Creating CDs from LPs

[Muse]

I have a lot of LPs and if and when I want to create CDs from them (or even MP3s), what software can/should I use? My non-portable CD players don't support MP3.

I have Nero 6, EAC, CDex, Total Recorder Standard Edition. I'm running XP Pro SP3.

 

[VinylxScratches]

Get Audacity + the Lame MP3 encoder.

A lot of USB record players come with it. It also has a feature where it will cut the tracks up for you so you don't have to sit and wait for each song to be over. Best of all it's free and open source.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches
Get Audacity + the Lame MP3 encoder.

A lot of USB record players come with it. It also has a feature where it will cut the tracks up for you so you don't have to sit and wait for each song to be over. Best of all it's free and open source.

Cool, thanks. I have those already too.... So, it will make regular CD's too with the .cda tracks?

 

[VinylxScratches]

I don't believe it will make .cda tracks. You would either record the LPs and create wav or mp3 files, then you could use Nero to make a CD.

 

[bruceb]

Don't forget that you will need both a good quality stereo turntable and also an audio capture card in the computer.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Don't forget that you will need both a good quality stereo turntable and also an audio capture card in the computer.

I have a fine DJ quality TT, but unfortunately the cord doesn't reach my AV receiver and I have a female=female coupler to a stereo cord to make part of the run. It's only about 6 feet, but they were chintzy with the cord. The result is that I often get hum and have to twist the connections until the hum goes away. I'm going to have to do something about it, probably getting in there and replacing the cord with a longer one. Didn't look really easy when I checked it out, but it was a long time ago and have to revisit the problem.

"Audio capture card?" Whatcha mean? I have a sound card, a Hercules GTXP. Right now I have the phono out going to the receiver and the receiver connected to the PC's soundcard inputs. I think this is probably better than going directly to the PC soundcard because the AV receiver can better deal with the output from a phono cartridge in its preamp stage. The receiver has dedicated phono inputs.

 

[bruceb]

If the receiver is connected to the sound card inputs, you are all set. Just connect the turntable to the correct inputs on the receiver.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: bruceb
If the receiver is connected to the sound card inputs, you are all set. Just connect the turntable to the correct inputs on the receiver.

I'm there. What I need to know now is what software I can use to make CDs (i.e. with .cda tracks) from the LPs. 'twould be better if I could break the LP tracks down into separate .cda tracks but that may take some attention on my part (i.e. real time monitoring). I guess I should try to google up some articles that explain the whole process step by step...

Google result

 

[Muse]

My Total Recorder Standard Edition will allow me to record from the soundcard line in and save in a variety of formats. I don't know which to use. My guess is PCM. The choices are:


CCITT A-Law
CCITT u-Law
DSP Group TrueSpeech(TM)
FLAC (based on reference libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917)
GSM 6.10
IMA ADPCM
Microsoft ADPCM
Microsoft G.723.1
Mpeg Layer 3: Lame encoder (Dll)
Ogg Vorbis: (Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20070622)
PCM
WMA Codecs: Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless
WMA Codecs: Windows Media Audio 9 Voice
WMA Codecs: Windows Media Audio V7

 

[Muse]

I burned to PCM (WAV), one track at a time. Imported the tracks into Nero 6 for a new audio CD, entered CD Text for each track (Nero screwed that up somehow and I had to edit about 1/2 the tracks, evidently a bug in Nero), and the burn came out perfect. Only shortcoming is a second or two of silence at the beginning of each track. That's hard to prevent. Maybe there's a way, but it's a minor defect. This is my first LP-->CD conversion, and I'm on my way. Have loads of LPs. It's kind of tedious making a separate WAV for each track. Maybe there's a neat way I could chop up a big WAV into separate tracks...

 

[Muse]

I ripped my 2nd LP yesterday. Audacity is a great tool for this. I used Total Recorder to create the WAV files (I'm sure there are freebies that would do that), but once I got the WAVs, I used Audacity to chop off a split second or two from the beginning and/or end of some of the WAV tracks before bringing them into Nero for the CD burn (complete with CD Text). Nero 6 has some kind of bug and I usually had to edit the CD Text as the titles were often munged. The result is perfect, though.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: alyssa12
Where is the cd-key / product serial number?

Of what?