Reply to: Recording my vinyl collection to MP3

[Methuselah]

The thing with cheap belt driven decks it you can't be guaranteed that the record will be the same BPM all the way through as the belts expand and slip slighty. This matter more if your goign tobe using the MP3's for djing as the BPM need to be bang on.

So using a high end direct drive turntable like the Technics SL is the only answer really.

As compared to a cheap belt-driven turntable, perhaps. A Technics SL is a professional DJ deck, not a high-end audio turntable (like e.g. Linn Sondek or Clearaudio), most though not all of which are belt-driven.

[TheFaQQer]

Wot is this "needle" of which you speak?

I see that Maplin are selling 78rpm "needles" for those with extensive collections of shellac.

I haven't worked out how to hook my gramaphone up to the system yet.

Down to the last 100 needles, so I need to think of how to record them at some stage...

[richard-af]

Cheaper alternative is to simply hum your favourite tunes. Helps prevent Global Warming, too.

[darmstadt]

I use a microphone in the middle of the room so I can get that 'live' feeling

Actually I need to do this but with 3000+ records I think it might take a loooong time....

[zathras]

Search and download the same albums in MP3 format, you'll be surprised what you can find if you try hard enough.

Can't find the original version of Essential Jean Michel Jarre. The later version you can find has some of the later stuff which is not nearly as good.

[xoggoth]

I'd like to do this too but naturally I do not want to spend any money so shall probably just plug in my ancient record player from the attic and hope for the best.

PS My favourite record got warped by being left in the sun and then got bit of the Daily Mail melted into it when I tried to flatten it with a steam iron. Any ideas how to digitally remove the regular ripping noise it makes?

[jatinder]

Terratec iv

Hi,

I used the Terratec ivinyl USB gadget to transfer some of my records to MP3 format. It also contains software to remove clicks & pops etc.

Extremely easy to use.


--Jatinder

[dotnetter]

The thing with cheap belt driven decks it you can't be guaranteed that the record will be the same BPM all the way through as the belts expand and slip slighty. This matter more if your goign tobe using the MP3's for djing as the BPM need to be bang on.

So using a high end direct drive turntable like the Technics SL is the only answer really.

[TheFaQQer]

It takes a while to do - be prepared for a flashback to recording the Top 40 from the radio!

I have a CD player which is also a recorder hooked up to my stereo, so I do transfers from tapes / records onto there, and then rip to MP3 on the PC.

[Sysman]

USB Turtables are crap, best way to do it is get a decent Technics deck with some decents carts and needls, a decent soundcard and some audio editing software like audacity or cool edit. Record at 192k + preferably 320k

I suspected that about USB turntables. I certainly don't like the idea of putting my "carefully preserved over the years vinyl" through a player at double speed!

[Sysman]

I'm in the middle of doing this and actually wondering whether I can be arsed. I've got the USB turntable, but you have to use Audacity, run a couple of filters and then convert to MP3 using the LAME plugin. Then I'm importing to iTunes.

It's certainly time consuming. What I ended up doing was shoving a bunch through the first phase while doing something else like watching telly, and doing the editing bit later. I started out grabbing the lyrics for stuff I wanted in iTunes (I was coming from cassette, so few if any album cover lyrics), but I soon got fed up with that.

[dotnetter]

USB Turtables are crap, best way to do it is get a decent Technics deck with some decents carts and needls, a decent soundcard and some audio editing software like audacity or cool edit. Record at 192k + preferably 320k

[interested]

I'm in the middle of doing this and actually wondering whether I can be arsed. I've got the USB turntable, but you have to use Audacity, run a couple of filters and then convert to MP3 using the LAME plugin. Then I'm importing to iTunes.

All in all a bit of a ball ache. I did 5 records on Saturday morning, about 500 to go.

[Sysman]

I've done the same for audio cassettes. Because my Mac doesn't have an audio in socket, I got an iMic

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/

and used Audacity (freeware) to do the editing.

I found that going direct to mp3 produced the odd gap in the music on my system, so I recorded direct to aiff, then from that to CD.

[ferret]

Think this is the kiddie:
http://www.thedjshop.co.uk/products.asp?id=3063

It supports high speed recording too, plays the record faster than real time and then slows down the resulting audio file with some software to make it real time, saves sitting through each track.

Have seen reports of the digital converters not being up to audiophile standards but I could not tell you the difference between a 190 and 320kbps mp3 file so I would be happy to get one. I have other audio gear though so route my old deck through a mixer and into the PC and have recorded a few old tunes this way. If you have the vinyl you could save some time and try something like soulseek (http://www.slsknet.org/ site seems to be down at the moment) which is a music geek's dream for finding old vinyl that people have already ripped.