Help: transferring vinyl to CD or computer

Subject: RE: Help: transferring vinyl to CD or computer
From: Musicman
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 09:30 PM

I go from my turntable into my sound card, useing a program called Cooledit. Works great for me... save the files as an Mp3, then use adaptec to write to the CD..... Once I have written the CD, I save all my mp3's as files to a disk as well..

I have found using a program like cooledit allows you the opportunity to trim the beginning and ends of the songs of unwanted silence. I am sure there are other programs that do the same thing.

Subject: RE: Help: transferring vinyl to CD or computer
From: Bernard
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:36 PM

You need a lot of RAM memory and a lot of hard drive - most record tracks are 60Mb in size, often more.

Your soundcard needs to have a STEREO line input socket - some only have mono. A Soundblaster is a safe bet, and it usually comes complete with the software you need. Added to which, it's likely to be 'cleaner' than some of the others - they tend to put background noise on with the recording.

I personally prefer Sound Forge, but I'm a professional sound engineer for my day job...

REALLY IMPORTANT! The output of your turntable will need a pre-amp, which boosts the signal to line level, but also provides RIAA equalisation.

No need to get too technical - use the record out from your hifi amp, and all this is taken care of! RIAA preamps are as commonplace as rocking horse manure these days!

Your CD writer should come with any mastering software you need, basically there are three formats you can use.

Audio CD is standard CD player format, Joliet is data format for computers, and there is also the multimedia format where the first 'track' is computer data, and the remaining tracks are Audio.

Audio CD tracks are saved as .WAV files on your hard drive, at a sample rate of 44.1 KHz. You copy them on to a CD using the software supplied with your drive, and you have an audio CD! It's that easy!

Word of warning - Audio CD format is not 'multisession' - you have to copy all the files on in one 'session', or the TOC (table of contents) will not write correctly.

DON'T buy Audio blank CD's. These are for hifi CD writers, and are a con! For computer CD writers, plain ordinary blank CDR's are all you need. They come in 74 minute and 80 minute versions (650Mb and 730Mb, respectively).

Subject: RE: Help: transferring vinyl to CD or computer
From: Lucius
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:15 PM

I'm in the process of setting my MAC up for the same. You will want at least a 2 free GIGs--I'm installing a hard drive to use as a scratch disc. That is, if you want to burn CD's to play on any CD player. MP3 files take up far less space, but you need a dedicated player, or rely on your computer to play them. Adaptec makes one of the most popular CD programs (Toast) and your CD-RW will probably come with a copy. I believe that Adaptec's (Jam comes with EQ's for cleaning up vinyl. There is a few shareware programs out there for converting from one format to another. Lastly, getting the sound to your computer is a challenge. I'm shopping for a good analog to digital PCI card because I don't trust the A/D converters on my MAC. If I get this finished in the next couple of weeks I'll post again. I know you'll get more (and probably better) postings, but I hope that this gets you started.

Good Luck

Lucius

Subject: transferring vinyl to CD or computer
From: rabbitrunning
Date: 19 Sep 00 - 07:57 PM

My sister is about to buy a new computer, in part to scan a lot of my mom's gigantic photograph collection while Mom's still around to tell us who's who in the pictures. She'd love to be able to make CD's or computer readable files of Mom's increasingly fragile collection of records -- especially if there's a program that can take out a lot of the pops that we kids put into them by playing them over and over. Tapes work, but the two year old in the same house likes to play "spaghetti" tape, and CD's are easier to send around to us kids in the mail.

Any suggestions on how much computer, which hardware, which software, and how one hooks the turntable to the recording device would be most appreciated. Thanks.