Nostalgic tech has been on a steady rise over the last decade or so. I received a record player for Christmas when I was 16, much to my delight. However confused my grandma must’ve been when she saw the turntable at the top of my wishlist, my excitement was beyond words.
I began collecting vinyl of my favorite songs and albums, and suddenly I owned dozens of tangible copies of the music I loved. But the larger my collection became, the more expensive the hobby got. Now, I save my dollars for the albums with the best art to display. But there’s nothing I love more than the aesthetic of dropping a needle on the grooves and hearing old Bastille songs rumble through the room.
Digital formats just don’t sound the same, but I found an app that lets me bring the turntable aesthetic right to my desk. It isn’t free, but it turns my iPad into a record player for any song I want, whenever I want.
- Subscription cost
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One-time $10 for lifetime access
- Free trial
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No
- Ads
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No
MD Vinyl is an app that simulates the nostalgic turntable experience on a phone or tablet with interactive widgets to show what’s currently playing in a more unique way on your home screen.
What is MD Vinyl?
A digital turntable experience
MD Vinyl is an app that connects to Spotify or Apple Music and simulates a turntable with whatever song you play. There is a one-time $10 cost for a lifetime of use, and after using it for a week, I can assure you that I’d buy it over and over again. I like to prop up my iPad and make it a desktop music player by displaying the MD Vinyl app itself, but the app also gives you a variety of customizable widgets so you can feature smaller versions of the turntable on your home screen. The widgets let you play / pause, skip, or go back without having to open the app or your music streamer.
By default, the records take on the appearance of the song or album cover you’re playing, so the aesthetic matches without any micromanagement. Within the app itself, you can tap on the record to play and pause it, drag the needle to various parts of the song, or even tap the album art to put it in front of the spinning record. However, my favorite part of the experience is something that many users miss: when you play / pause or drop the needle on the record, you can hear the familiar, nostalgic scratching sound that real record players are known for.
There is also a retro radio player option, but the vinyl is the app’s main appeal.
Why would I spend money on this?
For the sake of aesthetics
I know what you’re thinking: a digital turntable is an audiophile’s forbidden contradiction. You listen to vinyl for the irreplaceable, analog imperfections on the record itself. But the kids (like me) who have asked for a record player in the last ten years or so aren’t strictly worried about the sound quality. We were itching for turntables because of their aesthetic — we had our iPods, phones, and a dozen ways to listen to any music any time we wanted, and still we craved the action of dropping the needle on the track.
So, it’s not surprising that someone built an app for it. I found MD Vinyl when I glanced at a friend’s phone and saw a music widget on her iPhone, but it wasn’t a normal widget. It showed the song she was playing, and beside it, there was a record and needle — but it was spinning! I just had to have it on my phone, but then I thought of the bigger, better things I could do with it on my iPad.
It truly feels like the best of both worlds — convenient listening to anything you want in a simulated analog way — and a one-time $10 fee is much cheaper than spending upwards of $25 for every album I want to listen to on vinyl. However, if you’re twitching at the thought of people trying to replace the record player with digital fakeness, it’s easier to swallow this idea by looking at it as a fun way to display the music you’re playing instead of Apple’s default music player.
I love propping my iPad up on the counter so anyone can change the music, add to the queue, or see what’s playing when I host a dinner or a party. I don’t have all the tracks I’d like to play on my record player — I can’t keep up with the latest and greatest when it comes to physical media — so playing all the songs I want and displaying them with this neat app is the next best thing.
