About Natali
Natali is the relatable girl next door of the vinyl world — sharing her cozy San Francisco listening space and colorful record collection.
She keeps it chill, but somehow Natali always ends up with the records the rest of us are still chasing. Every time I see one of her posts I’m like, “How did you even get that?” At least she’s nice enough to let us live vicariously through her unboxings.
Highlights
Current Favorite Record
Honeymoon, Lana Del Rey
Current Favorite Artist
The Marias
Ask Natali
I sort of fell into vinyl collecting by accident. When I first graduated from college, I moved to a city for the first time in my life and pretty much didn’t know anybody there apart from my older brother. Naturally, I ended up spending most of my free time with him during those first few months. My brother was an avid record collector; he had been collecting for many years by then, probably since I was still in high school. While he collected mostly classical records, we had some overlap in our musical taste and so he would often show me his vinyl collection. Music became something that we were able to connect over, and he helped me discover a lot of music that I never listened to before. It was through our conversations that I began to fall in love with music.
But much to my devastation, about a year after I moved to the city, he announced that he had a job offer in another state and would be moving across the country shortly. In anticipation of his big move, he decided he needed to thin his collection and planned to sell most of his records to Amoeba Music. On the last day before he left, I was helping him pack and I was casually looking through the box of records he set aside to sell. Most of the records I didn’t recognize, but one instantly stuck out to me. It was a copy of Death of a Party Girl by the band TV Girl, and the vinyl itself was a pink and green split pressing. I had never seen anything like it before. I didn’t even know until then that records came in anything but a standard black pressing. Even before knowing that it was a rare record, I felt that it had to be something special, and I asked him if I could keep it. I didn’t even have a turntable at home, I just thought it was cool. And so, that record became the first one in my collection.
For many months, that record sat alone on a shelf in my apartment. One day, I was scrolling on the For You Page and a TikTok about vinyl records popped up. That was when I realized that there was a whole community involved in collecting records, and pretty soon, I was deep diving into vinyltok and watching everything I could to learn about the hobby. The next day, I bought the red Target exclusive pressing of Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die, and I think my obsession with collecting just spiraled from there!
I try to collect records that bring me joy. There are a lot of artists that I will always buy the records for because I know I will love the album even before it comes out. Plus, I absolutely love a fun and crazy pressing! For me, so much of the joy of record collecting is in the unique pressings and the thought that goes into the design of a physical release. I love to get a colored pressing over the standard black if that album has one available.
I also tend to gravitate towards newer albums in my collection, because even though I love a lot of older music (particularly 60s, 70s, and 80s), I really want to find those ones secondhand in the wild. I don’t want to order new presses online for those albums; I am super determined to find those ones naturally by digging through the crates at a record store and I am depending on fate to connect me to those ones!
After collecting records for three months, I still didn’t have a record player, speakers, or anything beyond the vinyl records themselves. I was slowly accumulating more records into my collection, but I didn’t dare open them with no turntable to play them on and no record cleaning kit to clean them with (because at that point I had watched so many videos about the importance of cleaning and caring for your records!) Since I had absolutely no gear, my brother decided to help me get started. He had done plenty of research when he first started collecting and he was a staunch U-Turn Audio supporter. For my birthday that year, my mom gifted me my U-Turn Audio Special Turntable and my brother gifted me a U-Turn Audio Pluto Pre-Amp and Marshall Speaker. I have had the exact same setup ever since!
My most-prized record is absolutely my Urban Outfitters Exclusive red heart-shaped vinyl of Lust for Life / Love by Lana Del Rey. I think for most Lana Del Rey fans, that is one of the most desired records and it has become an extremely valuable vinyl as time has gone on. I had resigned myself to never owning that one, but last year I received it in mint condition as a Christmas gift! I actually cried when I opened it because I was so excited! That record means so much to me not only because it was my number one ISO for so long, but also because it was a gift from someone who means a lot to me. That record is one I for sure will never get rid of as long as I live!
I think that TikTok is my primary channel for sharing my collection with the rest of the community. I have been posting on TikTok for years; I started soon after I first got my record player. I didn’t initially intend to post at all, I was totally content to just be a watcher of TikToks in the community, but I was encouraged by my partner to try posting too. It was slow going at first, but I think have really started to get into the groove of what works for me! Just this year, I began to also cross post on Instagram reels. Recently, I have begun to venture into photography instead of just video format, and it has been interesting to learn how to photograph records. I have found it to be a little different from video, and I am definitely still learning about both formats, but so far I have really enjoyed the process.
My favorite part about being in the vinyl community has been getting to connect with people who share my interests in such a deep way. In my personal life, I don’t know anyone else that collects records seriously, so I don’t have anyone that really understands what I am doing. But online, there is so much access to tons of people who have the exact same taste as me and who are doing the exact same thing as me! It has been so fun to get to see what other record collectors are adding to their collections, and I have gotten so many good recommendations. I am certain I never would have discovered as many great artists and albums as I have if I weren’t part of the community. I love to share in the joy of others when they finally get a huge ISO and be excited with other fans when there are new releases! I think we also look out for each other, and I have gotten help from online friends when I have missed releases, and of course I always try to do the same for them! The only sad part of being in the vinyl community is that we are often so far away from each other physically, but I think it is amazing that we can still be so connected despite the distance!
Setup Breakdown
Natali’s setup might not be the biggest or most complex, but it’s perfectly her.
Tucked into her San Francisco apartment, it’s a warm mix of thoughtful gear,
colorful records, and cozy personality. Proof that you don’t need a giant space
to enjoy vinyl in a big way.
| Item | Model |
|---|---|
| Turntable | Orbit Special Turntable |
| Phono Preamp | U-Turn Pluto 2 |
| Speakers | Marshall Acton III |
| Record Shelves | Way Basics Vintage Cube |
| Cleaning Kit | EVEO Record Cleaning Kit |
| Record Sleeves | Invest in Vinyl – Anti-Static Sleeves |
Components
Complete The Room
Natali’s Collection
Build Images
