What is the cheapest/easiest method to create MP3's out of vinyl records?

I don't own a turntable anymore.

I found one online for about $140.00 that supposedly can connect right to your PC via a USB port. http://www.amazon.com/gp/...25-2459039

Does anyone have any suggestions or recomendations?

That's what I am looking into doing as well

luv4u said:

Let's see if anyone can edumacate us.

Buy TOTAL RECORDER. It's only around $12. All you have to do is hook up your stereo to your computer with one cable.


M

PurpleJedi said:

I have an audio burner by Philips that you can burn LP's and Cassettes to CD's then you can do with the cd what we all do....save it to your computer.

you could ask karmatornado. i think he does this quite a bit

You shouldn't do that !

mp3 is comprimised audio

You'd better convert it to cd

(even tho that's inferior to vinyl too)

Dewrede said:

yeah why dont u just buy a turntable and enjoy your vinyl the way it is supposed to sound

u can now get turntable with a usb socket on them. it automatically converts yor vinyl to mp3

Dewrede said:

I´ve heard this many times before but what exactly is the difference ? By the way, I only have a crappy old plastic Pioneer T4P-needle turntable anyway, so maybe I can even improve the sound once it is transferred to MP3 ?

I loves my vinyl..

KoolEaze said:

mp3 is a 'lossy' format, in other words the samples per second is less than that of cda (cd audio), so when you record to mp3 format you're losing some of the sound.

I can't speak for young 'uns with good hearing, but for me there's no audible difference between an mp3 recording at 256kbps (or even at 128kbps) and a cda recording. But then I am half deaf.

As far as improving the sound of an mp3 - you can do a bit a tweaking to try improve the sound, but once you record to a lossy format like mp3 you've already lost audio information and you can't get that back.


To PurpleJedi : If you're looking for the cheapest (although not necessarily the best) method - just buy a turntable, you can then connect directly from the headphone output on the turntable (most turntables have one) to the microphone or audio in port on your sound card. A free program such as Audacity (downloadable from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) can then be used to record - or you can possibly even use something like WMP - I wouldn't know as I don't use it. It's a while since I used Audacity so I can't remember if you can record directly to mp3 format with it or if you need an additional plugin to do that, but you can certainly record to wav format and then use a conversion tool to convert from wav to mp3.

However, I do quite a bit of vinyl ripping (and cassette ripping, and old 78rpm platter ripping from an ancient wind-up turntable) and I can tell you that vinyl ripping is my most hated, pain-in-the-arse, computer related task. If you've got the money to spend on anything that makes this task easier then I would recommend you spend it. Vinyl ripping is not fun.

eraclito said

Even if you're the most careful person in the world, with the best turntable available, vinyl still gets scratched (at least mine does ) so it ends up not sounding the way it's supposed to sound.

my mixes i post here are in mp3 format and from vinyl, and they sound good as hell. but then again i love the sound of vinyl

3121 said:

It's about time!

"Digitize me, Fred!"

eraclito said:

do you know of anywhere that sells a good belt clip for turntables? because i listen to music a lot on the bus/train, and my turntable keeps falling out of my coat pocket.

Anx said:

Thanks 4 all of your advice.

I don't currently own a turntable (got rid of my piece-of-crap years ago and never replaced it). So maybe I'll just go for the unit with the USB port and save myself some headaches.