Tech: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Steve
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 02:46 PM

I'd respectfully disagree that doing this on your PC is necessarily the best way. It depends what you want. I have a stand-alone burner that has been very reliable and is much easier to deal with in terms of tracks--while the LP is playing, you just hit a button and the CD demarcates a new track. The software I was using required, as someone said above, that you record the whole LP side, then cut and paste individual tracks, then do noise reduction, then create a file list for the CD burner software. Then, my computer CD burner only really worked two times out of three. The result is that I was sitting there editing for more than an hour on average AFTER I had recorded the LP to my hard drive. If, like me, you have 1,000 LPs or more, this is not a viable method.

With my other method, i.e. the stand-alone burner, I just wait til I want to hear an LP, and just record it while I listen. Voila, I have a CD of it. If I then want to clean up the sound I can take the CD to my computer and do that, too. But in many cases I don't need to. My Bandoggs LP had practically never been listened to, if you can believe that--I got it recently from a collector who had just had it sitting in his collection unlistened to!

I would recommend this especially to people who are going to buy a minidisc or a good tape deck to keep with their computer or cart between stereo and computer. Once you're spending that kind of money, might as well spring for the stand-alone CD recorder. Then you make a CD, and bring it up to your computer if you want to clean up the sound.

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Austin Pollard
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:40 AM

All you guys with phono downstairs - buy another!

I have 3, all from Car boot sales:

£30 Thorens/SME IV £20 Dual 505-2 <£5 NAD Deck (£30 for 3130 amp, cassette,phono and tuner

I see them all the time. I'd buy another but the wife ...

I use a Sugden A48 as a preamp (£25). In the US, go to garage sales! I saw plenty there for $20 or so when I lived in San Francisco ...

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Terry K
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:25 AM

I'm about to embark on the same exercise and, like McGrath, my phono is downstairs, PC upstairs etc so I need an intermediate step. I intend to copy phono to minidisc and transfer minidisc to PC. I think this will obviate the quality loss that you would get if you go via tape cassette as the minidisc is already digital.

Cheers, Terry

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Anglo
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 08:39 PM

Well I'll throw in my 2¢. Not worth quite that much to most of you since I'm on a Mac. The new version of Toast comes with a program called CD Spon Doctor, and you can use that to record a long track, (eg one side of an LP), define tracks, and apply filters that reduce pop as well as add "aural enhancement."

www.roxio.com for details

And there's a Windows (almost said "widows") version too. Not so cheap as the shareware options above, but suited well enough to my simple mind. Of course you need the soundcard (which I have built-in on the Mac) and it takes a bit of trial and error. My first attempt had lots of skips, I had to reboot the computer without all the bells and whistles extensions (I created a minimal extension set that includes basic system, the CDR driver, and not much else). They also recommend defragmenting the hard drive you're going to put the data on.

I didn't want to lose the quality by going through a cassette, but I didn't want to bring my turntable upstairs either, but I have a DAT machine which I use for transfer. The nice thing there is if I set the recording levels right on the DAT (it will be the same for cassette I expect) I can go straight into the computer at the default level getting a strong enough signal for the CD without overloading.

So now I can listen to by very own Bandoggs CD.

The only thing I don't know how to do is an audio fade out at the end of a track. I suspect the software can't do it and I'd need something like a minimal version of Pro Tools for that. But you can go by trial and error to find the best point to start and end your track for each song, then it allows you to assemble them into a CD, changing the order if you like, deleting what you don't want and so forth. If I can do it, I suspect anyone can.

Good luck. And let us know how you get on.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 06:15 PM

Wavesplitter - sounds like someone out of a book by Michael Moorcock. A flawed hero.

