Thread: recording your old vinyls

Originally Posted by Bleedin Thumb

Hi all,

I have about 300 od old vinyls sitting in storage that I want to drag into the digital age by burning to CD, DVD or HD.

I would be interested in hearing comments on this too I have some cassette tapes I would like to transfer to CD.

Originally Posted by Bleedin Thumb

Is it better to go CD or DVD or has Mp3's made them redundant?

Just remember if you burn them to DVD you wont be able to play them in your CD player in your car or at home.

I havent started yet, but I have a pile of 78s to do the same... I have purchased a cheap stereo from Kmart (~$150) that will transfer your records/tapes etc to a USB Key/MP3 player. quality isnt great, but its quick and easy.

I will have to do a proper job at some point, but that will involve getting a PC Card that coverts the analog data from the stereo into digital....

I've done one. I plugged the Tape Out from my stereo into the sound card on the PC then used a program that came with the CD burner to record it to a .WAV file. I then used a WAV editor to break it up into tracks and burned them to a CD. A lot of this software is available as freeware. You can probably get something that will filter the pops but I left them in. Part of the atmosphere.

'twas The Sunny Boys

Yeh Silent, Ive done a search and come up with the recording as a wave file thing. Its sounds slow and convoluted to me.

That stereo to usb port sounds interesting Gra. Sound quality is very desirable but with about 200 hrs of recordings plus compilation time its a huge job so easy wins I guess.

I will still have to use anti crackle software though - some of those records have been the backbone of many a drunken party.............Nahh, i'm sick ovis record...lets hear zum Led Zeppelin sccccrrrratttch.

Just remember that when you record to MP3 it is a compression format so you are going to lose a lot of information. I can tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD and the difference between a CD and an LP. If you can too, then you will probably notice a big difference between the MP3 version and the original.

WAV files are a lot bigger but they save more information.

Originally Posted by Bleedin Thumb

Yeh Silent, Ive done a search and come up with the recording as a wave file thing. Its sounds slow and convoluted to me.

That stereo to usb port sounds interesting Gra. Sound quality is very desirable but with about 200 hrs of recordings plus compilation time its a huge job so easy wins I guess.

I will still have to use anti crackle software though - some of those records have been the backbone of many a drunken party.............Nahh, i'm sick ovis record...lets hear zum Led Zeppelin sccccrrrratttch.

It was just a cheap stereo, I got as it played 78's and gave my other two older ones a rest. as for sound quality, you could probably use it to do the initial recording and then clean up in post production... Havent had the time to play with it yet, only recorded one song and got some of the timing wrong and screwed it up ..

PS> it doesnt work with Ipods, but will with other MP3 players, thought this could be a DU error

The reason a good LP system can outclass a good CD system lies with the turntable/arm/cardridge used. Use a cheap system and you get crappy sound. So ... one needs an aftermarket interface to convert good analogue into good digital. I know they are around, but I have not searched one out - still ocasionally pull out the LPs (which now sound too warm - soft - by comparison to CD. Just how the ear adapts).

Regards from Perth

Derek

The reason a good LP system can outclass a good CD system lies with the turntable/arm/cardridge used

In fact, if you look at how a digital recording is made, a CD can never sound as good as an LP, regardless of the quality of the record player. When an analogue source is digitised, the sampling rate will affect the quality of the recording. The sampling rate determines how much information is recorded about the sound waves - higher sampling rate, more information. But it is still recorded more like a bar graph than a continuous wave. With higher frequencies, the waves are occuring in tighter intervals, so less information is captured about higher frequencies than lower. That's why the highs on CDs often sound jarring or mechanical. These days the electronics cater for this effect quite well but I find it quite noticable in MP3 recordings. High hats and cymbals for example can sound very strange. I think most people these days just don't notice this because they only ever hear recordings on CD or MP3. It's what you are used to, as you say. The LP will always have a much greater dynamic range than a digital recording.

The result from capturing an LP to your hard drive will depend as much on your sound card as anything else. Another alternative would be to get an audio quality cd recorder and just use the phono input on your stereo preamp then send the signal to the recorder, same way you would tape a record in the old days when people still used cassettes.

This is the program you want. Absoloutly brilliant.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

That's the one I used. Couldn't remember the name.

I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under line in sampling

I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under line in sampling

I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under file, line in sampling

That's what I call "Repetition for Emphasis"