Copying vinyl records to computer.

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dpetti

dpetti

PFG, Picture Framing God
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Gone but not forgotten
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I have been trying to copy my old vinyl records to make CD's and MP3 files of them without much luck. I downloaded Audacity, a free, open source program that gets good reviews, but have not been able to make it work.

Anyone have some good advice about a program that works for those of us that are not audio wizards?
 
I use Audacity for editing tracks, but for actual recording I use CD Spin Doctor, which came with my old version of Toast. It has a very simple tape-recorder-like interface. Another good program for this is Final Vinyl.
:cool: Rick
 
Thanks, Rick. I will look for them.
 
Go to Amazon and type in vinyl to CD converter and all sorts of machines pop up. You play the record and it records to a CD.
 
I was trying to find a way to do this to, then figured I could download the album faster :)

The albums I liked the most were pretty played out, all scratchy and hissy and full of pops. So downloading a fresh new digital copy works for most of the old albums.
 
Bob... can you download a digital version of Arthur Godfrey singing Too Fat Polka?

I have the original 78 along with a bunch of Glenn Miller records that my parents used to listen to. I should buy this machine and copy them myself.

I have a VHS to DVD copier so I can transfer all of my old movies over.
Of course, it is low on my list of things to do around here.
 
New old stuff is being added every day. Maybe some day Glenn Miller et al will be on-line. 78's are great, I remember them from my parents stacks as a kid. The bad thing is that some of the old "500 craft ideas for kids" books suggested grabbing the old vinyl albums, the ones never listened to anymore and wouldn't be missed albums, grabbing them and slumping them in the oven. "They make great fruit bowls and gifts for Grandmother..."

Just what you wanted lead fruit bowls and lead lined ovens :)
 
I finally got Audacity to record ok--I had to take an old PC over to my stereo cabinet and connect through the "phones out" jack so I could manage the volume. Now I just have to learn the editing tricks.

Some of my old vinyl is not available on line, and hey, I've paid for this music once! Of course, the trade-off is time versus money. (Ain't that the way life works?) :shrug:
 
Don- I don't recommend outputting the audio thru the headphone jack. It's too noisy. You'll get much better results if you get an adaptor to go from the Line Out or Rec Out RCA jacks on the back of your amp or receiver to a UBS input on the computer. I'm on a Mac system, and use a device called a Griffin iMic for this purpose.
HERE is a very helpful essay about this whole topic.

:cool: Rick
 
Thanks for the help, Rick. That's a very helpful article. I see that Amazon has the iMic for $24 plus shipping. I guess I will try one.

You are right about the noise using the headphone jack. Audacity couldn't clean the files up enough to be listenable. I guess I will keep trying and see what I can do.

We have a bunch of old iMacs sitting around at work, and the IT guy offered me the use of one if I want. Not sure about the OS, though, so I don't know if one would help my cause. Any thoughts about that?
 
That would be a perfect workstation for your project, Don. You just go into the System Preferences area under the Apple menu in the upper left corner, and set the Sound control panel's Input to recognize the USB port for its source. That is where you'll have the iMic connected. Start playing some music through the system, and you'll see the lights responding on the level adjustment. Set the master input level there to get best sound without any distortion. Then close the preference panel and go to your recording software.

It does take a substantial amount of time to digitize analog sources, so you might as well set it up to get the best possible results.

Keep us posted on how it's going.

:cool: Rick
 
Thanks again, Rick. I chatted with my IT guy this morning, and he said he had an iMic in his "throwaway bin." Dang! He told me today to always ask him before I ordered something.. he has more stuff than the law allows. I guess I can save some money there..

I will try one of the old iMac's and see how it works. I have no idea about the disk space on those guys, but I have 4 gig flash drive that should help. I'm just learning here..
 
Be sure you have some hard drive space on the iMac. You can back up finished files to the flash drive, but don't save them there as they are being recorded, because the transfer rate is very slow compared to writing a file to the hard drive.
:cool: Rick
 
Thanks again, Rick. I will see about bringing an iMac home and check the HDD space. I have no idea what I will be getting on loan..
 