Anyway, I've downloaded it though not installed yet. And I'll look into the other suggestions.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant. And here too.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From:
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:37 PM

I've also used audiotools (see guest, eric) and have really liked it. Continual upgrades are published (which you get free after buying) and Andrew Fish is always prompt in answering questions (he wrote it). You can record the whole thing and then put in the breaks (there is a fast audition mode), though I usually put them in manually whilst recording. It can also do this automatically but like above example, can be fooled.

I use tape output to go to the soundcard - so turntable attached as normal (or tape deck input)to my amp. I have used some post processing with other programs.

Cool Edit also looked good but I had audiotools which used less space - laptop only had a 1.3 gig drive.

Nobody has mentioned space requirements (or if they have, I've missed it - sorry) but you need 10 meg/min, or for a 74 min CD 740 meg. If you want to process stuff you need extra space - eg if I want to clean up a 5 min track I will need a spare 50 meg. I've had to be creative in file transfers to a CD-RW whilst doing stuff since I was working with 850 meg hard drive space. This might not be a problem for you if your hard drive's big enough.

Key thing is have fun!!

Cheers Rana

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:26 PM

(Clik here for Fast Eddy's WaveSplitter)

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Austin Pollard
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 05:15 PM

Try fast Eddys wavesplitter:

www.jagunet/~disrael/wavesplitter

You give it the .wav, tell it how many tracks and it soes all the work - usually, although it can be fooled by quiet passages in long songs.

By the way Mucicman - I've got a Nomad too - brilliant piece of Kit, but only holds 6GB ...

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: mousethief
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 03:56 PM

Here's the way I do it, for what it's worth ($.02 libyan)

1. I hook my turntable into my tape deck (a 4-channel cassette mixing deck I got for under $200 at the music store). The turntable has no pre-amp, and it's a ceramic (i.e. quiet) cartridge, but the tape deck can take very high impedance microphones, so the signal from the phonograph is more than enough. This requires two adapters that are rca-female to 1/4" (mono) phone male. The rca-female attaches to the rca-male of the phonograph's output; the 1/4" mono male plugs into the tape deck.

2. I then hook the tape deck up to the "line in" jack on my PC's sound card. This requires one adapter that is 2-rca-male on one end and stereo 1/8" male on the other. The rca-male plugs plug into the tape deck; the 1/8" male phone plug plugs into the sound card. I set all my sound levels and record directly to Cool Edit. If I'm doing other stuff I let it just record the whole side of the tape and come back and break it into individual songs later; if I've got the time I'll sit and listen while I record, and stop the deck and do the cleaning for each individual song (cutting away lead-in silence and pruning the tail-out silence so that it duplicates the timing of the phonograph record without lead-in time (when the cd player counts backwards) between tracks).

3. Then I burn the CD from the wav files.

4. Then I turn the wav files into MP3's and throw the WAVs away (they take up a LOT of disc space). My encoder of choice is Mthreedev's "WAV to MP3 Encoder" version 1.5.1. Freeware. Works like a charm.

Alex

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM

Well, I knew there are people out there who can answer all the questions. I may take some time getting my head round the answers. Thanks.

The thing is, I've got a turntable - wouldn't consider not having a turntable so I can play real records. And it's got a pre-amp built in, I think. (Though I am far from understanding what a pre-amp is.)

And in my PC I've got a drive for recording CD-Rs and CD-RWs. And on the hard drive there's a neat little programme called Adaptec Easy CD creator, which is all eager and willing to enable me to copy CDs and so forth.

But the turntable and so forth is downstairs, and the PC is upstairs, and I don't feel like lugging things around. So what I have in mind is to copy the LPS - of which I have enormous numbers - on to audio tape cassettes, and bring them up and use a tape player up here to put them in the PC. I know it will mean a loss of sound quality, but I can live with that. And I don't worry too much about pops and cracks and hisses, because I tend to feel that is what records are supposed to sound like.

But whether I do it direct with the turntable (and I might end up doing that, or via the tape, the same problem arises about getting the CD to have individual tracks, rather than a track for side A and another for Side B. (And that also applies with transferring songs of my own from tape to CD via the PC.)

