vinyl to hard drive

[toage]

how complicated is it to copy records to hard drive.

 

[sickofsoyo]

not very, run a line to your computer and plug it in the line in jack, open up a program to record from the line in jack, and then just play the record.

 

[kitchenshark]

I don't imagine it'd be very hard. anything that will hook your sound card up to the output of your record player and a piece of sound recording software would work.

However...if you want it to work well, you'd have to do some research.

I use Acoustica (free to try, like $25 to buy) and it's pretty good. I'm no audiophile though, so I'm not too picky. The program is probably too powerful for what I do but you can fiddle with all sorts of stuff with the tracks you record. I just plug a jack into my soundcard input and the other end into whatever output I want to record from. You might want to look into a soundcard built for recording external sources though.

 

[sickofsoyo]

yeah, an X-FI has analog inputs, but there are others that are prob even better... E-MU for example. Make sure the line is grounded with either a ground-loop isolator, or the player is ground to the outlet to prevent that buzz. My record player emits a very loud buzz when not grounded properly.

 

[naughty]

not very, run a line to your computer and plug it in the line in jack, open up a program to record from the line in jack, and then just play the record.

not so simple as you state IMHO - you need some type of phono stage to plug in the turntable to the soundcard since turntables have a different output impedance

the phono stage can be a small dedicated unit just for that purpose - or you could plug the turntable into a pre-amplifier or integrated amplifier that has a phono stage and then plug in the auxillary output into the soundcard since that impedance will match the sound card input impedance as well as ensure that the RIAA equalisation is matched (no not that RIAA :lol: )

to put it into more perspective and explain it better than i can heres a few quotes and links

To record an LP onto a computer will require a phono-stage circuit with RIAA equalization. Going directly from the cartridge to the soundcard will not produce a correct signal. Either use a stereo receiver with a phono circuit, or the phono stage premplifier described further down the page.

source

This isn't from any particular reader, but rather a composite of dozens and dozens of e-mails I've been getting lately. This type of letter has become so common that it may even surpass requests for cartridge-turntable matches, which still happen almost daily, despite my pleas in Dude, Where's My Cartridge? Of course, the red flag in the above statement, if you haven't noticed yet, is "auxiliary jack." You cannot plug a turntable into just any pair of jacks on the back of your receiver or preamp. As I've mentioned before, signals from a phonograph (there's a term I haven't used before) have to be equalized in order to sound right. This equalization, called RIAA equalization, is inserted during the recording process, and has to be decoded by your receiver or preamp. In the old days, before the advent of the little silver discs, this was a no-brainer, because every receiver and preamp had a position on the selector knob marked "phono." That was your phono preamp, just a printed circuit board or similar doo-dad stuffed somewhere deep within the viscera of your amp. You never saw it, you never thought about it, and things were great.

This all changed when CD's came along, and everyone started selling off their albums and their turntables and their souls. Manufacturers started realizing that not everyone wanted a phono section anymore, and that they could save money by simply excluding it. That's when I first heard the term "line stage" and "line preamplifier," which pretty much meant a preamp without a phono stage. Line preamps started becoming more and more popular, and "full-function" preamps became increasingly scarce. Some people hastily bought line stages, thinking that it was okay since they didn't really listen to LP's much anymore. Then the Vinyl Renaissance came along, and these people felt left out. That's when the market for outboard phono preamps really began to take off.

source

so the buzz you are experiencing is due to not having a good enough phono stage IMHO - this begs the question as to whether your recordings come out decent enough - with records that are of a decent quality - mine are averagely decent - but with the old school stuff that i listen to it just isnt possible to always have great condition vinyl to record from - but i get by - just havent found a perfect bit of software to declick and remove pops and crackles ie to clean it all up properly without losing too much sound quality

nevertheless with the correct equipment and software its easy enough to do - just do some google searches on it and get a better idea of how to do it and then ask questions on specific points that are bothering you

heres a few links from google to help give you a start

heres one link to explain

heres another one

yet another link to try

good luck and have fun - and more importantly when you have your old classics on cd enjoy listening to them

 

[kitchenshark]

Wow. Thanks for the info! Even though I'm not the OP, I'm grateful for your instruction. Heh...guess I never really knew because I don't have anything on records. >.<

Anyhow, next time anyone else needs the info for recording from records I'll be better informed. Thanks again.