Has anybody here successfully converted their vinyl LP and cassette music collection to digital? If so, what was involved and what did you use? Were you happy with the results?
Converting LPs & Cassettes to Digital
- Thread starter ExoticSpirit
- Start date
I have started to convert some of my old LP's using a small box I ordered from TigerDirect.ca. It cost about $50 but you need a turntable (obviously) and at least a pre-amp. It is somewhat time consuming but the results are quite good. I think it really depends on how much time you put into doing the setup and editing.
If you have a good size collection you could always invest in a USB turntable like this one...http://www.acclaim-music.com/live/product.php?productid=4268&cat=131&page=1
It comes with software to rip your albums to digital.
For tape cassettes you would need something like this...http://goshopping.thestar.com/shop/product--catId_1001105__locale_en__productId_6512982.html
There are also combo players which include cd burners that will burn your tapes or vinyl directly to cd which you can then rip to mp3 using your favorite software. Or you could always rig up something with your existing turntable and a separate pre-amp and input it through your soundcard.
I guess it depends on how much money you want to spend. Personally I prefer to just download via torrent. It's a lot easier and it's free.
Techman
It comes with software to rip your albums to digital.
For tape cassettes you would need something like this...http://goshopping.thestar.com/shop/product--catId_1001105__locale_en__productId_6512982.html
There are also combo players which include cd burners that will burn your tapes or vinyl directly to cd which you can then rip to mp3 using your favorite software. Or you could always rig up something with your existing turntable and a separate pre-amp and input it through your soundcard.
I guess it depends on how much money you want to spend. Personally I prefer to just download via torrent. It's a lot easier and it's free.
Techman
It sounds odd to invest in some of that USB equipment like the turntable just to do my conversion and never to use it again, even though it's not terribly expensive.Techman said:
I've never used torrent before. How do I use it? Is there a FAQ page somewhere?
This is a bit tough if what you have on vinyl has been out-of-print since well before your favorite SP was born.Techman said:
I bought this guy from Amazon last month for under $100. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UKUDSE
It comes with software, Audacity, but I only use that to record. I'm using Final Vinyl to chop the sides into individual tracks. I'm sure Audacity can do that as well, but FV is considerably easier. Both Audacity and Final Vinyl are easily found for download online.
Other than the time it takes to record the album in real time, chopping the files into individual tracks, naming them, importing them into iTunes, and converting the wav files to mp3 takes well under 5 minutes.
I'm really not much of a help when it comes to Mac apps but I'm sure that they have pretty much equivalent software available for this. You can check here for Mac software that you can download using a torrent client. Chances are that you will find something that will do the job.
http://www.rlslog.net/category/applications/mac/
When it comes to torrent, I have made a few posts on MERB about how to use it. Just to a search on the board for torrent and you will find the threads. Again, I'm not really Mac aware but there are torrent clients available for the Mac platform. Once you have a torrent client installed, finding music is very easy. Just use a decent torrent search site such as www.activedots.com and do a search for your favorite artist. You can find entire collections for just about any artist you can think of.
Techman
http://www.rlslog.net/category/applications/mac/
When it comes to torrent, I have made a few posts on MERB about how to use it. Just to a search on the board for torrent and you will find the threads. Again, I'm not really Mac aware but there are torrent clients available for the Mac platform. Once you have a torrent client installed, finding music is very easy. Just use a decent torrent search site such as www.activedots.com and do a search for your favorite artist. You can find entire collections for just about any artist you can think of.
Techman
rumpleforeskiin said:This is a bit tough if what you have on vinyl has been out-of-print since well before your favorite SP was born.
you would be surprised what you can find out there. People rip everything to MP3 for download. I've downloaded some stuff that was definately ripped from vinyl due to the pops and scratches in it.
http://www.komodoisland.net/forum/index.php?&CODE=00
and
http://rockbits.proboards31.com/
The above links are two sites that have a lot of rare and old music and videos available for download. You never know what you can find unless you know where to look for it.
Techman
torrent
Okay, I've been reading a bit more about this torrent thing. How long does it normally take to download a complete music album? And if that community suggests that I should also do my part in sharing files, does this mean that I have to leave my computer on 24/7?
Okay, I've been reading a bit more about this torrent thing. How long does it normally take to download a complete music album? And if that community suggests that I should also do my part in sharing files, does this mean that I have to leave my computer on 24/7?
I don't believe so, but it does require you to expose your hard drive to outside sources.ExoticSpirit said:
ExoticSpirit said:
It depends on a variety of factors...the number of people 'seeding' the file, the size of the file and the speed of your internet connection. A well seeded album of about 75 to 100 MB in size might download in as little as 10 minutes. Downloading a complete discography that is a few gigabytes in size could take days depending on the above factors.
If you are downloading through a membership torrent site or a private tracker, it is usually required that you upload at least an equal amount of data as you download. If not, you will be prevented from downloading until your ratio gets back up to around 1:1. Downloading from links found on search sites such as activedots or releaselog have no upload requirements.
rumpleforeskiin said:
Not really. The only thing that anyone can access using torrent is the particular file they are downloading. They can't browse your drive for anything else or have access to any other data via a torrent client connection.
Techman
If your LPs are good for collection or you're talking about classical music with recordings done in the 50's and 60's with the best recording labels than I suggest you keep them. No CD and certainly no Mp3 format will ever give u the quality of your LPs. Like Maria said.
Also some bozos even re-mastered some original recordings base on the fact that they took some idiot-sound technical courses without knowing anything about music and ended-up scrapping some of the best recording performances which you can't find anymore even if you spend K jours on Ebay to find them.
But if you're talking about anything like pop music, rock or whatever you will find everything by torrent or even on Itunes types of music store on the net that are starting to have quite an impressive numbers of recordings to offer.
Also some bozos even re-mastered some original recordings base on the fact that they took some idiot-sound technical courses without knowing anything about music and ended-up scrapping some of the best recording performances which you can't find anymore even if you spend K jours on Ebay to find them.
But if you're talking about anything like pop music, rock or whatever you will find everything by torrent or even on Itunes types of music store on the net that are starting to have quite an impressive numbers of recordings to offer.
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