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| American Audio TT Record
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I've been looking through my collection of Pro Mobile back issues and I think that I can say with confidence that this is the first review of a vinyl record deck to appear in the magazine! These days vinyl is only used by 'purist' mixing DJs, while mobile DJs have converted to CDs and more recently digital music files. Of course I am still confident that many readers will have boxes of 7" singles and 12" LPs stashed away and gathering dust at the back of garages and attics - I know I certainly do! Further more, a good number of the tracks in my retired record collection aren't replicated in my new digital music repertoire. In fact I've even got a few 'gems' that have never been released on any media format other than vinyl. For this reason I was excited to be given the opportunity to try out American Audio's TT Record, which is promoted as a simple tool for copying vinyl tracks directly to digital files.
Previously the task of recording digital music files from vinyl records required a turntable, pre-amp mixer and either a hardware recorder or computer system with a suitable soundcard and recording software. Now with the TT Record all that is required is this one single piece of gear. You simple play a record on the deck and the audio is recorded directly to a USB storage device connected to the unit's USB port.
Using the TT Record really couldn't be simpler. The belt-driven record player works in just the same way (and has all the same features) as a regular DJ deck. There is a 'play/pause' button to start and stop the platter, 45rpm and 33rpm selection buttons and a +/- 10% variable pitch slider. When it comes to recording, you simply plug a storage device into the USB slot and press the 'record/stop' button to start recording and then press it again to end recording. An LED indicator next to the USB slot shows that a storage device has been recognised, while another LED flashes when recording is in progress.
That really is all there is to it, the process is incredibly easy and the resulting mp3 files that are stored to the USB storage device sound good and are at a perfect level. My initial concern when I first saw the TT Record was that it would be hard to start recording at the right moment to avoid a pause (or missing the start) at the beginning of a track. In practice I found this not to be a problem; within a couple of attempts I was hitting the beginning of tracks at precisely the right moment. Of course if you do start recording at the wrong moment it is easy to start again and then delete the partial recording when you next plug your USB device into a computer.
As standard the device records mp3 files at 192kbps, however a patch is available from the American DJ website that allows the device to be upgraded to record at 256kbps. The patch is easy to install using the unit's USB port and a second patch is also available to return the unit to 192kbps recording should that be required. The mp3 files are given sequential numeric names when they are recorded (AUDIO000.MP3, AUDIO001.MP3 etc), which can obviously then be changed via a computer. The American DJ website also has a link to a free ID3 tag editing computer programme, although most DJ software will also provide this function.
Written by John Dixon |
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The full article can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 39, Pages 68 - 69 |
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Copyright EJ Media 2003 - 2010
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