Recording Vinyl To Mp3

[jchanmc]

Dear all,

 

I am using Roxio 2009. I like to convert many of my old vinyl LP to mp3 and burn to CD. Whatis the best method to achieve best sound quality mp3 at 320K? Do I need any A/D converter to do this? I had tried using Dazzle DVC90 to capture LD to AVI or Mpeg but also failed.

[jchanmc]

Thanks all,

 

Instead of using an amp in between, I make use of the sound card mic in. I would presume these old vinyls may be scratchy. Yes, I know wav is lossless but it's file size is probably 10 times those of mp3. I'll still get pretty good sound quality if encode in 320K.

[d_deweywright]

Thanks all,

 

Instead of using an amp in between, I make use of the sound card mic in. I would presume these old vinyls may be scratchy. Yes, I know wav is lossless but it's file size is probably 10 times those of mp3. I'll still get pretty good sound quality if encode in 320K.

You really don't want to just connect your turntable to your mic in jack for two reasons:

 

1) the mic in jack is probably mono, not stereo

2) you won't have the RIAA equalization curve applied

 

Now, what is the RIAA equalization curve, and why should you care? When a vinyl record is produced, the low frequency sounds are intentionally reduced to help keep the groove from getting too wide. At the same time, the high frequency sounds are increased so that on playback, when they are reduced back to "normal", the hiss from the vinyl is reduced as well. So, without this equalization, your vinyl isn't going to sound too great, not minding the fact it will probably be mono.

 

Something that might fit the bill can be found here. I've never used this particular unit, but it has all the features I would suggest, particularly a gain knob built into it.

 

Hope that helps!

[Jim_Hardin]

You need a Amplifier between your player and the Line In port on your PC.

 

Capture a couple and play with settings to see what suits.

 

[sknis]

Do you have a laptop or desktop? There is a difference since a laptop would only have a Mic input where a desktop would have a line-in input.

 

Read this thread.

 

Best quality is wav format and it is the format for audio CD. mp3 is compressed so some quality is lost and more would be lost if you then convert the mp3 to wav.

 

Are you considering mp3 because of a smaller file size? Buy an external hard drive and capture to it.

 

[jchanmc]

Thank you very much, this is indeed a great advice.

 

 

 

You really don't want to just connect your turntable to your mic in jack for two reasons:

 

1) the mic in jack is probably mono, not stereo

2) you won't have the RIAA equalization curve applied

 

Now, what is the RIAA equalization curve, and why should you care? When a vinyl record is produced, the low frequency sounds are intentionally reduced to help keep the groove from getting too wide. At the same time, the high frequency sounds are increased so that on playback, when they are reduced back to "normal", the hiss from the vinyl is reduced as well. So, without this equalization, your vinyl isn't going to sound too great, not minding the fact it will probably be mono.

 

Something that might fit the bill can be found here. I've never used this particular unit, but it has all the features I would suggest, particularly a gain knob built into it.

 

Hope that helps!

 

[tbrewst]

Sorry to butt in late but I don't see any reason to capture the LP's to mp3 and then turn around and burn them back to an Audio cd.

Like sknis said all you'd accomplish is a quality loss.

 

Now if you're going to make an mp3 disc then that's a different story.Go with the bitrate that makes them sound ok to you.

[d_deweywright]

Sorry to butt in late but I don't see any reason to capture the LP's to mp3 and then turn around and burn them back to an Audio cd.

Like sknis said all you'd accomplish is a quality loss.

 

Now if you're going to make an mp3 disc then that's a different story.Go with the bitrate that makes them sound ok to you.

Oh, definitely, I agree, and should've made some comment accordingly above. Capture as .WAV, make your Audio CD, then make the .MP3 files for "other" use and at that point you can delete the .WAV files. I was just trying to get the original capture done properly.