OT: Vinyl LPs to MP3 transfer

[Seymore4Head]

When I said Usenet, I meant Usenet. (binary)

Recording off Youtube was just another suggestion.

Pre recorded songs are pretty easy to find. Albums, not so much.

[Dan Espen]

One thing I'm completely sure of, I'll never play music from a turntable again.

Now I press a two key combination on my keyboard and music plays. Wireless speakers send the music out to the backyard and MP3 CDs put it in my car.

No more letting down the arm, listening to 5 or 6 tracks by the same artist, and flipping the record to hear the other side.

I used Audacity to remove the scratches and clicks and I'm done with vinyl.

[Dan Espen]

FLAC works on Linux and Windows. When you record, you get wave. FLAC is loss less and takes less space than WAV. So, you can convert back and forth WAVFLAC and you don't loose anything.

Perhaps the artists don't want their IP given away so they prefer MP3 to be used.

If vinyl is better, I can't hear it. One thing I can hear on vinyl are scratches and skips.

I was pretty careful with our hundreds of albums, but a few tracks ended up unplayable.

[Dan Espen]

Beats me.

In my case, I used the needle as is. I was very careful with needles and didn't expect any wear. When I took the turn table out of the attic, the drive belt had shriveled up.

Direct drive my be better, but I suggest lifting the turntable and at least looking at the drive mechanism. Any rubber may be gone.

[Don Phillipson]

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is documented poorly (Audacity not at all) but its menus are clear enough out of the box, and you can decipher the manual (150 pp.) if you have the patience. Cost $40-$60 I think.

[Dan Espen]

I have so many, I'd probably need to make many trips. I know some of them are badly scratched.

Maybe I'll stop in to one of these places and see. I hate waste.

[Terry Coombs]

Actually , if you know where to look albums are very easy to find . Look up kickass torrents , pirate bay , or another torrent site . I've downloaded dozens of albums so I'd have a digital copy of stuff I already own on vinyl or tape . My preferred download client is utorrent , simple interface and easy to use .

[Dan Espen]

For Audacity, a simple Google search is more than enough documentation. When I wanted to do the track splitting, I did a search. Worked for me.

I believe Audacity has documentation, but the online how tos are sometimes what you need.

[Terry Coombs]

No rubber in most direct drive TT's . They use a synchronous motor and the turntable is mounted to the motor shaft .

[David Martel]

Terry,

There may be rubber shockmounts and other rubber parts. Honestly though those parts seem to last forever whereas the belts do fail. Still, checking these things is wise

Dave M.

[David Martel]

Meanie,

Perfect, that's the sort of pre-amp you need. It will raise the turntable signal up to line level and add some bass EQ

Dave M.

[thekmanrocks]

Also, when you are recording, peak no higher than -6dB on the full-scale meters. This will prevent clipping of the peaks which can distort the sound.

[David Martel]

Meanie,

The shure cartridge will not fit your tone arm well.. Technics experimented with something called the P-mount so your cartridge must fit a P-mount. The stylus is the "needle" of your cartridge. It wears down through playing. A new stylus for your cartridge is $30 here:

Replacing this stylus is quite simple and should require no adjustments to your turntable. Since the game plan is to create mp-3s. Set your turntable up with a level and plug it into yout Pre-amp and then your stereo. See how it sounds on a few records that you are familiar with. Who knows? You may not need a new stylus.

Dave M.

[Meanie]

Good to know. Thanks again.

[Meanie]

Thank you. I'll remember that.

[Meanie]

Turntable is on my desk next to my PC. I set the level on it and surprised that it's already level side to side, front to back. I thought for sure I would need to adjust something. I connected everything and have been playing some of my albums.....with a bit of nostalgic sniffles...lol. TT to preamp and preamp to the "line In" of the sound card. You could hear a few crackles here and there (expected) but overall, sounded good. May still consider a new stylus cause I know this is the original and perhaps it'll help with quality.

Thanks again for the help.

[Meanie]

Yep. Mine have the rubber shock mounted feet and still look good. I had this thing sitting in the attic for so long. After cleaning the dust, it still looks near new.

[gfretwell]

If you are typing here, you have an MP3 player. I am an old geezer, damned near 70 and I was sold on MP3 by 1999. My players were a;; PCs until fairly recently. Any old PC (75 mz or faster) will play MP3s and it plugs right into whatever amp you have. It started because I wanted a jukebox and I found a PC program that does that for me.

This is the interface for my first MP3 PC.

Once I got started, I never wanted to touch another little bit of plastic again. I can carry thousands of songs on a thumb drive and play them just about anywhere.

[gfretwell]

Probably older than you.

[gfretwell]

You boys don't know about the "alt.binaries.sounds.mp3" groups? If it is on vinyl, it is probably out there in a decade group and you usually even get remastered CD recordings unless it is really an obscure song from the 40s or 50s.. Most of the top 40 was remastered onto a CD sometime along the way and gets posted