining slots either side of the central tape path, if it needs it.

If a tape snaps (then you should have listened to me and spooled it right through to the end and back first!) fixing it isn't hard, as long as it's fairly clean and unchewed.

Just open the cassette shell, pull both ends out, observing the path of the tape carefully, cut the stretched bits off and use some thin sticky tape UNDERNEATH the tape to rejoin the two bits together. Cut off any surplus tape from the sides with sharp scissors or a razor.

Never stick the tape above, because that bit will eventually meet the tape head and cover it in sticky stuff.
Either way - once you're sure you've digitised it into your computer and burned it to CD, chuck the original tape away, it is a potential tape deck killer.

Best of luck!

[fatneck]

Thankyou very much Soaps, have some (more) waddage...