I see those Ion turntables out there for less than $100 and I’m getting tempted.
I know they’re not for audiophiles, but do they do the job relatively painlessly?
Has anyone attempted a large-scale conversion? I imagine it might get annoying as hell after a couple dozen lps? Or not?
Have you completed or abandoned your project?
I’ve done maybe 40 or 50 songs from various LPs, stuff that’s not available otherwise, but in no way do I have the patience to do this systematically for hundreds or thousands of songs. Even if you do whole sides of records, you still need to listen while you’re recording, and unlike ripping CDs the whole process unfolds in real time. I found it fun at first but it starts seeming like work after a couple of hours. That a large number of songs have skips doesn’t help things (more careful people will not have this problem). Maybe this just means I’m lazy.
I’m using my old turntable and USB input device that someone gave me, so I have nothing to add about those special turntables.
I’ve done many of them, using my old turntable from the 70s, a special pre-amp, and software called “Clean.” (the pre-amp came with the software, by the way.) It does a good job of de-hissing and de-crackling, and automatically creating separate track listings.
Yes, it works in real time, but if you are sitting there working on your computer and listening to music anyway, you only have to interact with the process for a few mouse-clicks every 20 minutes or so. The mp3 files sound fabulous, by the way.
I got one for Christmas last year but have never used that function… makes a nice record player though.
I did it, but without one of those record players. I got a little thing that has an audio jack in and an usb connector out, plus software. It did a very good job, after I got it to work, and more importantly for me, let me convert my 30 year old cassette tapes which were made from 8 year old reel to reel tapes. This was only $50, and as I had a phonograph already was a much better solution.
Yes, it is a pain, but it is worth it. The records were in good shape, but the noise suppression software made the tapes sound much better than they sounded in my cassette deck. I had been looking for one for years (even started a thread about it) and so was very happy to get er done.
My non-Doper husband bids me tell you that yes, he’s done it, forty-seven LPs so far, and yes, it can feel like work after a few hours but it’s totally worth it because listening to your thirty-year old vinyls in the car rocks. He’s used the same software to rip mp3s out of old cassettes and even music from our wedding video onto CDs for me.
We feel better listening to the old stuff on mp3 or burned CD and not worrying about wearing out or damaging out-of-print vinyls or ancient cassettes, too. It’s a great way to get back in touch with music you might have once loved but haven’t listened to much lately.
He never set out with the goal of converting every single piece of music we own into mp3 format, it’s just been something he’s enjoyed tinkering with for a few hours each week. He’s still happily converting a year and a half after the original purchase, so not too tired of it yet.
Quoth the husband “Once you have it, you’ll find all kinds of uses for it.”
Yes, I have a USB turntable that works great. I have done about 20 LPs and don’t bother dividing the songs so I get two mp3s to an album.
So which brands/models have worked for you? The reviews of USB turntables on Amazon have been spotty–a couple of the ION-like models have had users screaming NOT to buy them.
My experience was more or less like this.
I have an MP3 boombox with line-in recording capability, and I’ve taken it over to my mom’s place to hook it up with her turntable and her old collection of records (many of which were my Dad’s.) I’ve probably recorded five or six whole albums this way - a classic Flanders and Swann that was never put on CD, and some musical theater soundtracks that I could probably find if I tried hard enough, but I had a sentimental attachment to the vinyl arrangements. Try to hit the record button off and on to start a new file when a new number begins on the record, but if I forget the MP3 can always get split later using a software tool.
Can it be split lossless? Or will you have to decode the MP3, perform the split, and then re-encode? Because I know how to do the latter, but not the former.
With the USB turntable, will it automatically split an entire side of an LP into separate MP3 files, one for each song?
Or do I have to do that manually somehow?
I don’t really know how the mechanics of it work internally, but I don’t need to follow those three steps myself. I was going to say that the software does it all in one, but it doesn’t really, it does a ‘trim function,’ so what I do to split a longer MP3 file into two tracks at the 3:52 mark is this:
I use MP3 tag studio: http://www.magnusbrading.com/mp3ts/ And I have never noticed a loss in MP3 quality from doing trims, even when the final output file has been trimmed a half-dozen times in succession. (Which has happened because I just left the boombox recording an entire cassette side and split it all up with the MP3 tag studio.)