Vinyl to CD Transfers

[Dave James]

I'm looking to transfer some LP's to CD. I called a place here in town that does this and they said it would cost anywhere from $30.00 to $50.00 per LP depending on the condition of the source material. That seemed a bit steep to me. So, the question is, can one do this at home with acceptable results? If so, could someone give me some guidance as to the equipment that would be necessary, a general idea of the cost of same and maybe a brief primer on how to make this happen? BTW, I have an old belt drive Thorens turntable that works fine, so that's not an issue.

Thanks.

Up over and out.

[Jim Dye]

It's very easy to do at home. I think there is an earlier thread here discussing it.

That Thorens will work just fine. What kind of computer do you have?

[jazzbo]

The easiest, and a very good sounding, option is to buy a Audio cd recorder, which is about as easy to use (and operates in a similar manner) as a cassette tape recorder. Several friends of mine have Harmon Kardon units that they love and that make EXCELLENT transfers; I prefer the sound of some of these lp to cdr trnasfers to the cd releases of the same titles. I have a Philips machine that does a very good job in all aspects except finalizing the cdr; I have perennial problems with that function. It makes very good sounding transfers, the Harmon Kardon just seems to have a little better sound.

[Jim Dye]

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...?showtopic=2589

Here's the link to the previous thread. B)

[Dave James]

Jim and Lon - Thanks for the information. This is just what I needed.

Up over and out.

[A Lark Ascending]

I've had a stand alone Pioneer CD recorder for 18 months and have experienced no trouble at all. I've put alot of vinyl onto CD-R...mainly stuff unlikely to be reissued. You're at the mercy of the quality of your vinyl (in my case it suffers somewhat from having been played on cheaper turntables in the past) but I'm quite happy with it. Apparently you can do noise reduction things but that's too fiddly.

Essentially its as Lon says much like recording a cassette. You just need to read the instructions a bit more carefully to work out the range of options. Worth noting:

1. If you want to play the resulting CD on most CD players you'll have to use CD-R. This is a 'burn once' device. If you make a mistake you'll have to live with it or start a new disc (given how cheap the discs are not a financial problem, but can be a bit time consuming if your record decides to skip in mid-recording!).

2. Getting the tracks numbered can be a bit awkward. The machine can be set to do this automatically. But if you set it too high it doesn't recognise any gaps; too low and it interprets pauses in the music as track changes. I tend to use the manual setting but you have to be alert. More than a few times I've started doing something else, forgotten I'm recording and missed the cue. An egg timer is invaluable!!!!

3. You get a choice for analogue or digital recording. So if you are recording a CD or a track off a CD that is protected you can just switch to manual and it will record. I can't say I've noticed any drop in quality. It's probably there but you probably have to want to hear it.

I don't regret buying it for a minute. I have lots of older OOP albums on disc now. It's nice for making compilations too.

[SEK]

I have a consumer Pioneer CD Recorder too, a PDR-609. It's connected to my 2-channel music system in the living room, which makes it very convenient to record directly from any source. I just wish these machines had been available and affordable a few years earlier.

My experience has been similar to Bev's. I always record from analog sources (tapes, LPs) in manual mode. The resulting recordings from my Pioneer sound much better than from the tape cassette recorders (I've had various Nakamichis) or consumer reel-to-reel tape recorders I had used over many years. That analog warmth is retained, for the most part (unlike with a friend's Phillips CD recorder), but so are all those analog artifacts - groove noises and distortions and those snaps, crackles, and pops. But if I had continued to play those LPs, they would have surely sounded significantly worse by now. And I'm sure that many will never be reissued on any medium.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yup, mine's a PDR-609 too.

[Morganized]

Dave,

In all fairness to the folks that charge for this service, I have a friend that does this and there is a great deal of value added in his case. In addition, he has purchased some pretty expensive software to really do the job right. He takes out the clicks and pops and the result is a disc that sounds better than the original source material.