I imagine I can do it manually if need be - make a separate sound file for each track and then put them all into the CD burning program. And I think I know how to do that. I think wav files would be appropriate, since there's a lot of room on a CD-R, and I'd use Goldwave or something like that to make the wav files.

But what I'm hoping is to find a way of doing it that doesn't entail doing it manually track by track, because, as I said, there are a lot of LPs. What I want to be able to do is push a button and stand back, the way I can if I'm copying from a CD, and have the clever programs do all the legwork.

I suspect that I might be able to get the program I've got to do it, or add on something that would do the trick. After all, recognising when a pause comes, and treating that as a new track shouldn't be all that difficult for these miraculous magic boxes we use - but, as I said, the help-notes with Adaptec Easy CD Creator seem to have been written by people who never heard of LPs or audio-cassettes - children of the 90s - so I haven't been able to find any advice on doing that kind of thing. So I'm relying on the Mudcat, which always comes up with the goods.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Eric
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 03:02 PM

If you have all the gear [cd, record and tape player, pc] and something like Ahead Nero software then there is some useful shareware software for tapes and vinyl at http://www.unrelatedinventions.com/Audiotools/index.htm I am not an expert but have used it quite a few times with success [you have to have a good read of the guide first].

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 11:05 AM

Thanks John - I'm going to check out both of the programs above - Appreciate the link!!

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Musicman
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 10:43 AM

I've been doing records and tapes for a while now.. just as described above.......Cool Edit is great for that... although i've just found another new device that is quite cool and helps with the process......

Creative Nomad Jukebox.... It's about the size of a portable CDplayer, mine has a 6gb hard drive in it.. new ones have a 20gb drive.... it has a line input into the record... set up the record, push play on your tape or start the record and voila!.. your music is transfered to digital format... .wav... (the player will record 8+hours of music in .wav format).. THEN..... you can tranfer it all to your computer via USB port and use something like Cool Edit to separate/sort/trim etc.......

quite a cool little gizmo.... i use it also for recording the band at live gigs... use the Tape out from the soundboard directly to the jukebox, then edit on the computer.....

musicman

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Dec 01 - 07:14 AM

Having just spent most of the night installing my S.O.'s new CD burner - and not having a blank CD-R to test it with, I can mention the "adverts" on all of the B.S. that came with the package.

Most of the CD-RW machinery I've looked at recently comes with a program called "MusicMatch Jukebox." The "specs" - using the term loosely, claim that it has a "detect tune" mode that allows you determine "automatically" where tunes start and stop, so that you can isolate individual tracks.

Whilst researching, I noted that this program is for sale in our few Software outlets for about $20 US.

There are a lot of other "good words," but it does seem to be pretty much what was asked for, it's cheap, and it's at least got the recommendation of being packaged with some pretty good hardware - HP, Epson, Iomega, Yamaha, etc.

MusicMatch

When the S.O. wakes up, I'll see if she'll let me go get a couple of disks (after I see if she'll let me leave it on HER machine).

John

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 11:36 PM

The PC is your best bet for burning copies of your favorite LP's. Stand alone burners really won't do the job. For one thing you get all the glitches. Even if you find clicks and pops strangely attractive, you still have the problem of tracks. Pausing your burner between tacks will be annoying and you will never get a decent separation. You will find yourself upcutting tracks or having long pauses on tracks before the music plays. You might as well just invest in new stylus for your turntable and keep playing vinyl.

There are a number of decent programs available (I swear by Cool Edit) and Austin gave a superb description above.

You will find that it really doesn't take that much extra time to record via your PC once you get the hang of it - and you will end up with a wonderful CD copy. If you like the clicks and pops - just leave them in!

Ron

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 08:24 PM

Hmmmmmm - knowledge of recordng curve greatly expanded - Thanks - at least I'm not sitting here trying to play it straight in the CD burner - cause that won't work huh.

