[Lenny B]

I have a rather large collection of LP records that I seldom listen to
anymore. Now that I have a decent computer, I would like to copy these
records to CDs so I can play them in my truck or home CD/DVD player.

I am using Windows XP home with a sound card, I bought an appropriate cable
to connect the turntable to the sound card and I downloaded Audacity. What
is the next step? The technical info seems easy enough to figure out but I
need the recipe to actually do the work.

Any help available out there?

Thanks in advance,

Len Baxter -

[Matt Ion]

Lenny B wrote:
I have a rather large collection of LP records that I seldom listen to
anymore. Now that I have a decent computer, I would like to copy these
records to CDs so I can play them in my truck or home CD/DVD player.

I am using Windows XP home with a sound card, I bought an appropriate cable
to connect the turntable to the sound card and I downloaded Audacity. What
is the next step? The technical info seems easy enough to figure out but I
need the recipe to actually do the work.

Any help available out there?

Thanks in advance,

Len Baxter -

What is this "appropriate extension cable"? Does it include a preamp? Your
turntable's output will be extremely low-level, and LPs are recorded with a
pretty severe equalization curve... a suitable preamp is needed to boost the
level and apply the proper equalization to bring the sound back to "normal."

Aside from that, I'd say you're pretty well set. Make sure Audacity is set to
record at 44.1kHz, 16-bit stereo, as that's the CD spec. Save your recording as
a WAV file and you can import it straight into whatever CD-burning software you use.

[Geoff]

Lenny B wrote:
I have a rather large collection of LP records that I seldom listen to
anymore. Now that I have a decent computer, I would like to copy
these records to CDs so I can play them in my truck or home CD/DVD
player.
I am using Windows XP home with a sound card, I bought an appropriate
cable to connect the turntable to the sound card and I downloaded
Audacity. What is the next step? The technical info seems easy
enough to figure out but I need the recipe to actually do the work.

Any help available out there?

Thanks in advance,

Len Baxter -

You will need a stereo with a phono pramp (or a stand-alone phono preamp).,
fed into you sound card Line In.

Then you need an applciation to record theLP into the computer, and
hopefully edit the track numbers, normalise the levels, and burn the CD.
There are many.

But if you try doing one, the buy a CD of the same, you may no feel inclined
to do you LPs this way. Used CD stores are a far more satisfactory way of
getting quality music at economical proces, IMO...

geoff

[Laurence Payne]

On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 23:36:24 -0400, "Lenny B" wrote:

I have a rather large collection of LP records that I seldom listen to
anymore. Now that I have a decent computer, I would like to copy these
records to CDs so I can play them in my truck or home CD/DVD player.

I am using Windows XP home with a sound card, I bought an appropriate cable
to connect the turntable to the sound card and I downloaded Audacity. What
is the next step? The technical info seems easy enough to figure out but I
need the recipe to actually do the work.

What's the "appropriate cable"? Does it include a preamp with the
necessary equalisation?

Is there a Line In socket on your soundcard? Mic In is not suitable.
(Some built-in soundcards are just not good enough, period. But,
unless this is a laptop, let's not worry about that yet.)

Connect everything up, play a record, press Record on Audacity.
Anything happen? If not, we can start looking for problems.

Once suitable connections are made, the key to quality recording is
getting the levels right. Do you have any way of adjusting the level
into your soundcard? A small mixer is very useful. You can get one
with Phono inputs for direct connection of a turntable.

Perhaps you're running the turntable into your hi-fi amplifier, then
from Line Out (or Tape Out etc.) to the soundcard. This takes care of
the preamping, but probably not the level matching.