Vinyl to CD conversion

January 5, 2006 11:04 PM

What's new re: converting records to cd?

This Mefi thread is a couple of years old now. Is this $400 machine any better than my computer and some inexpensive software? What's a simple, reasonably priced, and effective way of converting records to cd?

posted by weapons-grade pandemonium to Technology (18 answers total)

Half the price.
posted by evariste at 11:14 PM on January 5, 2006

I don't know anything about this other than the fact that it's new-ish and it's under $50.
posted by Juliet Banana at 11:16 PM on January 5, 2006

what's new? use the very best turntable, cartridge, stylus, and preamp, a quality audio interface (cost and quality are closely related, so you can spend $40 or $4000, with a nice sweet spot between $400 and $800, such as the MOTU 828MKII) and stereo editing software running on a fast computer with clean audio circuitry -- perhaps including noise reduction software designed for the problems one runs into with vinyl (BIAS Peak with Soundsoap Pro, if you have a Mac, is a good solution). do it in as vibration-free and electrically clean a space as you can find. all in one solutions, for almost anything of the sort, are underpowered and overpriced if quality is the goal. what's new(ish) is digitizing at 24/96 instead of 16/44, and the noise-reduction algorithms of the high-end software keep getting better. the quality of the analog playback is almost everything, however, and the technology there hasn't improved much since the 1970s, nor will it.
posted by realcountrymusic at 1:18 AM on January 6, 2006

my father bought a $99au turntable from a local electronics store, and once i plugged my soundblaster live into the family computer (oh god i miss sound on my desktop machine *wheeze*) and taught him the basics of soundforge he was on his way converting his collection of vinyl to cds.

he loves it, and frankly i hear no problems myself... but then again, i'm not an anal audiophile.
posted by a. at 2:11 AM on January 6, 2006

the quality of the analog playback is almost everything, however, and the technology there hasn't improved much since the 1970s, nor will it.

What about laser turntables? They are expensive but they look like a definite improvement over dragging a sharp rock across things.

To answer the main question: it depends on how much of an "anal audiophile" (as a. puts it) you are. If your collection isn't worth a lot and you can live with a little snap, crackle, and pop, get a simple and cheapish turntable (maybe like the machine evariste links to?) and just get the job done. But if your collection is worth a lot of money and consists of, say, 1000 records at 45 minutes each, you might not want to submit it to 750 hours of bad machinery. In that case, think about a high-end (maybe laser) turntable that will be gentle on their grooves and not hurt their market value.

(This is coming from a guy who used to tape a nickel to the tone arm if the record skipped.)
posted by pracowity at 2:38 AM on January 6, 2006

Something I forgot to make explicit: if this is a one-shot deal (convert all your records and then retire the turntable) you should calculate how much you are going to use this turntable (once per record? how many records? how many hours is that?).

If it's a thousand records, a thousand-dollar turntable is, obviously, a dollar a record. Then consider whether that's a good deal for you. And if a cheaper turntable is instead a quarter of that price, decide whether the cost difference per record (twenty-five cents rather than a dollar) is more significant to you than the quality of the conversion, assuming for the moment that the 1000-dollar turntable is actually that much better than the cheap one.

And if you're a bit of an entrepreneur, you might also calculate how much you can make by converting other people's records after you've done your own, assuming you buy a good turntable that will last for a lot of records.
posted by pracowity at 3:37 AM on January 6, 2006

Realcountrymusic : The MOTU 828MkII is indeed a fine audio interface (It's the workhorse of my pro studio) - but a 16 in / out 19" rack unit would be a little excessive for simple vinyl > CD transfers don't you think?
posted by coach_mcguirk at 4:19 AM on January 6, 2006

Thinking this was a manual process best outsourced to our global partners, I recently put a project up on some of the "rent-a-coder" type sites asking for bids to convert my vinyl to 256kbps MP3s. I haven't done anything to date, but I got a lot of responses back from south asia, eastern europe, etc. in the range of $5 per LP. This was exclusive of shipping, but then in my spec I told the vendors they could keep the vinyl when they were done with it.

