I am interested in archiving 100+ LPs (mostly stereo) to CD, using the best
(non-esoteric) process and technology available. CDs must be compatible
with any consumer or audiophile player.

Which brings me to seek advice on two topics:

1) Services for LP to CD transfer are offered by a number of people on the
Web. Can anyone recommend (from personal experience) a specific vendor? Or
a good line of questioning to zero in on a competent provider?

2) Do-It-Myself is a viable option; but I am not familiar with CD creation
technology. What are the tradeoffs of creating CDs with PC vs. a pro-audio
disk recorder like the Alesis ML-9600? Where can I learn more?

Thanks for any pointers or suggestions.

If you prefer to respond by email, please send to:

Ron at AvidListener dot com

In article ,
Ron Rathe wrote:
I am interested in archiving 100+ LPs (mostly stereo) to CD, using the best

I did a search of the Internet (Google) and found quite a bit of information
on this. Some sound cards come with software for this purpose. I just
wanted to create a CD with a few tracks on it for my daughter's history
class which was covering the Harlem Renaissance (original music was on
78's, I copied them from a 1960's LP, so looking for state-of-the art
transfers would have been silly). I wound up using a $35 SB PCI Live
5.1 card (recent version), Roxio CD burning software, and a shareware
package for digitizing the audio and breaking the LP into tracks
(Sound Edit? - can't boot the system it's on right now). Only problem was
that the output from the turntable/MC cart/MC transformer/preamp was not
enough to be able to full drive the sound card.

Mike Squires
--

Mike Squires (mikes at cs.indiana.edu) 317 233 9456 (w) 812 333 6564 (h)
mikes at siralan.org 546 N Park Ridge Rd., Bloomington, IN 47408

On 14 Oct 2003 17:58:26 GMT, "Ron Rathe"
wrote:

I am interested in archiving 100+ LPs (mostly stereo) to CD, using the best
(non-esoteric) process and technology available. CDs must be compatible
with any consumer or audiophile player.

Which brings me to seek advice on two topics:

1) Services for LP to CD transfer are offered by a number of people on the
Web. Can anyone recommend (from personal experience) a specific vendor? Or
a good line of questioning to zero in on a competent provider?

i'd be kinda scared of shipping LPs off to someone else.

2) Do-It-Myself is a viable option; but I am not familiar with CD creation
technology. What are the tradeoffs of creating CDs with PC vs. a pro-audio
disk recorder like the Alesis ML-9600? Where can I learn more?

if you get a good sound card (see
http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/index.htm), it's easier to do it on
a PC. you can trim off the lead in/lead out, intertrack gaps, and if
you want, run pop-reduction software to get rid of any noise from
scratches or vinyl defects.

i'm using a sony DAT walkman (does duty as a recorder and portable
playback), and then i play the DAT tapes into my sound card via SPDIF,
and write CDs/create MP3s from that.
--
// scott drysdale //
// amigas and panheads and guns, oh my!

On 15 Oct 2003 03:14:08 GMT, (Michael Squires)
wrote:

I wound up using a $35 SB PCI Live
5.1 card (recent version), Roxio CD burning software, and a shareware
package for digitizing the audio and breaking the LP into tracks
(Sound Edit? - can't boot the system it's on right now). Only problem was
that the output from the turntable/MC cart/MC transformer/preamp was not
enough to be able to full drive the sound card.

i'm using an SB live also, but not using the analog input because the
DAT deck has an overload indicator and an easy-to-adjust input level
knob, so i can easily adjust to minimize or eliminate digital
overloads. i saw no good overload indicator in the creative labs
software.

also the computer is about 20 feet from the stereo, which i think is
kinda far for line level stuff, increasing the chances for picking up
noise.

and (not a problem here) it's easy to get ground-loop hum at the sound
card's analog input if the computer and stereo aren't on the same AC
circuit.

--
// scott drysdale //
// amigas and panheads and guns, oh my!

