To write… the impossible blog
You know when I said I’d write a full update when I got my turntable? I clearly lied. And, for once, this wasn’t because of my procrastination. Well, OK, maybe it was a little bit, but the main reason is because I really can’t think of anything to write! It’s great, I love it, I’ve played so many records on it, yet, my mind is completely blank.
the turntable is a Numark TTUSB
It arrived, packed securely in the back of a Royal Mail van, at approximately 12:09 on 15th January 2007. Alas, I was in the place of employment, but luckily, Daddykins was around to accept delivery.
I finished work at 8PM. I can’t be arsed to go into detail about the trip to Asda, and the fact that the Blossom Garden chinese on Duke Street is closed on a Monday, and that the chinese in Miers Avenue is closed on Wednesdays.
Considering the 15th was a Monday, we ended up getting a chinese from Miers Avenue. This, again, is not important, so I don’t know why you read the previous bit. It’s supposed to be a review about a turntable, not a Good Food guide.
So, anyway, after the grub, I was ready for bed. I’d not slept properly for 3 days, so all I wanted to do was get it set up, then go to bed.
I’ve never set up anything like a turntable before, so even getting it out of the box was a struggle.. Instead of having a bag with all of the peripherals in (cartridge, etc), they’re stored in recesses in the sides of the polystyrene, held in by yellow sticky tape. Removing the sticky tape causes these fragile parts to go hurtling to the ground, just like the cartridge did. Ooops. Great start. I almost had an argument with my dad about how the drive belt fitted to the turntable. needless today, I’d swotted up on the instructions via a PDF manual I’d downloaded from Numark’s website, so I knew exactly what I was doing. Ahem.
The model we got features an EU plug. Even the box was marked for EU, as opposed to UK, and the voltage is marked as 230 instead of 240. I’m not sure what difference that’s going to make in the future.
Despite a piss-on with the counterweight (i.e. the bit at the end of the tone arm whih balances it) it didn’t take too long before it actually looked like a turntable. Great! So, we plugged it in, I slapped a record on the turntable, namely Chas + Dave’s “Snooker Loopy”, and hit “Record”.
I got absolutely no sound output whatsoever, though it WAS recording, the levels were moving appropriately. Even when I tried to play it back, I got nothing. No sound from nay application. Now, I don’t know whether this was because I’d not quite read the instructions right, or whether there was something else afoot. If you’ve googled this, and found the page, here’s the solution….
Go into the Control Panel, then “Sounds And Audio Devices”… if it looks like the following:
… THAT IS WRONG! At least, in 99.99% of the cases it will be. You need to click the Audio Tab, and select your correct device as the primary sound device….
This happened on both the laptop I initially tried it on, and also my desktop, so it could be a common occurence. Easily fixed, though.
To get sound from the turntable while you’re recording, read the section in the manual about Software Playback. That works, though, there’s about a 0.25/sec delay.
On my desktop, however, I did run into a problem. Every so often, the sound from the turntable would become super-amplified. Far too loud for anything to handle… this is a perfect example of what happened. The only pattern for this happening appeared to be when I was in another application other than Audacity. I must admit to being a bit lazy when setting it up on my main machine. It was simply connected through a cheap USB hub, unti a USB card without its proper drivers installed. Needless to say, moving it to one of my onboard USB2 ports with correct drivers installed, fixed the problem.
So, I now have a decent, working record player. I love it already. One thing which has dismayed me is that the fact it’s clear that some of my favourite records are completely broken. You may remember I picked up “Little Plum”, by Darryl Way, the theme to The North East Night Owls, some 18 months ago. Well, now that I’m playing it on a decent setup, it’s clear that the record is really fucked. Scratchy, distorted near the end. I’m not sure whether that’s because of me playing it on substandard equipment previously, or whether it arrived like that. I doubt I’ll ever find another copy. Either way, despite its imperfections, it’s more listenable than ever.
My Quest Project vinyl’s aslo received a dusting off, I’ve re-ripped both versions of the “Trouser Enthusiasts” mix - by far, the greatest version of the song. Most of the members of The Quest Project actually have MySpace accounts, which I think is quite weird.
Anyway, I’m drifting wildly off topic. Back to the turntable, and it’s time I slapped some images of it in use…
So, here it is, playing Little Plum. Note the webcam has now found a home on the edge of the turntable. Also note just how perfectly it actually fits on my desk. I was expecting to have to remove and rearrange everything, but no. As soon as I got rid of the dusty old hifi, it fitted perfectly. I thought it have been much bigger.
That’ll do for this update, I’m bound to post more later….