It sounds like the person you spoke to must do similar things since the quality of the source material was important in setting the price. It can be very time consuming if done right.

Guess it depends on what you are looking for.

[Noj]

Is anyone familiar with how to do this on a Mac? I'd love to burn some of my records to cd for the car.

[rockefeller center]

Is anyone familiar with how to do this on a Mac? I'd love to burn some of my records to cd for the car.

I'm a windows guy and I don't know anything about mac software, but since it's free you may want to check it out:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audi...finalvinyl.html

[Noj]

Thanks a lot RC, looks like I'll need to buy a turntable.

[Brandon Burke]

Is anyone familiar with how to do this on a Mac?  I'd love to burn some of my records to cd for the car.

Sure. You'll need to get some equipment, though. I have two different situations where I do this and both are on Macs:

1) AT WORK - We have Pro Tools LE with the Digi 002 rack as our A/D converter, a Thorens TD-160 turntable and a G4. All you do is route your turntable into the PT rack and treat it like it was a microphone. Mix it down (or don't) and burn it off in whatever CD-R burning software you've got (Toast, etc.).

2) AT HOME - I bought a Philips dual-tray burner with analog recording capabilities and use it exactly like I would a cassete deck were I recording LPs onto cassette. It's very easy. The Philips has a setting where it looks for 3 second breaks in sound and inserts a 'new track' marker but I don't trust it. You never know when surface noise will trigger it to keep going. Fortunately, it has a remote with a 'skip track' button so you can assign the tracks on the fly (and from across the room) while you do something else. This is especially helpful if you're digitizing an LP with tunes that run into one another without a break. From there I burn and finalize the CD-R in the Philps and then load it into iTunes. You'll want to do this because those Philips recorders are consumer grade and the CD-Rs they require are okay but not something I'd store information on for a very long time. Plus, if it's already in iTunes you can burn another copy whenever you want or incorporate any of the individual tracks into a mix. BTW: I bought my Philips burner on eBay for about $100. They go for about $500 new so be sure to look at eBay as well. Lots of folks are dumping perfectly good ones on eBay since iTunes is so popular but they're obviously people who never needed the analog capabilities and don't realize what they're getting rid of.

Hope this helps.

Edited October 4, 2003 by Brandon Burke

[Clunky]

I found this helpful, I use an edirol USB Ua1D lead to take digital output from my minidisc player ( monitoring turntable ) , works perfectly and isolates the A/D convertor in the MD unit form any interference from the PC hardware.

Edited October 4, 2003 by Clunky

[couw]

I did my first ever transfer yesterday and made a CDr of my Tolliver Allstar (aka Paperman) LP via my computer soundcard.

It worked! It's easy! It's better than bad, it's good!

My set up isn't too fancy but the result sounds very nice to these ears.

[SEK]

My set up isn't too fancy but the result sounds very nice to these ears.

That's the important thing. B)

[Brandon Burke]

I need something along the lines of Masterlist CD that will allow me to insert track numbners into an alreay existing piece. Example: I have a 58-minute oral history interview I digitized from reel tape and my client wants me to insert track numbers every, say, couple of minutes as a way to assist researchers. More of an indexing situation than individual *tracks* but I think you know what I mean. The piece still needs to play through uninterrupted. I read that Digidesign has discontinued Masterlist CD and, to the best of my knowledge, I can't do this in Toast. Suggestions.....?

[michel devos]

I need something along the lines of Masterlist CD that will allow me to insert track numbners into an alreay existing piece.  Example: I have a 58-minute oral history interview I digitized from reel tape and my client wants me to insert track numbers every, say, couple of minutes as a way to assist researchers.  More of an indexing situation than individual *tracks* but I think you know what I mean.  The piece still needs to play through uninterrupted.  I read that Digidesign has discontinued Masterlist CD and, to the best of my knowledge, I can't do this in Toast.  Suggestions.....?

