Turning LPs into CDs

indigowhale · 12-03-2004, 04:40 AM

I have a collection of LPs (33 1/3) that I want to turn into CD quality recordings. I have a PC with a CD burner and a basic sound card and all the necessary audio equipment.

Has anyone done this and if so, what is needed? I am interested in CD quality and not necessarily getting a bunch of music on one CD at the cost of quality.

Any advise welcomed.
TIA

adrian jaye · 12-03-2004, 04:43 AM

its a pain and different people do different things, this is my long winded way

1> get LP
2> clean of dust, etc
3> record, "record" via mixer (equalisation if required) making sure that the output is as high as possible, that is peaking at 0dB's, (not going INTO red LEDS) FOR highest signal to avoid low end hiss and noise
4> record this output to Mini-disc. (MD is the same size as a CD, you can then chop/arrange it how you want, and idea being is the digital part of the MD should not carry over any noise
5> connect MD to CD burner and burn

HTH

Ade

Willem Fick · 12-03-2004, 05:00 AM

Record onto PC, then use "Soundforge" to remove "clicks", static, and to fix up the tracks in general.

84porsche · 84porsche's Garage

Nero has a great audio correcting program, I think it is their wav editor. You need a decent quality turntable with an output that you can feed into the computer.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-4bj1IGCVpPu/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=10500&id=essential_info&i=156PSLX350

Basically, you need the adapters to convert from RCA to the small input on your computer. The better the connections, the less noise involved. It sounds like you have the equipment. I used the program I mentioned above and filtered out the audio noise afterward and some of my LPs turned out fine. But if the CD is available, it is sometimes cheaper than taking the time to convert.

concentric · 12-03-2004, 02:07 PM

There are programs that will record an album and then chop it up into tracks, etc. all automatically.

Personally, I was going to go for the mini-disc idea so I can get an MD player for the P-car, too.

Superman · 12-03-2004, 02:55 PM

Being and old geezer, I have an impressive (to me at least) vinyl collection, many of which I would like to convert. For many of these recordings, a factory CD is not going to ever become an option. But I'm stupid and lazy (many of you have pointed these characteristics out) so the "system" I use would have to be fairly simple. But they would not need to be ultra hi fi. I can barely hear the stuff over the music my Triad makes.

concentric · 12-03-2004, 03:10 PM

Roxio Toast with Jam 6 is the product I was talking about.

I had high hopes of doing my collection as well, but there is no possible way I can do it. 3,000 12" records x 40 minutes per record (average) = 2000 hours of recording time, not taking into account setting levels, cutting up tracks or any other stuff. That's about 3 months of 24/7 time or almost an entire work year.

That's not including 7"s.

I'm just going to do select LPs/cuts, primarily the stuff that's worth so much that I'm scared to play it. I think I have a couple records that are the only examples in the country.

bryanthompson · bryanthompson's Garage

We had to do this for a bunch of reel-to-reel christmas programs we (people way before my time) made for our station... I just went from the reel-to-reel machine, or from carts, or from turn table, into soundforge and left the room... when it was all finished, I just went in and cropped everything, made them into their own files, exported, and uploaded into the system or burnt them onto cds...

Most everything, unless it's an original recording, has already been professionally converted to digital. If you own an original copy, there's no copyright infringement if you download it from a p2p source, right? You could probably find whatever it is. I've gotten some strange requests for really obscure music 60 years old, and haven't had much problem finding them.