Recording old LP's

[Thomas Reynolds]

I am trying to contact anyone who has successfully copied old lp's onto the computer in the window XP OS. I so far have found out that I need to connect a cable from the Headphone Jack on the phonograph to the line in of the sound card.
My first Question is: will this copy left and right stero channels? And if this is dependant on the sound card....I need help identifying any sound cards capable of doing so. I have to purchase a new sound card anyway so buying one that will do what I need is of utmost importance.
I have purchased "convert X" from plextor for copying and converting video from analog sources to digital.....it has jacks for video and right and left audio but will the signal from a Headphone jack work on these inputs...with or without video?
Bottom line is I don't care how I have to do it but I need to find out how to copy old Record albums into the computer with the best sound copying method I can.

[Spoon]

Re: Recording old LP's

Nearly all sound cards can record stereo (should have mic in and line in, line in is stereo). Make sure you get a stereo cable, look at the mini 3.5 jack that plugs into the sound card, if it has 3 sections on the metal then it is stereo.

[petriburg]

Re: Recording old LP's

Nearly all sound cards can record stereo (should have mic in and line in, line in is stereo). Make sure you get a stereo cable, look at the mini 3.5 jack that plugs into the sound card, if it has 3 sections on the metal then it is stereo.

Using your headphone output could possibly result in an overload or mismatch with your soundcard. The better option is to buy a two-into-one RCA plugs into one 3.5mm Stereo plug (Radio Shack used to call them Y - connectors, maybe still do) and connect from the line out sockets of your amplifier to the line in of your soundcard. Using this method, I do quite a lot of this type of conversion for friends and (a few) paying customers, all of whom love the result. Get a Good sound card, if you're updating - dB recommends, and I use, Terratec, but this has to relate to your budget. You may then want to install some editing software, so that you can remove clicks, pops and so on, and of course, cut the tracks so that they can be numbered on your cd. Its a bit time consuming to do the job well, but very satisfying. Oh, and editing software? Stacks of it out there - check on Google. I use Sound Forge, but Cool Edit is another very flexible program. Good luck!

[Tomb]

Re: Recording old LP's

All the advice you need can be found on this site:

http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm

Alternatively you can visit this one (or do both!)

http://pages.prodigy.net/jdjd/

I use Audiograbber with the Easy Tools plug-ins for my vinyl and cassette recordings but there are a load of others out there including Rip Vinyl and the plug-in that dBpoweramp provides.

[Randy Rhoads]

Re: Recording old LP's

All the advice you need can be found on this site:

http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm

Alternatively you can visit this one (or do both!)

http://pages.prodigy.net/jdjd/

I use Audiograbber with the Easy Tools plug-ins for my vinyl and cassette recordings but there are a load of others out there including Rip Vinyl and the plug-in that dBpoweramp provides.

How do you record Cassettes on a computer?? please let me know. I haven't found anyone that knew how

[JahSun]

Re: Recording old LP's

Randy,

Your computer can record any sound source that you plug in to it. The choice of inputs is limited by the sound card you are using, but I don't know any sound cards that don't have a line in of some sort or another. The most common is the stereo mini plug line in. This is like the headphone jack of a walkman or a minidisc. You will simply need to get a "Y" cable which will have two RCA's for the Cassette deck's line out, and a stereo mini plug on the other end.

Once connected, you could even record with standard windows media recorder (I don't recommend this). Try DB's Auxilary Input for the DMC. This gives you the flexibility to record in any format which you have downloaded the codecs for. (from lossless like FLAC and APE to Lossys like OGG and MP3) Or you can always rip to Wav. This may be the easiest if you want to immediately burn to CD. Watch your settings. Most important being the levels. Once a digital signal distorts, it is worthless. You may want to edit your recordings with an Audio Editor like Cool Edit Pro or Wavelab. Nero even has a simple one built in. But a better quality one will be able to clean the files more effectively. You'll probably want to Normalize the recordings to make them as loud as songs you rip off of CD.

Hope that helps.
J

[Dan Sharon]

lead-in/lead-out on LP recordings

Hi gang,

I bought the registered PowerPack so that I can have the smarter features of the Aux-Input feature, which don't chop off the start and end of songs, but have found that the start and end are still chopped. I've read the documentation, but it's still not clear how to tell the program to NOT chop off the start and end. Any ideas?

/Dan

[Spoon]

Re: lead-in/lead-out on LP recordings

Adjust the autostart and autoend options (ie a lower % required to end and start).