I really thought it would be a no brainer - and patience is always an option with me - just not usually when I'm trying to do something that requires expertise I don't have. I've copied and pasted the instructions and will have to try this with one of my old records before I try a brand new one. I am also doing this to be able to take the tracks I want and put them on CD - I'm taking a guess here but I'll bet it is easier to do the whole record and then CD to CD the tracks I want.

I have an old Peavey Amp that also has a pre-amp option - will that suffice? I also have a small RMS 4-channel micro mixer that I use when playing on Paltalk - will this be of any benefit?

Thank you for your most generous assistance!

This place continues to amaze me -

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: BH
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 08:21 PM

If you do not mind pops and hisses. A dedicated CD burner ( such as TEAC---reasonably priced) works well for plain transfers. You merely play the subject matter through your unit (stereo/rcvr/etc;) and have a patch bay that will transfer it to your burner. WOrks quite well if you do not care about eliminating the pops and hisses. If you do then you will need a computer and a software program.

Ah but the charm of the pops and hisses.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Austin Pollard
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 07:52 PM

How to digitize music - Part 1.

You will need:

1. A good sound card (Soundblaster 16 or better) 2. A good record Deck and a [pre]amplifier with a record-deck input. 3. Some recording software (CoolEdit is a good one - $30 / shareware) 4. At least 1GB of free disk space. 5. Patience (optional).

If you haven't already got one, go out an buy a record deck. You can find these in junk shops or garage sales real cheap; typically $30 or less. Because the signal coming out of a record deck is quiet compared to say a CD player, you have to put it through a preamplifier. Most older amplifiers will have an input for a record deck, but if you haven't got one, y o can buy a separate preamplfier for about $25 (I use a btech one which is ok).

1. Setting up =============

1.1) Plug the record deck into the preamplifier. If you are using a hi-fi amplifier, plug it into the "phono" input. You will need an RCA male-to-male stereo cable for this.

1.2) Now plug the output from the amplifier (usually marked "tape-out") into the line input socket of the sound card. You will need a male RCA to mini stereo jack plug for this. Now you are all set.

2. Setting The Levels =====================

2.1) Put a record on the deck and start it playing.

2.2) Click on Start> Programs>Accessories>Entertainment>Volume Control (or click the Yellow Speaker icon in the System Tray).

2.3) Bring up the Volume Control and click on Options>Properties>check the recording box. This shows all the inputs you can have. Check the "line input" box. This tells the sound card to listen on the correct input socket.

2.4) This is the hardest part. Start Cool Edit and hit the Record button (accept the default settings for 44 khz and so on). You should see a red bar moving across the bottom as the record plays. Adjust this until it peaks at about -5db by adjusting the slider on the Windows volume control "line-input". If you can't hear anything, adjust the output volume on the Windows volume control (Bring up the Volume Control and click on Options>Properties>check the playback box). Make sure you haven't got the "mute" - box checked.

2.5) Now stop the recording and throw away the file (close). Start playing the record and start recording in Cool Edit. Let the entire side of the record play. When it has finished stop Cool Edit recording. You now have a huge unprocessed .wav file. You will need to chop this up into tracks, but first you need to do some reprocessing.

3. Post Processing ===================

Cool Edit is a complicated program so we'll just cover the basics here.

3.1) Normalizing The Level. This is useful if you have recorded too quietly. First select all the wave-form, making sure you have selected both channels. Then select the Transform menu>amplify>normalize. Normalize to 90% and press OK. This will take some time, depending on the speed of your processor.

3.2) Cutting Out The Tracks. This is done using "cut and paste" in the usual Windows way, except you can paste to a new file in Cool Edit.

3.3) Processing Individual Tracks. The two most common things to do are removing pops and crackles and fading in and out the track.

