Vinyls to MP3?

ClassicRocker wrote: keiser willhelm wrote: sounds interesting. how much would something like this cost? i only have around 15-20 albums on vinyl but it would be worth it to put them on my iPod. or maybe not? I have about 30 vinyls myself, and recently bought a nice USB turntable that I found for $130 (if you do enough research online, you can find one for a pretty good price). It's also a good incentive to get more vinyls that I can find easier at a used book store than the same "rare" recordings on CD. The only downside so far is the time-consuming factor, including having to let the record play out each time you record. You also have to stop the recording and make a new one each time you want to separate into "tracks", which doesn't work very well for those albums that "flow" (resulting usually in one track per LP side). And for anyone who's looking to buy one, I'd recommend NOT getting it at a place like Sharper Image, because the kind they have has a plastic plate instead of a metal one, and it apparently gets warped fairly easily/quickly.

If you record it as a single track it might faster to edit them apart afterwards using something like garage band. I got The Wall from a friend but with each disc as a single song only. i cleaned it up with garage band and separated all the songs out. didnt take too long. probably shorter than stoping the recording id assume.

Vibrationbaby wrote: Why would anyone want to do this ? you guys try to find ways to make music sound better when all you are doing is rearranging the sound composition. Man, some people are never satisfied. Gotta make it better. Gotta make it newer. Christ, I love my vinyl collection and still go out of my way to get more or replace some of the older stuff that has worn out. Don`t understand.

ironpagan67 wrote: keiser willhelm wrote: sounds interesting. how much would something like this cost? i only have around 15-20 albums on vinyl but it would be worth it to put them on my iPod. or maybe not?            I know of a few places close to where I live  that will transfer vinyl to cd that charge upto about $50 per album.

If you've got the capability of getting an audio line to your computer, Audio Cleaning Lab only costs $30 retail for the basic version.
PS I have no financial incentive to promote this software, but if the guys at Magix want to send me a new version I wouldn't turn it down.


Edited by Slartibartfast - February 19 2008 at 20:57

Rubidium wrote: ClassicRocker wrote: keiser willhelm wrote: If you record it as a single track it might faster to edit them apart afterwards using something like garage band. I got The Wall from a friend but with each disc as a single song only. i cleaned it up with garage band and separated all the songs out. didnt take too long. probably shorter than stoping the recording id assume. Oh, I haven't heard about that one! Is Garage Band something you can download for free (via CNET) or is it a program you have to purchase? I've never tried it, but supposedly you can use Audacity to do it, which you should be able to (legally) download for free.

I have both but I have only used Cakewalk Pyro, which seems to work well.  Splitting your file into separate tracks is as simple as a click of a button.  It's also easy to get rid of the silence and hissing before the first track actually begins, so you don't have to synch it up or anything.  It's also relatively easy to edit out the annoying repeated parts from when your record decides to skip.  If you get lucky you won't even be able to tell that it skipped at all.  The Audio Restoration seems to work well, but of course the more pops and clicks you try to eliminate, the worse the quality of the music, so you have to find a good tradeoff.

I assume Audacity will do all the same things, but I haven't actually tried it.  Both came with my turntable, and I just assumed the program that would normally not be free would be better, but I could be mistaken.

oops, little late seems youve already found an answer. but no garage band isnt free... it came stock on my computer so i have been playing around with it lately, splitting up albums and making some of my own, really horrendous music. Garage band isnt a program known for its quality tho. its just mediocre. 

MikeEnRegalia wrote: everyone wrote: I have 3500 vinyl albums. I have converted most of my albums to cd format through an old tube stereo and a cd burner connected to that stereo.  There is no comparison between the fidelity of old tubes verses transistors.  I do not have to use my computer to make the transition from vinyl to cd.  I still do not like the fact that I am putting a round note in a square hole.  Today's dolby stereos sound crappy because most of the sounds that come from them are bass and high end sounds.  In prog music there is a mid range of sounds that you cannot hear clearly through these new stereos.  Transistors stereos have to be replaced because their sound degrades quickly in time.  Tube stereos are like wine they get better with age. Actually it's tubes which degrade with time ... maybe the added distortion sounds pleasant to your ears, but it's a degradation nonetheless. Transistor based systems don't degrade at all with time, they may simply break at one point and need to be replaced, but usually they last about 10x longer than tubes. And as for the difference of using an USB turntable compared to using a hi-fi CD recorder: There is none, at least not as far as analog/digital conversion is concerned. The "square holes" (as you put it) are on the CD, and no matter what fancy equipment you use - in the end your analog signal will be digitized when stored on a CD. And even if you use a tube amp - the amplification is not used anyway, the signal is just routed from the turntable to the recorder.

If you say so.

From another thread in Tech Talk, this is what I use to convert LP's to CD...

MikeEnRegalia wrote: If you live in the U.S., Canada, U.K. or Germany you can also use the Napster flatrate. Many old recordings are available there, including the Don Ellis album you mentioned. One other benefit of this approach is that you get access to the remastered / extended versions of the albums.

kiwi wrote: If I close my eyes its like I am in front of a warm open fire!