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Vinyl records on CD

post #1 of 20
1/17/07 at 9:15pm
Thread Starter 
I have an old vinyl record collection and I would like to save them onto CD. I am not sure how to go about this. I have not seen any CD recorders that I could use, they only seem to have DVD recorders (HT kind) and I am told that the DVD recorders cannot be used for recording audio like that although I do not know why. I was also told that the computer was the way to go. I have a pc that has connections for audio on the soundcard.... a green, a blue and a red connector.

One person said I could probably connect an rca audio cable from my receiver and have it go to the "line in" on my soundcard as a means to send the audio to my computer and then use a cd recording program to capture it and save it onto cd. I have Nero which I use to burn my cd's. Is it as simple as that or do I need more? One other person said I would need some other kind of software to distinguish the audio L from R. I also have a question... how do I burn the songs off the records so that the tracks are on the cd and I can skip from track to track. I was thinking that if I record as mentioned above, it would be one long analog stream with no way to distinguish tracks.

Thanks in advance
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post #2 of 20
1/17/07 at 11:45pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
One other person said I would need some other kind of software to distinguish the audio L from R
not sure what the hell that means. if you record in stereo, you have a stereo audio file, no need to distinguish from L and R.

Quote:
One person said I could probably connect an rca audio cable from my receiver and have it go to the "line in" on my soundcard as a means to send the audio to my computer
or you could bypass your receiver altogether, and plug your turntable into your sound card. but the idea is the same, the audio must get to the sound card somehow, the method is up to you.

get a program like audacity, and record one long audio track, and cut it up into smaller tracks, so you can skip from track to track. or, you could also record one track at a time, no need to cut it up later. use audacity to clean up the audio if you like. if the destination of the audio is going to be CD, save in wav format. use nero to make an audio CD with the wav files created by audacity.

CJ
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post #3 of 20
1/17/07 at 11:46pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

The easiest way would be to connect it to a computer; you'll probably want to do this anyway since your likely to want to clean the audio up some as well.

The only problem that your likely to run into is that you'll need an inline amplifier as the output from a turntable is considerably less than what a standard line-in uses. This is why you tend to see a separate phono input on receivers.

Hope that helps out some!
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post #4 of 20
1/18/07 at 4:53am
Thread Starter 

Re: Vinyl records on CD

So if I hook up a turntable to the phono input of the receiver, how do I come out of the receiver to the soundcard at the correct levels (to not blow the card and to have adequate power levels)? There are zone 2 and zone 3 outputs (L&R), perhaps those?
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post #5 of 20
1/18/07 at 7:44am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

There is a new turntable out by Ion, for around $150, that is made specifically for burning to CD. It plugs in via USB.
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post #6 of 20
1/18/07 at 10:15am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Joseph
So if I hook up a turntable to the phono input of the receiver, how do I come out of the receiver to the soundcard at the correct levels (to not blow the card and to have adequate power levels)? There are zone 2 and zone 3 outputs (L&R), perhaps those?

Turntable to phono in, tape audio out to soundcard in should do the trick. The zone out I would think would work as well. Most low and mid lone soundcards have a miniJack in so you do need a special cable to combine the stereo L/R onto one input and you need to make sure it's a stereo minijack and not mono in this situation.

I just did a basic form of this without any cleanup on most of my LP collection (several hundred individual LP's) -- just a straight record to my PC using the Free CDWave program to record the wav, break the tracks apart, and then encode them them on my hard drive (I have one set with wma lossless for my computer and one at wma 128kbps so the kids can pop it on their mp3 easier). Now I have glorious Analog sound pops and hisses intact in all their glory.
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post #7 of 20
1/18/07 at 12:23pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Joseph
I have not seen any CD recorders that I could use, they only seem to have DVD recorders (HT kind) and I am told that the DVD recorders cannot be used for recording audio like that although I do not know why.

1. There once were (and may still be) standalone CD-Audio recorders. All standalone "consumer" decks are taxed, and crippled with SCMS, and forced to use taxed media ("music CD-Rs") as well.

2. The structure of a CD-Audio disc and the structure of a DVD-Video disc are completely different. It's certainly possible to build a hybrid burner (lots of computers have them), but maybe standalone DVD recorder vendors opt for "cheaping out".

3. You might want to check out the B & H Web site. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find a few standalone "consumer" and "professional" CD-Audio recording decks there.
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post #8 of 20
1/18/07 at 12:37pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

A DVD recorder CAN be used as a means of recording audio, but it's not the easiest process.

I have a DVD recorder...I can route any audio into the RCA jacks, then record onto a DVD-Ram disc. I put that into the computer and pull off the MPG file, which I import into Premiere and strip out the audio.

As long as you're not feeding the recorder a copyrighted video signal, it will record both the audio and the video.
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post #9 of 20
1/18/07 at 3:01pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

As someone mentioned before - an RCA line will not do it for you - you'll need at least an inline amp - which is avaliable at radio shack. THe other problem with RCA only would be grounding - you'd lose alot of audio quality.

THe best option would be to run the RCA line out from the pre-out of your amp (or even better - eq) to the line in of your sound card. Then you will have much better control.

Then you have to split the tracks. You can either do it one at a time recording or after the fact. No fun.

