Sabbath, Zepplin & Scorpions, Oh My: Digitizing Vinyl Was Never Easier

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Devices+bring+vinyl+from+attic+to+digital+age/2100-1041_3-6130482.html?tag=nefd.top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Devices+bring+vinyl+from+attic+to+digital+age/2100-1041_3-6130482.html?tag=nefd.top</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Albums are easy to neglect. They are not digital like music files and compact discs, and they're about as portable as a box of rocks. They can be a pain to play at home, and don't even think of trying to play one on the bus. What most music lovers don't know is that they can convert vinyl, cassettes, 8-tracks and reel-to-reel tapes to digital files that they can play on an iPod or a similar device. There are drawbacks, but nothing insurmountable. It's a time-consuming process because you cannot accelerate the transfer, and it will lighten your wallet. Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to do it, and most say they don't require a degree in computer science."</i><br /><br /> <img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/VinylAlbum.JPG" /> <br /><br />Remember the other day when I mentioned that I had used Cool Edit long ago? Well, this is exactly what I was using it for. Transferring vinyl to digital wasn't easy back then. I had to have a roommate help me figure out that I needed a pre-amp. Luckily he had one. Nowadays all sorts of cool solutions exist, inculding USB turntables. 8O And yet there are <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9118">still no USB VCRs</a>? Oh well, different rant. :wink: Anyone care to share their vinyl digitizing experiences?

[Felix Torres]

Well, as long as you're asking:

I've processed about a hundred LPs; some mine, most my mother's.
The software I use is Magix's Audio Cleaning Lab which, like most Magix products, has a quirky interface that doesn't really adhere to anybody's interface standards but the software itself works, works well, and is cheap. The auto track splitting is well over 95% accurate and the manual override mechanism is excellent. Basically, you get marker sliders (like the tab markers in MS Word) that mark the beginning and end of a track. You just click and drag or right click to add or remove. Each song can be saved to a separate file or the whole track can be saved as one. You can save as uncompressed .wav or compressed MP3 or WMA. You can do de-clicking, dehissing, and other forms of cleanup and audio processing including artificially boosting channel separation for really old recordings.
In general, much like home-made cassettes, the digital version sounds much like the LP version. With a clean LP and a good turntable you get close to CD quality, which is a good fit with the typical 128Kbps AAC or MP3; not quite as good as lossless or even 192Kbps WMA, but it is good enough if you don't mind the occasional click or pop that even the software can't quite erase, only mute. Not for golden ears types.

My M.O. is to save the individual tracks to uncompressed .wav files and then burn them to an audio CD from WMP, providing the track info at that time. As a result, WMP recognizes the resulting CD come playback and ripping time.

Hardware is my old but still functional belt-drive turntable with magnetic cartridge connected directly to the motherboard line-in (onboard audio on my mobo works better than the Soundblaster PCI card I used in the past; less electrical noise getting into the feed) via a battery-powered pre-amp from Radio Shack. Don't know if they still carry it but it cost me $25 a few years back.

It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to record and process a single LP, depending on album length. Mostly it is worth doing if the content is not available on CD to start with or if the CD pricing is too outrageous.

Its too bad variable pricing on downloads has been stalled because this is exactly the market for which variable pricing results in significant savings; I would rather pay $5 for a pristine digital copy (DRM or not) that spend an hour transcoding even a well-preserved LP.

Anybody out there use different software they would recommend?
(I still have about two hundred old latin pop LPs to go for my mother's digital jukebox project and, while ACL works well, I'm open to suggestions.)

[Damion Chaplin]

(onboard audio on my mobo works better than the Soundblaster PCI card I used in the past; less electrical noise getting into the feed)

That's because the PCI card, with it's rivers of lead soldering spanning the enitre PCB, acts as a great antenna for picking up noise. And since it's inside your case, the only thing it's going to pick up is the electrical noise from the inside of your machine (like from fans spinning). The mobo's onboard connection goes as directly as possible to the signal processor, and then as directly as possible to the line-out jack. Sound cards are great for some things. Digitizing analog sources is not really one of them...

I know, I know, TMI. :roll:

[EscapePod]

Most of my LPs are old (mid-60's to late-70's) and have been played a lot. Although they were well cared for, only a few were treated to a humidor immediately after the "one" recording to tape.

What I have been using to move my music to MP3s is an extremely simple process, and has given me great satisfaction. Hard core audio-ists will no doubt get a chuckle.

I use Microsoft's Plus! Digital Media Edition. Plus! Analog Recorder is about as simple as it gets and does a very good job of automatically separating the tracks. It lets you do an easy review to check the splits, and also features pop &amp; hiss filtering (if you want it -- I very rarely do). It also lets you enter the tag info exactly the way you want it.

The one thing I don't like, and its a minor thing, is that it only records in WMA format. While I think WMA is great, and do have a section on my hard drive just for high quality WMAs, for my Sandisk and iPod Nano I usually want MP3s. To the rescue comes Plus! Audio Converter. The conversions are simple and quality is sufficient. My WMAs are saved at 320 kbps, and I convert to the MP3s at 192 kbps.

The whole process is extremely simple, however, it takes time -- perfect for the Winter months, and also provides the benefit of listening to my vinyls in real time once again.

[Jason Dunn]

I guess I'm from a different era - I've only ever digitized cassette tapes. ;-)