Bringing It All Back Home
The Age
Thursday June 10, 2004
Transferring your beloved vinyl to CD is easy - if you have a CD recorder.
MAYBE it's because compact discs have been around for 20 years, maybe it's because with so many professional DJs around vinyl records are becoming cool again but, for some reason, we've been experiencing a spate of inquiries from readers asking how they can transfer their beloved records to CD.
The best and easiest way for our money, bar none, is by plugging a CD recorder into your stereo. This is just like a cassette recorder except it records on to blank CDs. Some even have hard drives, recording to the drive before it is committed to a CD-R. This means that if you make any mistakes or the LP mis-tracks, you do not have to throw away the blank CD and start again.
However, despite its ease and convenience, this solution is not good enough for the bulk of our readers. They have a CD burner on the computer and don't see why they should have to buy a second one for the hi-fi.
Recording to the computer is far more complex but it can be done, although if anything can go wrong, it usually will.
Most computers have the soundcard and software needed to transfer LPs and cassettes to CD, but you will almost inevitably strike problems with soundcard inputs, unusual connectors and strange buzzing sounds.
That is why you'll probably need to buy a specialised package specifically aimed at transferring vinyl to CD.
This will probably consist of a small box that converts analog audio signals into digital, transmitting them to your computer via a USB link. But it is likely you won't be able to connect the turntable directly to the box unless the turntable has a phonopre-amplifier. Most don't.
Ordinary turntables (the ones that connect only to the ``phono" input of an amplifier) need a separate phono pre-amplifier, available from specialist hi-fi shops, or you'll need to connect the computer package box to the ``record out" sockets of your amplifier. Watch out for hums from the amplifier being too close to the PC.
Once the sound gets into the computer it will probably be recorded as a WAV file. Various programs are available to do this: some are complex; others are dead easy. Go for one that has been developed specifically for transferring vinyl to CD.
© 2004 The Age