I've not had trouble finding a way to burn CDs - maybe I've missed something?
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post #10 of 20
1/18/07 at 6:02pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

I'm a newb to this forum, in fact this is my first post but I've done vinyl transfers many times. The easiest way is to simply use a receiver. Connect the turn table to phono in, use RCA to mini from any of the receivers tape outs to the line in of your PC's sound card. For software, I've found Sonic Foundry's "Sound Forge" to be pretty easy for anyone to use. It has plug ins to remove clicks and pops and other plug ins for enhancements. One trick I learned that saves a lot of time is to chop the songs apart from last track to first. You have to remember, we're talking about very large file sizes after capturing 1 side of an LP in WAV form. It's extremely time consuming no matter how you do it because you have to play each side at least twice. Once to lay it down on the hard drive, and another to listen for areas that need enhancement.

Hope this helps

Looking forward to perusing this forum and meeting some of you folks.

Best Regards,
Dave
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post #11 of 20
1/18/07 at 9:45pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric_L
As someone mentioned before - an RCA line will not do it for you - you'll need at least an inline amp - which is avaliable at radio shack.

Depends on the turntable. Most turntables with RCA jacks output "phono" signals. A few have the pre-amp / equalizer built in, and for those, you could treat the output from the record player as equivalent to a cassette/CD deck output.

There may be software for computers that can take a "phono" signal, and apply the equalization transformations in software, but I believe that this approach is a lot less common.
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post #12 of 20
1/18/07 at 10:29pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Fresh out of CES: From 33 to MP3: Good news for music lovers who kept their vinyl LP collection
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post #13 of 20
1/25/07 at 12:30pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Numark also makes a very reasonably priced USB based turntable - TTUSB

http://www.numark.com/index.html?htt...overview&n=144

Sells in Canada for about $200 CDN, and is quite clean sounding for the price.

Always be sure to use an elliptical sylus, not aDJ stylus (since it doesn't seat in the groove the same way and often uses more weight to get sound without vibration jumping).
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post #14 of 20
2/8/07 at 12:14pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Thanks for the input. I managed to get this thing to work. I only had to purchase the audio cable.... L&R rca on one end and mini (stereo) on the other end. I hooked the turntable up to the receiver's phono input and used the tape out from the receiver to transfer the analog audio to the computer's line-in input. I also downloaded Audacity and recorded the songs one at a time rather than record one side of the LP and then split into tracks after wards. I had to set the correct recording level and output the file as an mp3 as a space-savings measure rather than use uncompressed audio.
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post #15 of 20
2/9/07 at 10:14am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Joseph
...I have Nero which I use to burn my cd's....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christ Reynolds
...record one long audio track, and cut it up into smaller tracks, so you can skip from track to track. or, you could also record one track at a time, no need to cut it up later...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric_L
...Then you have to split the tracks. You can either do it one at a time recording or after the fact. No fun...
Quote:
Originally Posted by davey28
...One trick I learned that saves a lot of time is to chop the songs apart from last track to first...
Gave the multi-quote buttons a go, they're handy!

Neil seems to have gotten it to work. Nevertheless, I offer this tip for future LPs Neil and anyone else might tackle.

I used to also split up a full-side's length wav file into separate tracks until I discovered Nero. It allows you to place "markers" on that long wav file wherever you want new tracks to start (just like dividing up a movie into chapters on a dvd by marking the file up). Using Nero makes the physical splitting up of files unnecessary.

It's been a while since I last did an LP to cd transfer with the Nero version of that time. I'd hope this time-saving feature hasn't been dropped from more current versions of the program.

more tips from the thread started by ozwick
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post #16 of 20
2/9/07 at 10:17pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Sweet!! I just tried it usinf Nero 5 and it works just fine. So things are simplified. Record the one side of the lp drag the long track into nero and split it up into pieces at the time that I am ready to burn/create the cd.

Thanks
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post #17 of 20
2/10/07 at 3:51pm

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil Joseph
Sweet!! I just tried it using Nero 5 and it works just fine. So things are simplified. Record the one side of the lp drag the long track into nero and split it up into pieces at the time that I am ready to burn/create the cd.

That sounds cool. I've only used CoolEdit and Adobe Audition to record the tracks and then have had to manually cit the LP sides into individual tracks. It's not like it's that much effort...but it makes sense that the software should be automatically able to "read" the spaces between the tracks...as long as it's not fooled by a dramatic pause, let's say, in a song.

Glad you've got things working, Neil.

Between digitizing LPs and home movies (on both VHS AND Beta!), it is time-consuming to try and keep up with things!
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post #18 of 20
2/12/07 at 8:45am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
...it makes sense that the software should be automatically able to "read" the spaces between the tracks...as long as it's not fooled by a dramatic pause, let's say, in a song...
Just to clarify, in Nero, the tracks aren't marked up automatically. The user has to do this on an oscillograph-like graph of the audio file with all its peaks and valleys. It's easy to do as the program offers the ability to let you hear the audio file wherever you want and avoid marking a new track at those aforementioned dramatic silences.
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post #19 of 20
2/12/07 at 10:43am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

Gotcha.

In most cases, though, I know it's clear to see where the break points are. Still sounds like a much simpler process than selecting each appropriate part of the huge .wav file and then saving each one separately.
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post #20 of 20
2/14/07 at 10:22am

Re: Vinyl records on CD

I've done this in the past and used dbPowerAmp. It's free and has a track auto detect feature which, with only a tiny bit of tweaking will correctly split and number your tracks for you.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

The pay version has some great tag editing features and does batch MP3 encoding.

Oh, and while I'm at it ClaudioSofts Wav splitter is an excellent and very small wav file, erm splitter for those who don't use Nero.
http://claudiosoft.online.fr/wavsplit.html
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