Andy Mitchell watches the spools go round

How’s your vinyl record collection? It seems to be the latest thing now that after 30 years of being told digital is far better, there’s a march back towards  having our favourite albums lovingly reproduced the old fashioned way.
In our digital world, of course, we have the very best quality playback, but it all seems so clinical to me.In our digital world, of course, we have the very best quality playback, but it all seems so clinical to me.
In our digital world, of course, we have the very best quality playback, but it all seems so clinical to me.

In fact sales of vinyl records are increasing year on year, but what is it about them we love so much?

For me it’s the physical thing of putting a record on. In fact, I still refer to “putting records on” at work. I must sound 120.

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As a broadcaster, there was something very magical for me to walk into a studio and watch a record going round on a turntable, knowing that it was being listened to by thousands of people at once.

I’ve been in my studio this week going through some old reels of tape (remember them?) Now whilst the domestic market gave up on spools of tape back in the 70s when cassettes became the norm, the broadcast industry stuck with the professional version right up until the 90s. I carefully threaded the tape past the playing head and onto the take up spool on the right and pressed ‘play’. On this occasion it was a programme that had been recorded 50 years ago by a friend of mine at BBC Radio Durham. A snapshot of a Saturday morning’s output from half a century ago, featuring a very young Kate Adie.

Again, it was the thrill of watching the spools going round that brought the whole thing to life for me.

Now in our digital world, of course, we have the very best quality playback, but it all seems so clinical to me. Locked away in the bowels of the computer, the song is retrieved as a file, yet, of course we have come to rely on digital playback as our parents relied on the record player.

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It’s still lovely though to put a record on and listen to the crackle as it starts up. When CDs came out, we used to tell listeners that we were actually playing the song digitally, it’s sort of comforting to know that now, you can actually get songs on CD that have crackles digitally added, so it sounds like they’re coming off vinyl.

Or, you could just buy the real thing again!