[TheForge] Re: cutting steel and Bloodrock

[Ries Niemi]

On Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 07:32 AM, <debmiller at fuse.net> wrote:

> Grover,
>
> This highlights what I have considered to be a business opportunity 
> for some computer geek kids supported by some of us "older music > fans".
>
> Have people bring their vinyl in and have it recorded into MP3s or 
> whatever format wets ones whistle, and oh ,by the way keep a copy of 
> the file for "corporate collection". Much of it is out of print, the 
> labels are out of business, the bands are long gone, and the music is 
> still great!!
>
> I have something like 400 LPs. Most of which were only played ONCE!! 
> Only to be recorded on cassettes, the media of the time. Now I would 
> LOVE tohave it all on my iPod and MAC, downloadable into stereos at 
> the shop, my car, etc.
>
> Someday......
>
> Ray
> Cincinnati
>

Ray- I have well over 1000 vinyl lps- and I have put some of them onto 
my I-Pod, but it is a big pain. I am not sure you could make any money 
doing it, unless you charged so much that it would be cheaper just to 
buy a new CD of the music.
I have to carefully clean the record, then babysit the entire recording 
process, as I burn it to CD. This is because my CD burner, which is a 
pretty expensive one, cannot tell the difference between a song and the 
background hiss of the space between songs. So if you just press 
record, and leave it alone, it considers each album side to be one 
song. Most CD burners are like this. For an I-Pod, of course, you want 
it divided into songs.
There may be some fancy schmancy software that can record a vinyl lp 
and divide it into songs, but I kinda doubt it. So it takes me 45 
minutes per album to make a CD, then I have to load that into I-Tunes, 
and then I have to manually enter the song titles, as the websites that 
automatically tell you song titles only work with mass market 
pre-recorded CD's. Even at minimum wage, which here is something like 
$7.50, it would cost as much to digitize a vinyl LP commercially, when 
you figure in rent, utilities, taxes, and profit, as it would to just 
buy a new CD of the same stuff.
So it is very unlikely anyone will do it commercially.
And most things that were only available on vinyl are being reissued on 
CD- this is a big money opportunity, and a lot of people are jumping on 
it. Even the most obscure stuff is coming out on CD.
13th Floor Elevators, 5 CD sets of never released MC5, Thunderbolt 
Newman, Arthur Russell 12" dance singles- the stuff you thought was 
gone forever is all coming back.

ries