Vinyl to MP3 Equipment

[Windows 95]

A few even aren't on youtube.

A few? When I look for a song on YouTube, it's more likely not to be there, than to be there.

[DJ Bobcat]

I recorded all my vinyl to digital years ago... I used a Xitel Nport, connected to my receiver and computer to record digitally over USB. Software was included. I had a decent linear tracking turntable, but nothing special. Yes... you get some pops and hisses here and there, but that's what you'd hear if I played them on a turntable live, so I don't see that as a big problem. I have some audio editing software I could use to clean up some of the pops and stuff, but I'd only use it if the track was really scratchy, and my vinyl is in such good condition, that just did not happen. Back in the olden days, I rarely played a record more than a couple of times. If I really liked it, I recorded onto HiFi VHS tapes so I could play 6 hours of audio without having to get up and change the record. This, of course, was LONG before I ever thought about DJing.😊


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[Monkey Mouse]

There are surprisingly many steps and details to get the best digital copy into your computer from a vinyl record.

1) The vinyl needs to be clean - dust and dirt will degrade the sound and add more pops and clicks. A carbon fiber record brush and a basic wet record cleaning kit will get rid of 90% of the dirt. If you are hardcore, a record cleaning machine.

2) The turntable - 1200 in perfect working shape is going to work well. But the direct drive, resonant tonearm, and crappy wiring is going to take some of the detail away compared to even a basic audiophile TT, which are usually belt driven with better tonearms and wiring. Audio Advisor has a great deal right now on a Rega P1 TT with an audiophile cartridge, upgraded platter, felt mat and other items for $450 right now.

3) The cartridge - DJ cartridges are not as accurate (most of them are bass-heavy) as audiophile cartridges, neither do they have the channel separation that leads to great sound. One favorite at $100 is the ortofon 2M red, which will mount to the Technics or any headshell. You will need a basic stylus weight gauge also ($15).

4) The phono preamp - while most DJ mixers have phono pres, they are going to be low quality and leave out much of the audio detail you want to capture. A $200 phono pre is going to blow away anything in any mixer - some even come with USB to convert files to digital.

5) The audio interface/soundcard - the A to D conversion is either going to capture all the details the audio chain is giving you, or is going to leave a lot out. You can spend a boatload like I did and buy a high end multi-channel unit like an Apogee, RME, Universal Audio (I have a UA apollo), or you can get something really solid such as a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (or any other equivalent) for a really great a to d conversion. You may have a soundcard already that would work perfectly. The better the analog to digital conversion, the better the files will sound.

6) Editing the files - while you can get programs to eliminate noise and pops, it is expensive. You can use a basic free program like Audacity to remove pops and clicks and then normalize the audio file to "modern" levels so you don't have to ride the gain to get a good volume.

[Ewan mack]

I have the same issue. Over 1000 vinyl collected over the past 20 odd years and some are just too rare/ white labels etc. While I still have 1210s, I thought it would be easier to buy one of those ion products which outputs directly to my mac and then use serato to clean up. Are the ion products far inferior to a 1210, mixer, ADC etc?

[David Bowman]

Simply put, Ion is garbage.

[pete]

It would cost money to buy an Ion product when you already have superior turntables and the serato interface to import the tracks.
You gain nothing by spending money on inferior equipment, not even time and certainly not in quality.

[David Bowman]

The ion software apparently takes half an hour to convert a record to mp3 while not being supported by many operating systems. I have software here that does it in seconds.

[Nicadraus]

Just get a Behringer UCA202 soundcard which is around $20. Use it for transferring vinyl to digital. I would suggest to save them first as WAV before converting the files to MP3 (320kbps or 256kbps at least).

I have a Tarktor A6 but I just use the UCA202 for simple vinyl ripping.

[efinque]

From what I gathered, some controllers with an audio interface have phono inputs which could be used for ripping vinyl to mp3s. Sound quality might not be the best but at least you'll save some $ by not having to buy a separate phono preamp/mixer/another interface. You could also try to find someone with a spare turntable and a cartridge and borrow those for the project.

There are also USB turntables but I have no experience with them..

[greenlight]

Lots of good advice already in this thread. As has been said, it's a time consuming and involved process to get a good transfer, so if at all possible seek out a digital version.

Preparing the vinyl so it's nice and clean is probably the most laborious bit, but essential in my opinion - cleaning up pops and clicks in software takes even longer! I've not had much success cleaning at home so have taken some of my favourite tracks to a local vinyl specialist and got them to do the cleaning for me. I'm planning to try a diy vacuum cleaning rig at some point, or get hold of one of these: http://www.vinylvac.net (the diy versions are very similar, basically a bit of plastic pipe with a slot in it).

Once it's clean I use a Technics 1200 fitted with an Ortofon Archiv stylus, hooked up to a decent hifi amp, then take the tape out signal into my audio interface & record as lossless. If there are real problems with clicks and pops then I use a great bit of software called "ClickRepair" http://www.clickrepair.net to get rid of those. I've tried all sorts of de-noise plugins for DAWs but ClickRepair is much better. Final stage is to run it through a mastering limiter (I use Ozone).