CD-Right came with my CD/RW and allows you to record directly from the audio in on the sound card. There are other similar programs - it depends how sophisticated you want to get and, as Rana said, how much time you want to spend cleaning up the pops and scratches. CD-Right allows you to go directly from the soundcard to the CD/RW without the hard drive step. You can copy the LP to CD in the time it takes to play the LP, but you end up with one (very long) CD track. To make a vinyl album look and have the same direct access to tracks as a regular CD, you have to record each track one-at-a-time, then allow the software to build an index when you are finished. This also allows you to eliminate certain tracks you didn't like ("Double Fantasy" leaps to mind) or reorder the tracks without regard to the hole in the middle. Plugging a turntable directly into the sound card is not recommended, due to the low signal level of a magnetic cartidge. It is better to run the turntable outputs into an amplifier Phono inputs then use the Tape outputs to the soundcard. This will get rid of any impedance mismatching by using the preamps and give you a nice signal level for your soundcard.