Create Your Own Music CDs

Back in the 1980s, an aspiring duo called the Wallet Brothers conspired to overthrow the tired music scene with five quirky songs they'd written. Over the course of one weekend with a four-track PortaStudio, a Stratocaster, and several borrowed instruments, they recorded their first and last album, A Weekend With the Wallet Brothers. It attracted no interest whatsoever and remained in storage for more than a decade.

Those songs still sound pretty good to me--but I'm biased, since (in case you haven't figured it out yet) I was half of the Wallet Brothers. However, the tapes are now deteriorating fast--and they were always hissy, buzzy, and low grade. I recently realized that I have a duty to preserve these recordings for posterity before the tapes stretch and give out altogether.

With a CD-RW drive and some software, that's exactly what I've done. And I used the same tools to make CDs out of the old singles from the more successful bands I lived with in college--without the scratches, pops, and crackles that 20 years of grinding styli and general misuse have left on the vinyl.

All of this is remarkably easy to do, especially compared with mixing six instruments and two vocal tracks on a four-track ministudio. But there are some pitfalls--most of which I fell into and now understand how to avoid. So for all you aspiring rock stars, as well as you music buffs who want to make an anthology of your favorite vinyl tracks on CD, here's a collection of tips and techniques for taking vinyl and tape into the digital frontier.