Platter Saving
Recently, a friend gave me a whole boxload of records. By that I mean, vinyl recordings. Disks, platters, LPs. You remember those, right? No? Ok, ask your parents.
There actually some interesting stuff in this collection, so I got the brilliant idea to digitize them. How hard can it be these days? Well, it turns out to be a bit more complicated that I bargained for.
I long since retired my turntable. Fortunately, I didn’t toss it altogether, just wrapped it up and put it in the basement. So I first had to resurrect that.
With a phonograph, you have to boost the signal from the turntable in order for it to be audible – or to have enough level to record. The turntable is integrated into a “stereo system,” which, unfortunately, does not have any outputs. So my next objective was to find a receiver/amplifier with phono in, and line out. (I was reluctant to try to use my current receiver, which is all tied up in my home entertainment center.)
Having finally located the appropriate hardware, I spent a little time cleaning and prepping the records. Believe it or not, I still had one of those disk-washer kits tucked away – a mild solvent solution plus a felt-type wiping pad – to get as much dust and grit off the albums as possible.
My computer has multiple audio and video inputs, so I as all set with that requirement – but if your computer has only a mike in, you will need to get a USB or Firewire audio adapter. For about $70 you can get a good quality external, USB connected sound card with av type inputs for audio. My favorite is Griffin Technology’s iMic. ($35). This nifty little device plugs into your computer via a USB port, and you can then use the iMic’s mic in and line in jacks to plug in your phonograph or cassette deck.
Ok, we’ve got the sound as far as the sound card. Now we need to do something with it! The iMic, because it’s a sound card, will actually convert your input to mp3 or CD-ready files. Lacking that, you will have to record the sound to a digital file via some sort of software.
I have Sound Forge on my computer as I do a lot of audio work, but for an application like this, Sound Forge is way too expensive (though admittedly, easy to use).
There are a number of reasonable alternatives, some of them created just for the purpose of converting lp and cassette recordings to digital files. SoundSoap2 (http://www.bias-inc.com/) is a $99 option, which will encode the incoming audio, and then allow you to clean it up a bit – removing hiss, clicks, crackles, buzzing and hum. Digitope’s Media Digitalizer (free 14-day trial at http://www.digitope.com/) will “rip” any analog format, and encode as MP3, WMA, CDDA, or Wav files. This software does not include all the filtering features that SoundSoap does, but it is only $25! Just be warned: 1 full LP is about 2 gigabytes digitally, recorded in .wav files. Obviously, you can save a lot of space by encoding as MP3 - but under any circumstances, a large analog sound library will eat up a lot of space.
Once you have recorded your files, you can clean them up (run them through filters which attempt to eliminate unwanted sounds), organize them, store them as you choose, and enjoy!
Recently, a friend gave me a whole boxload of records. By that I mean, vinyl recordings. Disks, platters, LPs. You remember those, right? No? Ok, ask your parents.
There actually some interesting stuff in this collection, so I got the brilliant idea to digitize them. How hard can it be these days? Well, it turns out to be a bit more complicated that I bargained for.
I long since retired my turntable. Fortunately, I didn’t toss it altogether, just wrapped it up and put it in the basement. So I first had to resurrect that.
With a phonograph, you have to boost the signal from the turntable in order for it to be audible – or to have enough level to record. The turntable is integrated into a “stereo system,” which, unfortunately, does not have any outputs. So my next objective was to find a receiver/amplifier with phono in, and line out. (I was reluctant to try to use my current receiver, which is all tied up in my home entertainment center.)
Having finally located the appropriate hardware, I spent a little time cleaning and prepping the records. Believe it or not, I still had one of those disk-washer kits tucked away – a mild solvent solution plus a felt-type wiping pad – to get as much dust and grit off the albums as possible.
My computer has multiple audio and video inputs, so I as all set with that requirement – but if your computer has only a mike in, you will need to get a USB or Firewire audio adapter. For about $70 you can get a good quality external, USB connected sound card with av type inputs for audio. My favorite is Griffin Technology’s iMic. ($35). This nifty little device plugs into your computer via a USB port, and you can then use the iMic’s mic in and line in jacks to plug in your phonograph or cassette deck.
Ok, we’ve got the sound as far as the sound card. Now we need to do something with it! The iMic, because it’s a sound card, will actually convert your input to mp3 or CD-ready files. Lacking that, you will have to record the sound to a digital file via some sort of software.
I have Sound Forge on my computer as I do a lot of audio work, but for an application like this, Sound Forge is way too expensive (though admittedly, easy to use).
There are a number of reasonable alternatives, some of them created just for the purpose of converting lp and cassette recordings to digital files. SoundSoap2 (http://www.bias-inc.com/) is a $99 option, which will encode the incoming audio, and then allow you to clean it up a bit – removing hiss, clicks, crackles, buzzing and hum. Digitope’s Media Digitalizer (free 14-day trial at http://www.digitope.com/) will “rip” any analog format, and encode as MP3, WMA, CDDA, or Wav files. This software does not include all the filtering features that SoundSoap does, but it is only $25! Just be warned: 1 full LP is about 2 gigabytes digitally, recorded in .wav files. Obviously, you can save a lot of space by encoding as MP3 - but under any circumstances, a large analog sound library will eat up a lot of space.
Once you have recorded your files, you can clean them up (run them through filters which attempt to eliminate unwanted sounds), organize them, store them as you choose, and enjoy!
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