I’m trying to record from a turntable with a built-in preamp to my PC’s line-in.
The problem is that no matter how low I turn the levels down on the PC, the input is hitting 0db and the recorded wave is ending up with quite a bit of clipping.
Any ideas as to what I could do to fix this?
best bet is to go through another amp - it’s a pain, but will give you more control
Would the fact that the turntable’s amp would be on as well once it’s hooked-up to a separate amp be an issue?
Yeah, you’re best off going through a secondary amp. Most turntables will just belt out audio at full volume, relying on the amp or receiver and EQ in the rest of the stereo system to modulate the levels. I had to do this a few years back when I converted some of my old (well, 80s-old) vinyl to MP3 since I had a lotta stuff that never saw the light of laser. Without the amp as an intermediary and filter the resulting recordings sounded like complete crap – whether because of clipping due to high volume or loss of dynamic range due to really low volume. (The volume slider on the sound card’s control panel just wasn’t granular enough to provide a happy medium) Playing through an amp greatly enhanced the sound and provided good control over volume levels and equalisation such that only minimal post-processing in Sound Forge was required, and most of that was just to eliminate table rumble and clicks 'n pops.