View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.pro
Bill Vermillion
 
Posts: n/a
Default Ripping Vinyl to the computer?

In article .com,
Mike Rivers wrote:

CyberSurfer wrote:
I've got a bunch of old LP's that I want to rip into either MP3, or WAV
format on my computer. I'm using XP pro, and an onboard sound card. No sound
editing software other than MS sound recorder, which sucks...
What software would be good for doing what I want to do?


Well, first of all, the term "rip" suggests file transfer, and there
are no files to transfer on an LP. You have to play the record and
record it in real time. To answer your actual question, I'd recommend
Audacity. It's free for the downloading and it works well. Let your
fingers do the walking.


Now, you need a way to play the records, and you need a way to get a
line level signal into your sound card. This requires a turntable and
some sort of amplifier with RIAA equalization. The cheap solution, if
you don't have any of that, is to buy a turntable and a receiver cheap
at a thrift shop or yard sale. A better solution is to get a high
quality turntable and RIAA preamplifer. The quality of your vinyl
playback will be the most significant link in the chain. Unless you're
willing to spend several hundred dollars it won't be better than
whatever sound card you have so you don't have to worry about replacing
your computer's audio hardware yet.


And depending on what you are transfering - eg really high quality
LP, or regular LPs [eg no direct disk, etc] I've been using
a turntable that is targeted to DJ's - and it has 78RPM speed - and
I have a lot of those too.

It's a Stanton ST-150 - that cost me $419 with shipping with
cartridge and with a built-in preamp that also has an SPDIF output
that goes directly to my audio card. The really interesting thing
about this TT is that the variable pitch control also has a button
called key-lock - so when you press that you can vary the turntable
speed but the pitch remains the same. I've used it to make
some things that I felt were cut at the wrong tempo sound better.

The Stanton cartridge that comes with it rides high compared to
the high end carts that seem like they want to hug the vinyl.
This makes it easy for wet-playing as the fluids won't wick up.

The best price I got was from djdeals.com - and the price may have
gone up - but you need to email for the current best price.

I only have about 5000 more 45s to go before I start pawing through
the 78s - most of which were never important enough to transfer
to the early LP days let alone anything newer.

Bill

Bill

I will warn you, though, that it's a very time consuming process.
Figure on at least two hours per disk unless you want to do a real
slapdash job. Will you live long eough to transfer your collection? Is
it really worth the time? Or are you just looking at picking out a few
favorite albums?



--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com