Digitizing URGH! A Music War
Listening to vinyl on a turntable is fun. Some say even quaint. At the same time it’s a pain in the ass having to flip the record every 20 minutes or so. Not to mention the inevitable scratch or warp that sends you scurrying across the room to adjust the stylus. I’ve been meaning to experiment with digitizing some of my vinyl for a long time. This is the first record I decided to experiment with:
This 2 record live album was a seminal listening experience in my youth. The record is more ‘new wave’ than punk really and still a lot of fun. Last I checked Amazon a ‘very good’ copy fetches $70. Whoa.
Last night I patched our turntable directly to a G5 iMac with Griffin’s iMic cable and software. The results were disappointing though it was great listening to Urgh! A Music War for the first time in how many years?!
Without a pre-amp or receiver the configuration didn’t seem to do a very good job cutting out an annoying low-end hum. There is an “RIAA EQ” function that is supposed to serve as some sort of pre-amplification but the results this first time around were just o.k.
I read this helpful tip yesterday, “May I suggest that you connect the turntable earth wire to the iMic RCA plug, as leaving this connection float may cause that nasty 50 Hz test tone.” The “50 Hz test tone” might be the annoying low end hum caught on my recordings? How cool if that’s the fix! Any audiophiles willing to translate?
Next time around I will first try connecting the earth wire and if the hum’s still there I will run the turntable through a receiver.