So that might be a route you could take if you value your time over $5/hour.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:20 AM on January 6, 2006

My personal setup (using my Windows XP box) is as follows:

Turntable
RCA SA-155 Integrated Stereo Mini Amplifier
Audacity

Run turntable into amplifier
Run line-out from amplifier into line-in of computer
Confirm audio settings are set for "Recording" and line-in levels are all the way up
Open Audacity and begin recording
Start playing the record.
Save the file as a WAV when it is done.
Perform any digital processing I think is necessary (volume normalization, equalization, etc.).
Split the one large WAV into separate tracks.
convert to MP3s
Add track tags.
I'm done.

I've done this with several of my LPs and they come out very listenable.
posted by bwilms at 5:28 AM on January 6, 2006

I bought that box that Juliet Banana mentions above, after all stereo 1/8" in plugs started sending through only one of the channels (I've been having soundcard troubles). The box has been working fine. You can hear samples on the Jimmy Reed songs up now on my site (URL in my profile) that I captured with that box and a cheap old turntable (Technics SL-220) and ripped to 192 bitrate mp3s in Audacity. Just in case you're curious.

The only thing that's probably an exception in this case is that the LP was still sealed just before I digitized it, so there's very little crackle.

Unfortunately those are the only two samples I have up at the moment, as I tend not to leave songs up more than a week or two, but I can send you more if you'd like.

Good luck with it. I love projects like this one.
posted by Tuwa at 7:15 AM on January 6, 2006

realcountrymusic has the answer.

I do tend to agree that his 'sweet spot' in sound card/ADC is a little beyond... I'm thinking $200 will do pretty well, like an M-audio card or something. You might also be able to find a good used external ADC that will output spdiff. I don't have recording experience, but that is the right answer on the playback side.

Don't just use a cheap or built-in sound card. For one, many are based on 48kHz sample rate, which will not convert to CD use well. In general, they suck.

You'd think somebody would have a link to a forum with a good discussion on this topic. I don't have one at hand, but there is bound to be a lot of very practical information out there if you search enough. It isn't worth the effort if you don't try to do a top notch job though. Otherwise your better off downloading the mp3s.

perhaps including noise reduction software designed for the problems one runs into with vinyl

Blank DVDs are cheap, save your raw captures before applying any filtering!
posted by Chuckles at 7:32 AM on January 6, 2006

The only thing that's probably an exception in this case is that the LP was still sealed just before I digitized it, so there's very little crackle.

Please, if you ignore everything else, properly clean the disc before you try to cap it!
posted by Chuckles at 7:33 AM on January 6, 2006

Here's my Mac setup & process:

--> B&O turntable
--> Behringer DJ mixer
--> M-Audio Firewire 410
--> G5 tower
--> Mackie HR824 self-powered monitors

play the vinyl

--> record with either Peak LE or Digital Performer
--> snip & fade edges of recorded files
--> optional noise reduction with SoundSoap
--> optional EQ using Digital Performer
--> normalize to 99% in Peak
--> define tracks (a.k.a. regions) in Peak
--> save as SD2 (sound Designer 2) file -- this preserves the region info
--> burn to CD using Roxio Jam
posted by omnidrew at 8:19 AM on January 6, 2006

I've read good things about the ART Phono Plus convertor. For 99 bucks you can get the output of your turntable into your computer via usb.
posted by gallois at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2006

I ran my record player into a cheapo griffin imic into my computer. worked fine.
posted by atom128 at 9:16 AM on January 6, 2006

Response by poster: Awesome suggestions everyone. I'm reluctant to check "best answer" because they all seem valid one way or another. There is something to be said for doing it noticeably better than mp3 quality, otherwise downloading is the way to go. Question for those of you who mentioned your setup: how much bigger is the resulting file than an mp3 file? Thanks a million.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:26 PM on January 6, 2006

Studio quality WAV files recorded at 24 bit depth at 96 KHZ are about 15 times the size of MP3 files recorded at 320 KBPS.

CD quality WAV files recorded at 24 bit depth and 44.1 KHZ are about 7 times the size of the same MP3 file.

There are LOTS of web pages devoted to converting LPs to CDs. The best one I've found is the Record Collectors Guild.
posted by KRS at 1:47 PM on January 6, 2006

Phonographs can be good radio receivers. If you hear wierdness from the phonograph when you are not playing a record, clamp a ferrite donut choke on the output of the phonograph--and on the output of the preamp if you use one--even on the power line if you are close to a transmitter. You can buy these or borrow them from other devices. I'd use at least one to guard against passing CB'ers.
posted by gregoreo at 6:54 AM on January 7, 2006