Try the latest Sound Forge or, better Samplitude 7.01

If you want a freeware, the best one would be Exact Audio Copy, but check the indexing facility is present (I would think yes)

[michel devos]

I need something along the lines of Masterlist CD that will allow me to insert track numbners into an alreay existing piece.  Example: I have a 58-minute oral history interview I digitized from reel tape and my client wants me to insert track numbers every, say, couple of minutes as a way to assist researchers.  More of an indexing situation than individual *tracks* but I think you know what I mean.  The piece still needs to play through uninterrupted.  I read that Digidesign has discontinued Masterlist CD and, to the best of my knowledge, I can't do this in Toast.  Suggestions.....?

Try the latest Sound Forge or, better Samplitude 7.01

If you want a freeware, the best one would be Exact Audio Copy, but check the indexing facility is present (I would think yes)

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

[rockefeller center]

I need something along the lines of Masterlist CD that will allow me to insert track numbners into an alreay existing piece. Example: I have a 58-minute oral history interview I digitized from reel tape and my client wants me to insert track numbers every, say, couple of minutes as a way to assist researchers. More of an indexing situation than individual *tracks* but I think you know what I mean. The piece still needs to play through uninterrupted. I read that Digidesign has discontinued Masterlist CD and, to the best of my knowledge, I can't do this in Toast. Suggestions.....?

Why not make individual tracks, select zero seconds gap between tracks and burn them Disc At Once? This way you won't have interruptions and you can access each track directly (I'm not sure if that would be possible with indices).

[medjuck]

Is anyone familiar with how to do this on a Mac?  I'd love to burn some of my records to cd for the car.

I'm a windows guy and I don't know anything about mac software, but since it's free you may want to check it out:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audi...finalvinyl.html

Good site. I got the Griffin i-mic when I still had OS9. If you're still on it you can use "simple sound" which comes with OS9. The new free download on this site looks better than the share-ware for which I paid.

[Noj]

Thanks everyone for your input.

Any suggestions on an inexpensive turntable for this purpose? I have a *record player*, and that primitive thing was not made for this sort of operation.

[wolff]

What's your budget for the turntable??

Edited October 10, 2003 by wolff

[Brandon Burke]

I need something along the lines of Masterlist CD that will allow me to insert track numbners into an alreay existing piece.  Example: I have a 58-minute oral history interview I digitized from reel tape and my client wants me to insert track numbers every, say, couple of minutes as a way to assist researchers.  More of an indexing situation than individual *tracks* but I think you know what I mean.  The piece still needs to play through uninterrupted.  I read that Digidesign has discontinued Masterlist CD and, to the best of my knowledge, I can't do this in Toast.  Suggestions.....?

Why not make individual tracks, select zero seconds gap between tracks and burn them Disc At Once? This way you won't have interruptions and you can access each track directly (I'm not sure if that would be possible with indices).

That's a good point (and it's what I ended up doing today) but in the future I need something less time-consuming. My client wanted a track separation every 1 or 2 minutes, which is a serious pain in the ass when picking and dragging with a mouse. The idea, as far as I'm concerned, is to assign tracks every [x] minutes with a simple formula. Like a database situation. Masterlist CD did this. In other words, something I can do on a keyboard instead of highlighting 00:00-1:59, 2:00-3:59, 4:00-5:59 with my mouse ad nauseum. I've got a ton of stuff to crank out. My only limitation is time so I need this process to be much faster. If I act quickly we have the funding for new software so I'm up for suggestions. Please understand that we're processing everything in Pro Tools LE. As such, we won't be purchasing anything like Sound Forge, etc. All we need is a straight burning/mastering program with tracking insertion capabilities.

I'll check out Exact Audio Copy but we're in a university situation here, which means that our funding sources tend to frown upon shareware. It's a liability/copyright issue.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Brandon

[rockefeller center]

Brandon,

http://www.newfreeware.com/audio/1479/

(Trial version Limitation: "Save to disk" functions get disable after 30 dyas trial period.)