USB Turntable

[ShinyF1]

Is anyone familiar with these new gadgets for converting vinyl to digital?

The one I have just bought includes everything EXCEPT sound recordng software, and wondered what would anybody recommend - purchase, shareware etc?

All help appreciated...

 

[timskemp]

Audacity - it's free and works well. Otherwise I'd go for Adobe Audition.

 

[gaz_l]

Have a look at "Sound Recorder" from www.polderbits.com

There's a free download with a 2 week trial key. I bought a licence years ago - can't remember when exactly but I recall I sent cash, in an envelope, in guilders, so it's a while back. I must be a million revisions behind as I don't think I've updated it for maybe 5 years, but it still runs perfectly on an antique computer (W98SE) that I've got in the spare room.

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[verytalldave]

Is anyone familiar with these new gadgets for converting vinyl to digital?

The one I have just bought includes everything EXCEPT sound recording software, and wondered what would anybody recommend - purchase, shareware etc?

All help appreciated...

Yes.
I was thinking of buying one and spoke to a bod at work who said if I already a turntable at home (which I do), then all I would need would be suitable software to convert the analogue to digital signal.
He recommended X-OOM MUSIC CLEAN which I purchased in PC World for about £25 and it works fine and its very easy to use. It has many useful tools built in with which you can remove scratch clicks and background noise. You also get a choice of sampling rates to suit your need and its iPod compatible.
You MUST be sure that any software you buy will actually do what you want of it.
This is a link to their website. I actually use version 3, which is essentially the same as the current version 4, but with less features. The user interface is easy to understand and is designed for even morons like me to use.
http://www.x-oom.com/english/products/musicclean4SUB.htm

BTW...............IF you do want to buy this software package, I recommend that you DON'T buy it online - buy it boxed from PC World, or any other high street shop. That way, you get the backup CD and most important - a proper printed instruction book - you don't get either if you buy online. Its a very handy book to have as a reference guide. I wouldn't want to try to do it without.

 

[prprandall51]

I am currently in the middle of encoding my entire vinyl collection to MP3. This is what I have learned:

Any turntable will do - you can use your old one so long as you have an amplifier to step up the signal voltage to the levels that your sound card will require. Alternatively, you can buy a pre-amplifier from Maplin and use that with your turntable.

I don't know anything about the USB turntables but, judging by their price, I expect that they will do a grim job of collecting the nuances of the vinyl. Much better to get a decent second-hand turntable off ebay. The time you will put into encoding even a handful of records will be completely undermined by using a rubbish turntable.

When you encode, if you have time to do it properly, then the best software by a long way is Wave Corrector (www.wavecor.co.uk). This software is a bit complex to get the hang of, but once you hear the way it strips the crackles and pops off the background of a track like "In the Air tonight" by Phil Collins, your jaw will drop. It is like you just nipped out and bought the CD! Once you have set it up, it processes albums really quickly. Also (really cool) it can spot the quiet bits on an album and splits the output into separate files as separate tracks - saves loads of time.

When you save the file, I recommend you save as "ape" format. This is a lossless format but it is compressed. That way, you lose nothing of the detail. You can then go onwards and save it as MP3 as well (you lose a little detail at that point). Shame to lose all that beautiful music information in MP3. Also, APE is widely supported by the mainstream media players such as JRiver and WinAmp - and you can stream it around your house, too.

When you save as MP3 go for 320 Kbs, *not* variable - I am pretty sure the Comand MP3 system cannot handle variable bitrate MP3 files, nor can certain other players. The files will be bigger, but you are future-proofed. If you saved in APE, this won't matter, bacuase you can always cut another copy of your music library from your APE masters at any time.

After encoding, you will have a stack of unamed MP3 files - the best software for naming them is mp3tag - though it will also name the APE files. It is virtually automatic and pulls down track info from the web. You point it at a directory (created by Wave Corrector) with 11 APE / MP3 files in it numbered 1 to 11 and it automatically correlates these to the 11 tracks on the nominated album and renames them and tags them in one go. I tried about 30 products before settling on this one, it is brilliant.

That's it. Hope this helps. As you can see, this has become an obsession of mine.
Philip

Edit: One more thing - get yourself a second hard disk and a RAID card ((£60 for both). That way, you can never lose your music collection because of a disk crash. Believe me, after you have encoded 200 albums, you wont ever want to do that again.

 

[del320]

Thanks for the detailed and definitive explanation. Fortunately, I've only tackled a couple of dozen or so vinyl tracks but the whole palaver takes long enough!

My hi-fi (Denon) is hardwired to the computer so the old skool turntable is hauled out of the attic and set up. Pure 70s - Sugden Connoisseur BD1/SME 3009 Mk2/***** V-15 - all sounds as good as it did in 1975

Record and edit using Audacity @ 320Kbs.

(Why on earth was the cartridge manufacturer censored? )