It depends on where you want to play your newly created CDs. If the answer
is on the computer, then the answers you get from others are good advice.
But if you want to play the CD on a standard sound system, it may not play
computer-generated audio files, like WAV, MP3, or WMA files. Music CDs use
CDA files, which I think are really just headers for the actual audio files.
Converting to a computer audio file and then back to a standard CD audio
file will probably involve losses from the format conversion.

If you want to make CDs that play on most stand-alone music systems, a
dedicated audio recorder is probably easier. It can be hooked up to your
stereo system where your turntable is located.

Vade Forrester

"Ron Rathe" wrote in message
...
I am interested in archiving 100+ LPs (mostly stereo) to CD, using the
best
(non-esoteric) process and technology available. CDs must be compatible
with any consumer or audiophile player.

Which brings me to seek advice on two topics:

1) Services for LP to CD transfer are offered by a number of people on the
Web. Can anyone recommend (from personal experience) a specific vendor?
Or
a good line of questioning to zero in on a competent provider?

2) Do-It-Myself is a viable option; but I am not familiar with CD creation
technology. What are the tradeoffs of creating CDs with PC vs. a
pro-audio
disk recorder like the Alesis ML-9600? Where can I learn more?

Thanks for any pointers or suggestions.

If you prefer to respond by email, please send to:

Ron at AvidListener dot com

On 19 Oct 2003 16:03:35 GMT, "fandango"
wrote:

It depends on where you want to play your newly created CDs. If the answer
is on the computer, then the answers you get from others are good advice.
But if you want to play the CD on a standard sound system, it may not play
computer-generated audio files, like WAV, MP3, or WMA files. Music CDs use
CDA files, which I think are really just headers for the actual audio files.
Converting to a computer audio file and then back to a standard CD audio
file will probably involve losses from the format conversion.

If you want to make CDs that play on most stand-alone music systems, a
dedicated audio recorder is probably easier. It can be hooked up to your
stereo system where your turntable is located.

Well, yes and no. Most computer CD burners come with software that
will convert .wav and .mp3 files to CDA files that will play on
anything, and I haven't been able to find any evidence that this
induces loss of data. Having said that, a dedicated audio recorder IS
easier to use for LP recording.

Also, many DVD players will play .mp3 files from CD-R's. I have two
of them, both el-cheapo boxes from the Chinese manufacturer Apex.

Mark Howell

In article ,
Mark Howell wrote:

If you want to make CDs that play on most stand-alone music systems, a
dedicated audio recorder is probably easier. It can be hooked up to your
stereo system where your turntable is located.

Well, yes and no. Most computer CD burners come with software that
will convert .wav and .mp3 files to CDA files that will play on
anything, and I haven't been able to find any evidence that this
induces loss of data.

If a .WAV contains audio data which matches the CD Audio standard
(44100 samples per second, linear PCM, 16 bits per sample, two
channels), then the conversion to CD format is trivial and causes no
loss of data at all.

If the .WAV contains data in any other format, then it's likely to
require conversion, and thus modification of the data. This is likely
to have some effect on the sound - how much will depend on the
original format, and on the quality of the conversion software.
Dithering and requantization, sample-rate conversion, and most other
conversions can be done very well, or very badly, or somewhere in
between.

With .MP3 files, the issues are a bit different. In this case, one
could say that the loss of quality has _already_ occurred (when the
original audio signal was run through the lossy MP3 compression) and
is now inevitable - you can't get back any portions of the original
signal which weren't encoded. MP3 compression software differs quite
a lot in quality, and MP3 conversions at different bit rates likewise
differ in quality.

That being said - an MP3 which is converted back to 44100/16/2 CD
format, and then burned to a CD-R, ought to sound identical to the
same MP3 played back in real time.

Having said that, a dedicated audio recorder IS
easier to use for LP recording.

For a straight 1:1 capture, yes. If you want to de-noise/de-click the
data, add track and index markers with any real degree of precision,
etc., then a computer burning solution is likely to be easier.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!