Recommendations for converting LPs to .MP3?

stockhausen

stockhausen

stockhausen

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My (elderly) neighbour has a vast collection of LPs; he also has a Technics SL1200 turntable, a Technics Amp and some speakers. He has asked me for advice on converting and recording some of his favourite LPs via the Amp to a PC.

The Amp has no USB outputs, just RCA Phono sockets to input from / output to a tape recorder which I believe it should be possible to connect to the PC input using a 3.5mm stereo plug.

I have no idea how to get this to work or what software to use - ideally to split the tracks into individual files. Has anyone here done this and can you help please?
 
I used to do this but I had a mixer that my decks where connected to then in the spare mixer output I plugged an AV to Jack cable connected to the line in on the PC sound card (you can find these on google) and then I used a bit of software called Goldwave to record the audio as it played, you can use audacity as well.

It takes a long time as you have to have to be sat there the entire time and record each song one at a time.
 
My Father tried this years ago with an 'ION U Record' which converts phono or line-level to USB. I don't know how much luck he had with it, and he's not around to ask.

https://www.ionaudio.com/u-record-urecord

There're several on eBay at the moment such as

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ION-U-Re...704819?hash=item2ae9a7a633:g:xd4AAOSwjdRez80L

I've realised that it was stuck in one of my desk drawers. Windows 10 recognises it and automatically installs it as an 'USB Audio CODEC' so there's a good chance it's capable of working with a modern OS.
 
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First, while it's possible, it will be extremely laborious and the quality of the recordings will be vastly inferior compared to sourcing digital recordings.

That said, if you've got time on your hands and want a project, there are worse things to do than listening to your entire record collection.

You can start by trying a pre-out from the amplifier and wiring to the mic input to the PC and tinkering with the levels and see what you can get out. Probably noisy and bad though, some kind of ADC usb device is probably simpler and likely some around with software for cleaning pops and scratches.
 
Nitefly said:
Sorry for the dick post but ... Apple Music / Spotify?
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In what way will this address his requirements?

I have located the Behringer UFO202 which is available from the "Tree" place and appears to be produced by a fairly professional outfit.

I have warned him that this is going to take a lot of time but he says that he can spare the time and he has some LPs that will fetch quite a bit on the open market - his choice I guess \shrug\
 
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stockhausen said:
In what way will this address his requirements?
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I assume he's suggesting the possibility of listening to whatever music he has on vinyl using Spotify etc. That is assuming of course that the music he has is on there. :p

Anyway; for what the UFO202 costs, then he'll almost certainly get better results with that than using the 'line-in' on the motherboard, which can be hit and miss when it comes to quality.

Audacity might be good software to use, as it's free. Not something I've used myself, so no idea how easy it will be if the person in question is not good with computers in general. Guide linked below will help, but if he really needs something as easy as click one thing to start recording, might have to look around for something a bit simpler. I imagine there are, but like when it comes to video conversion, simple doesn't necessarily means it's going to be good software. :p

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-digitize-vinyl-records
 
Marsman said:
I assume he's suggesting the possibility of listening to whatever music he has on vinyl using Spotify etc. That is assuming of course that the music he has is on there. :p

Anyway; for what the UFO202 costs, then he'll almost certainly get better results with that than using the 'line-in' on the motherboard, which can be hit and miss when it comes to quality.

Audacity might be good software to use, as it's free. Not something I've used myself, so no idea how easy it will be if the person in question is not good with computers in general. Guide linked below will help, but if he really needs something as easy as click one thing to start recording, might have to look around for something a bit simpler. I imagine there are, but like when it comes to video conversion, simple doesn't necessarily means it's going to be good software. :p

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-digitize-vinyl-records
Click to expand...
Thanks for that; I agree about the Behringer UFO202 which has USB output but it seems not to be in stock until late August - still probably worth the wait. As I mentioned earlier he believes that some of his LPs are very rare and worth something to collectors - probably particularly during the current lockdown ;)

I have used Audacity in the past; so far as I know it doesn't have a built-in function to split tracks, nor does it have any sort of interface to a track identification database like CDDB.
 
stockhausen said:
In what way will this address his requirements?

I have located the Behringer UFO202 which is available from the "Tree" place and appears to be produced by a fairly professional outfit.

I have warned him that this is going to take a lot of time but he says that he can spare the time and he has some LPs that will fetch quite a bit on the open market - his choice I guess \shrug\
Click to expand...
I assume you told him that he has to delete the Rips when he sells the albums ;)
 
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