Old 78

C

CelesteMac

New member
I have an old 78 record of a couple of songs my grandfather recorded long ago. I would like to convert it to digital. I suppose I could buy a record player and do it myself. Or hire a service. Suggestions?

It is the only copy so I want to make sure it is preserved.

Thanks.
 
If you don't have a turntable that plays at 78rpm (not many do), then you will need to find a service that does it.
 
Last edited:
CelesteMac said:
I have an old 78 record of a couple of songs my grandfather recorded long ago. I would like to convert it to digital. I suppose I could buy a record player and do it myself. Or hire a service. Suggestions?

It is the only copy so I want to make sure it is preserved.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hmm. If it's a one-off there's bound to be someone who would help you out.
I'd gladly do it but I'm in UK.
 
I bought a low end (Thorens I think it was..) that was supposed to be at least decent deck... Pitch instability drove me nuts. Had to convince the local store to let me trade it back in on that Technics 1200 that was around at the time. Don't know if that's of any importance here, bot FWIW..
 
Even if you can spin the turntable at 78rpm, you have to be a bit careful with the stylus. Old 78s has much wider grooves and modern stereo stylii will bounce along the bottom down in the muck rather than accurately reading the variations in the groove. This is one of the reasons modern playback of 78s sounds worse than they actually did way back when.
 
Bobbsy said:
Even if you can spin the turntable at 78rpm, you have to be a bit careful with the stylus. Old 78s has much wider grooves and modern stereo stylii will bounce along the bottom down in the muck rather than accurately reading the variations in the groove. This is one of the reasons modern playback of 78s sounds worse than they actually did way back when.
Click to expand...
Many, many years ago I had a handed down 78 player from my grandfather that hand a crank on the side to wind it up and the vibrations were channeled to a horn in the body of the player to get any volume. I think a sharpened nail could have been used for a stylus given the groove width on a 78. The old 78's broke easily as I remember.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like it might be cost effective and better results to have a service do it, if I can find one locally.
 
Have you tried walking into a used record store - explaining that the 78 has recordings of you grandad and asking if there's any way they could digitise it?
Or try a local studio that does work with the hiphop community - they should definitely have the tools...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top