Turntables are enjoying quite the renaissance, with many music lovers (re)discovering the warmth of vinyl, appreciate of album art and fun DJ tricks like adjusting a track's beats-per-minute (BPMs), scratching and cross-fading.

A new app called Turnplay aims to recreate the vinyl experience with an authentic looking -- and performing -- turntable to play your iTunes music.

While it doesn't tweak the sound of your digital catalog, it's still a fun $0.99-cent app -- simply for its nostalgic value. There are other good turntable apps, such as AirVinyl, but Turnplay is less expensive and thus a "sound" investment.

Designed for iPad and iPad mini, Ramotion's Turnplay is billed as the most realistic turntable app at the App Store. Indeed, when you first launch Turnplay you'll immediately notice how authentic the turntable looks -- including the platter, arm and needle. The top-down view also shows the cuing light, pitch control knob, speed selector (33 or 45 RPM) and power button.

To get going, tap the music note in the top left of the screen and it opens up your iPad's music library. Previously played tunes in this app will be seen first, and you can flick through the virtual albums using your fingertips. The app uses the iTunes artwork to create a record cover, and if none is available, such as your own MP3s imported into iTunes, it'll look like a brown paper cover with the album and artist name. To add new music, tap the "+" button and select a song from your library -- by playlist, artist, song title or album. But be aware the song must be less than 22 minutes or else you can't play it – just like a real LP, per side, if you remember (talk about authentic, sheesh).

The "album" is then pulled out of a sleeve and the artwork is also seen in the middle of the vinyl record, which is then placed on the spinning turntable. The arm drops the needle and you'll start hearing the song play.

While a song is played, you can scratch manually by moving the platter back and forth quickly, adjust the pitch, switch to 45 BPM to speed up the song and tap and hold the needle to lift it off the record. You can also cue up another song from your collection to play next.

Turnplay is a great app, but there are a few missing features. AirVinyl, for example, lets you change skins (from teak chic to metallic black, etc.), plus it lets you see your music segregated by album "crates" or as "mixtapes" (playlists), and it has a search window to find music, too. Another turntable app, algoriddim's djay, delivers a more faithful DJ experience as you can mix two records together – but this app will set you back $20.

Overall, however, Turnplay is an affordable and authentic turntable app for iPad that's especially ideal for purists, nostalgic types and music enthusiasts alike. The app will go to $1.99 in early 2013, so get it for under a buck while you can.

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