If you have plenty of hard drive space, save the files in an uncompressed format such as aiff. This will preserve the maximum sound quality. Then you can burn these high quality files onto CDs. You can always use iTunes later for compressing them into mp3 form for use with an iPod or similar player. Doing so is always a trade-off of sound quality for maximum space-saving portability.
:cool: Rick
 
BTW, my main stereo setup at home is based around a 30-year-old Harman Kardon receiver and a similar vintage Sony turntable with a Shure M97HE cartridge. Last weekend my wife (a piano teacher) held a recital at our home. One of the ADD rugrats in attendance managed to lift the dustcover of my turntable and mess with the tone arm. The stylus cantilever in the cartridge broke right off. :fire::fire::fire:
Fortunately, I was able to locate a replacement stylus assembly for this cartridge (about $65) and ordered it.
From now on there will be a real adult on duty in the "green room" (our family room) during all recitals. Most of the kids are good, but all it takes is one little......
:smileyshot22: Rick
 
dpetti said:
I have been trying to copy my old vinyl records to make CD's and MP3 files of them without much luck. I downloaded Audacity, a free, open source program that gets good reviews, but have not been able to make it work.

Anyone have some good advice about a program that works for those of us that are not audio wizards?
Click to expand...
I usually use a digital interface (in my case a Roland) to an audio editing suite like Sound Forge for my vinyl and my bakelite (78s and some 45s). sound forge has a great add-on (Noise Reduction) for eliminating things lke tape hiss, crackle and pop, and other mechanically induced sounds. Noise Reduction uses special algorithms to analyze recurring sounds and really makes old 78s sound great. Anyway good luck, I'm in the process of converting my old swing, jazz, and Latin records.
 
Rick Granick said:
If you have plenty of hard drive space, save the files in an uncompressed format such as aiff. This will preserve the maximum sound quality. Then you can burn these high quality files onto CDs. You can always use iTunes later for compressing them into mp3 form for use with an iPod or similar player. Doing so is always a trade-off of sound quality for maximum space-saving portability.
:cool: Rick
Click to expand...

I will have to see what kind of space is left on the old iMac when I get one to try. Since they are just taking up space at work, I might be able to free up some disc space by deleting some apps. IT is going in for a knee replacement in the morning, so I guess it will be a while before he will be thinking about my recording issues.. guess I will try with the PC when the iMic gets here and see how it goes.

I do appreciate all the advice.
 
Seasoned Warrior said:
I usually use a digital interface (in my case a Roland) to an audio editing suite like Sound Forge for my vinyl and my bakelite (78s and some 45s). sound forge has a great add-on (Noise Reduction) for eliminating things lke tape hiss, crackle and pop, and other mechanically induced sounds. Noise Reduction uses special algorithms to analyze recurring sounds and really makes old 78s sound great. Anyway good luck, I'm in the process of converting my old swing, jazz, and Latin records.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice, and welcome to the Grumble. I am quite the amateur at this, and am trying to do this on a budget. We will see how it works.
 
My new stylus arrived today. Can't wait to take it home and try it out.
:cool: Rick

Don, if you have any questions on getting set up, fire away.
 
My IT guy is getting ready for a knee replacement surgery, so I haven't been bugging him about my little problem. My old PC (running Windows XP) and the iMic get along fine, but I can't seem to control the volume in from the output jacks on the receiver using Audacity.

Everything I record is too loud and gets clipped signals. Arrgh! I will give it a try tonight and try to use my laptop and see if things change.
 
Don- On the Audacity screen (my version, anyway), just below the control buttons there are two sliders- one with a speaker icon for output level, and one with a microphone icon for input level. That one should control the record level to avoid the clipping. You might try adjusting the master input level in your operating system's sound control panel too. (I know how to do that on a Mac but not sure about the Windows version.)
:cool: Rick
 
I'd use honestech - google them
 
Rick Granick said:
Don- On the Audacity screen (my version, anyway), just below the control buttons there are two sliders- one with a speaker icon for output level, and one with a microphone icon for input level. That one should control the record level to avoid the clipping. You might try adjusting the master input level in your operating system's sound control panel too. (I know how to do that on a Mac but not sure about the Windows version.)
:cool: Rick
Click to expand...

Thanks again, Rick. I had the input volume on the PC set way too high.. it seems to be working okay now. The sliders didn't have much effect with the input too high.. We'll see.
 
Right- the best approach is to set the input slider in Audacity to about the halfway position, then adjust the overall System input volume to a reasonable level. Then you can use Audactity's slider for fine-tuning.
:cool: Rick
 
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