Ripping Vinyl

I've been in the process of recording my albums to the computer so I can finally (maybe) get rid of most of them. While it's a long process and I have a many more to do, winter is the time to do this. I'm using audacity to rip the records and clean them up as much as possible. I was wondering if any other members are or have done this and what software do you use?

Rich

When I bought a home theater Sony 5.1 receiver, I made sure it had phono inputs. Only found 2 models that had phono. Ran the Pioneer direct drive turntable into that, line out of the Sony into a Philips cdr 775. The Philips is a dual tray cd burner, you have to buy blanks rated for music, which have a copyright payment already figured into the price, think they are called music CD'S, they are harder to find now. Regular blank cd's won't work. I do the manual version, when it is recording you manually advance each track. In the auto mode, certain albums really don't have enough pause between songs and it gets recorded as 1 big song, on the other hand some songs have very quiet passages and it would advance the track thinking the song was over. Once burned to cd, I often convert to mp3. I don't care about any pops or scratches, want it to be authentic as possible. A good condition album with a good turntable and cartridge you will barely hear any scratches. You can buy a phono level to line level converter and just send that into your sound card I guess.

I use Final Vinyl, freeware..

Missed this when it was posted. My suggestion for anyone wanting to do this is start with a RCA to mini plug adapter (assuming you only have RCA outputs on the turntable). About $4 at Radio Shack.



Plug into your mic jack on your computer and use something like audacity to record. You can do the same thing with tape.

They make both decks and turntables that will connect via USB, there is some benefit to this because the signal is directly converted to digital but for the average joe it's overkill.

mozz wrote:.... line out of the Sony into a Philips cdr 775. The Philips is a dual tray cd burner, you have to buy blanks rated for music, which have a copyright payment already figured into the price, think they are called music CD'S, they are harder to find now. Regular blank cd's won't work.

You also paid more for the standalone CD recorder because it has same tax applied, it's why every CD player isn't recorder. That tax goes to the RIAA so if you're recording even something personal you're paying the RIAA to do it. There's no difference between standard CD and "Music" CD except a standalone CD recorder will only record to "music" CD. You can just use record to computer then burn to regular CD.

Great info here! I have a few LP's kicking around .... and a TON of cassette tapes. I gotta get on this soon before they stop making CD's!

Also have a bunch of home movies on VHS and mini-VHS tapes I need to convert. The longer I put it off the worse the quality gets.