For removing hiss, pops and crackles, I recommend that you buy the de-pop filter plug-in. This is a brilliant little program - well worth the extra cost. Bad pops can be removed manually by zooming in on the wave-form and simply deleting them. You'll be amazed how the human brain doesn't notice!

For fading in and out, use transform>amplify>fade-in/out. Easy but remember you have to highlight the bit you want faded in or out.

4. Other Tips ==============

If you have a record which is badly scuffed and has a lot of surface noise, try playing it "wet". Simply spray with warm water from a plant sprayer and play in the normal way. This is the last resort as the record cannot be played dry thereafter, although I have friends who always play records wet anyway because they sound better.

If you have to do a lot of post processing, such as de-hissing or removing pops and crackles, do it on the entire album at once. This takes longer but at least you can go and have a cup of coffee (or depending on the speed of your processor, go on vacation!) while it is processing.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 07:45 PM

Sorry, McGrath,

Maybe I misread your last post.

From what I understand, you want to be able to play a tape into the computer, and the computer to decide exactly where the track breaks between songs should go?

No dice, I'm afraid. There's a little more work to it than that...

Paul

As I said, lots of people here who'll help

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: IvanB
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 07:41 PM

Frankly, I think recording to hard disk and burning the CD from there is easier. yes, it takes a bit more time, but it gives you the advantage of using recording software which will automatically start a new track at any silence over a predefined limit, editing of audio, etc. And, once you have your files in order and are ready to burn the disk, you can burn at the speed limit of your particular CD-writer. Besides, if you're transferring from vinyl, you'll most likely want to remove clicks and pops from your audio file before you burn it.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 07:36 PM

McGrath,

There is a simpler way, but it also involves a learning curve, and it certainly won't seem simpler the first time you try.

Whether you want to spend the time / effort learning about it is up to you I guess.

Me and many others are happy to help if you do.

Paul

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 06:34 PM

The only hassle I've come across is that, if you try putting a tape in, it's likely to be treated as just one track - which means one of the advantages of having the music on CDs is lost. No doubt there are ways round this (such as loading one track at a time), but I'm hoping there's a simpler way.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 05:59 PM

Well McGrath - the little picture sure makes it look simple - Now - we'll see if I am smart enough to do it!!

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 03:50 PM

That's more or less what I had in mind, Norton. But I haven't tried it yet either. Please, could someone who has chip in and tell us if it's that straightforward, or are there any problems they've come up against.

I've also got it in mind as a quick and easy way of putting a CD of songs together, get it on tape and squirting it through.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 03:33 PM

On my computer sound card there is a place for an external input device - in particular a cassette player/record player so I can transfer the media directly to the cd burner. I haven't done this yet but have a number of records that I intend to do it with. According to SoundBlaster (my sound card) I can do this. Hope it helps!

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: Bardford
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 03:32 PM

Here's one, I may have posted it earlier:

Click here

Bardford

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,Paul
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 03:31 PM

This recent thread has a couple of useful links, but not the one JTT is after

Paul

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 03:23 PM

I found this there - but it doesn't sound like what you are after JTT.

I'd be interested in advice on this, because I'vegot lots of LPs which I'd like to be able to copy. I'd been thinking of just copying them onto tape, and then putting the tapes into the computer as wav files, and converting them into something I could put onto CDs. But I'm very hazy about the details.

If anyone's got a simple way of doing all this, or can point to a website that explains it all simply, I'd be very grateful.

Subject: RE: Help: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: nutty
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 02:57 PM

www.zdnet.com will give you the site .......hope you find what you are looking for.

Subject: Transferring tape or vinyl to CD
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 05 Dec 01 - 02:49 PM

People here kindly directed me long ago to a page - ZDnet, I think - on how to transfer vinyl records or tapes on to CD. Unlike all the other pages it actually has pictures of the parts you need.

Now I can't find it, and the Digitrad doesn't seem to have the link. Has anyone got this page address in their Favorites/Hotlist/Bookmars, please?