Vinyl to MP3 Equipment

[MaxiK925]

Hello all,

I recently gained access to a fairly comprehensive vinyl collection of music from back in the trance, progressive, hard house, days filled with a lot of great music from labels such as Bedrock, Fire 999, Nukleuz, Red Parrot, Positiva, and many many more that have been bought up and forgotten about over the years. Although irrelevant, the collection also contains one of 500 worldwide presses of the Cass & Slide track "Glad I ate her" among other obscure and forgotten about music which I thought was pretty cool..

Anyways, to the point..

I really wish to incorporate this music into my sets, and a vast majority of these tracks are no longer in press, much less ever released digitally (It's actually kind of sad to think that as time moves on, a lot of this music will quite literally cease to exist). I could practice and develop some skill in vinyl and buy a couple of technics to run with my two controllers on a 4 channel mixer, but I'd rather record them digitally to preserve the sound quality of their current condition and avoid further wear and tear. This presents a couple of variables though, primarily consistent and steady tempo suitable for mixing.

I tried to record a few tracks with a cheap belt driven Numark USBTT just to see what a consumer recorder can even do sound quality wise, and while the quality was perfectly acceptable for use, the track tempos came out very inconsistent, often at odd results such as 135.73BPM which makes it completely unusable..might as well be mixing a set with two $30 target turntables. So, as common sense and the basics of DJing101 dictates, I need a direct drive table, my question is what would be an acceptable model to give me the results I'm looking for without having to fork over a few grand for a studio grade precision turntable?

Would a Technics MK2 cut it? I was thinking of purchasing a MK2 and another digital mixer with an analog in to record the tracks that way. I did some searching on the boards, but didn't really find much. Does anyone have any other suggestions as far as equipment and method?

Thanks

[DTR]

So what if it's 135.73bpm, as long as it stays constant?

But yes, a decent direct drive will give you a more reliable speed. We recorded all our vinyl (and still do) with a 1210 Mk2, a preamp and an M-Audio 2496 soundcard to covert the analogue to digital.

[andymunro]

Welcome to the forum!

A technics Mk2 would certainly cut it, but unless you pay a fortune for a brand new one, I'd recommend buying the very best 2nd hand unit you can find but still have it serviced to make sure it is spinning correctly.

One thing to consider when using vinyl rips in software, and for beat grids to be perfectly aligned, is that records may be slightly warped and you will see this with the needle raising up and down, so it's virtually impossible to get a perfect beat tempo from start to finish. But with a freshly calibrated Mk2 you'll get the best result you can hope for.

You should buy a brand new stylus though, and invest some time and effort with vinyl cleaner to make sure it's a crackle and pop free as possible.

My mate has recently bought a Pioneer DJM 350 that you can record direct to usb as wav, he did a tune for me and the result was brilliant so it's worth looking into.

[Windows 95]

Another vote a used Technics 1200.

Make sure the cart is a Hi-Fi cart, not a DJ cart.
A very cheap one that sounds pretty good is the Shure M97XE. (about $100)
Another very cheap one that sounds pretty good is the Audio-Technica 120E. (about $130)
Another popular cheap Hi-Fi cart that sounds pretty good is the Denon DL-103 (about $225)

I'd recommend a Pro-Ject Phono Box USB phono preamp. (about $160)

[Manu]

1200/1210 with a hifi cartridge.

the track tempos came out very inconsistent, often at odd results such as 135.73BPM which makes it completely unusable..

A lot of the older releases have the odd BPM, use your ears to beatmatch.

[Hippie]

A good anti vibration mat will help reduce tt noise and give you a better recording compared to a dj slipmat

[stomp]

Only Technics. What mixer you have?

[pete]

If it is at all possible to find digital copies of the tracks, don't bother converting them. Vinyl will never sound as good (objectively) as a digital copy direct from the production studio. You are wasting time and money trying to convert the tracks and will never get close to a professional standard.

Having said all that it is perfectly possible to produce decent copies with a decent turntable, decent cartridge and, most importantly, well prepared records.
You will need to clean them as best as possible before ripping them, and they had better not be scratched or used.

As for the BPM, it is perfectly normal to have a "strange BPM" for a ripped record. Back in the day mixing records was not based on BPM, it was based on ear. It was never an exact science, the potentiometers on turntables were infinitely variable, and DJs were nudging records constantly to keep them in time.
A record is not a perfect reproduction of the producer's work. It is a close approximation. A record can, and will, warp over time. It uses compromises to reproduce the sound spectrum and stereo image using the technology of a stylus running and scraping a groove in vinyl.
You can't compare this with the modern DJig of rock-solid fixed BPMs on digital equipment.

[light-o-matic]

If you're ONLY using it for recording old vinyl, a Technics is unnecessarily expensive and might not even be the best sounding. Unfortunately, with vinyl becoming all the rage again, used hifi turntables have shot up in price again, they used to be gettable for super cheap. I have a Rega Planar 2 that I found in the trash! So yea, something like the Rega, Thorens, Systemdek, etc.. a deal in a used, good condition belt drive.. not a shitty belt drive.. a good hifi one. Get a fresh belt for it. But if you are lucky enough to find a cheap Tech 1200 in good condition then that's good too.

Then you will want a real good cartridge for it, which will cost you. But that is really going to make a difference in your results. The Shure M97xE is considered great value at $99. Any of the better Ortofons will do fine, you prob want an elliptical stylus model for this (most DJ models are spherical stylus).

Then yea you can plug into a controller with analog input but you will get the truest sound with a higher end mixer with digital output.. or get a used hifi preamp eg. an old NAD preamp and run that into a reasonable quality sound card such as a Focusrite 2i2.. record at 48K/16 sampling rate WAV.. some would say use 96K and that will sound better but results in huge files that some programs won't play.. and voila, good quality rips that sound pretty much the same as if you were playing the original vinyl.

[RRL]

I have 2 methods. I use either a Tascam RC 222SL orI just record the vinyl into Serato and save it as a lossless file. Can't go wrong with either one.