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Recording Vinyl Albums on CD...

I

I'm Typing

Golden Member
Finally took the plunge and got one of those Iomega burners. Now, I would like to record my old albums onto CD. Two issues here:

1) I am using a SB Live! Value card (about 2 yrs old).
2) I have NO recording software.

Questions:
1) Should I pick up the LIVE! Platinum card (NOT 5.1) and use the RCA inputs from my 15 yr old stereo? Or should I try to use the line input on the back of the Value card to record the albums?

2) What kind of recording software would you use? I thought it might be a good idea to buy the Live Platinum card for the advanced features as well as the software bundle included with it.

I will be recording discs for play on the puter (mp3) and in the car (regular CD burn).


I have this in Off-topic as well, but some of you do not read that...
Your thoughts? Thanks!
 
Even if you had the live platinum you'd be using the analog line in.
The only thing the platinum has over your live value is digital inputs, and I doubt a 15 year old record player has PCM output. Even if it does it's not going to help the quality that much. If your old stereo is using RCA outputs, you need a dual RCA to mini-stereo converter. And you will use the same type of input port on your Live! Value or on a new $200 platinum.

As for software well that's another issue...I'd just use sound recoder that comes with windows 😉 but that is in no way a good solution. The platinum may come with better software for that than your value has..
 
I've done that several times, using my $0 on-board CMI8738 sound card. The quality of the card is way beyond the quality the LP player is capable of providing. Therefore, don't bother getting a different sound card for sound quality reasons. Just use a RCA-to-miniPL cable.

For recording I use CoolEdit Pro.

-PJ
 
Don't buy a new sound card!

Connect your turntable to your stereo. Connect the tape output of your stereo to the line in on your sound card using an adapter you can get at Radio Shack or even Wal-Mart or K-Mart to convert the 2 RCA plugs from the stereo into the stereo mini-jack on the sound card. You can't connect the turtable to the soundcard directly because the level is not correct.

Record the LP's using Cool Edit 2000, an excellent shareware .wav editor. You can use it to clean up clicks/pops/hiss, and also to re-equalize and then split the file into individul tracks.

Search these forums for more info, this topic has been covered dozens of times before.
 
Why not use Napster to download your record collection? If you paid for the tunes on Vinyl you should still be entitled to them in a different format (like copying your records for your own use to tape). Besides, here in Canada at least, all recordable media is assessed a "fee" before you buy it which is then turned over to the recording industry. If you're going to pay the fine, do the crime!

...hag
 
Why not use Napster? 95% of the files there sound terrible. Lots of old/obscure music is not available. Downloading many albums worth of music over a modem connection takes longer than recording them yourself. That's why not.

But sometimes it does make sense.
 


<< I have a cablemodem, and the sound quality is almost always better than vinyl. >>


Hahahaha, and I bet you think CDs sound better than vinyl right?
 


<< Hahahaha, and I bet you think CDs sound better than vinyl right >>

Well they do on most turn tables. Of course if you have a good turn table and vinyls that are in good condition a CD can't touch it....

hagbard: Vinyls have several distinct disadvantages like the fact that being an analog medium any slight physical damage will degrade sound quality - where as CDs are digital medium with lots of error correction, they need pretty heavy damage before you get sound quality problems - and they are huge...but if you have a Vinyl in good condition and a good Turntable, sound quality is by far not a disadvantage of Vinyl.

But for recording, they are still an Analog medium, so trying to record them on digital sound card inputs is pointless.
 


<< Well they do on most turn tables. Of course if you have a good turn table and vinyls that are in good condition a CD can't touch it.... >>


That is a fact!
 
What makes the sound quality of vinyls so good though? Being analog doesn't tell me a lot. 😉

Thanks for the explanation to a product of the 90s (I'm a teen- it's not my fault).
 
You got to be sh!tting me. You think that CD sounds better than vinyl. That is the one thing that an analog vinyl has over digital CD. You see the sampling rate on CD is 44.1kHz, the sampling rate on vinyl (there is no such thing, but if there were such a thing) is infinite. Vinyl is much more accurate. Also CD can only store 16 bits of information per sample.

Now why do we use digital. We use it because it is easily stored, replicated, edited and filtered. This is what you think is better, but the music sounds better. Now, DVD audio will be much improved because it is recording studio quality. It is 24 bit and in 5.1 surround it is 96kHz sampling rate. On these discs there is also a stereo version which is also 24 bit and 192kHz sampling rate. Even though it will not be as good as analog, CD is lacking so much that difference is quite noticeable. However, people are saying that DVD audio is as good as vinyl now.
 


<< What makes the sound quality of vinyls so good though? Being analog doesn't tell me a lot. >>



Well digital is just a way to store the audio data...but digital just means it's stored as 1s and 0s, you can't hear 1s and 0s, somewhere it has to be converted to a waveform that you hear. A vinyl actually has the waveform &quot;scratched&quot; into the surface of the disc, so there is no sampling or converting or anything, you just get the audio striaght up...of course like I said you have to have high quality equipment becuase Analog signals are more prone to interference, but if you get it set up with good equipment the sound reproduction is exactly as recorded, digital mediums can't do that. No matter how high the sample rate and how many bits you use you can't get the exact recording you can with an analog medium (like cvlegion said, the sample rate and bits per sample would be inifinte on a vinyl if they had the concept).

It's like if you draw a waveform, then split it up horizontally into sections, then you get one &quot;height&quot; number for each section, that's the way digital works. The more sections you get the closer you get to the original signal, but you'd need infinite sections to get it perfect, and of course you can't have infinite sections. Leaving it in analog just leaves the waveform alone, doesn't &quot;split&quot; it up (this is a simplification but it's the general idea).

Follow that? Sorta?
 
That is definitely a better way of putting it. But not only is the sampling rate the issue, but also the amount of information stored per sample. So instead of being divided up into a range with 16-bits of data, studio recordings (the master digital copy) has a range with 24-bits of data. So not only is the output voltage curve more accurate horizontally, it is more accurate vertically.

Something to consider though in a digital world right now, until recording studios come up with better equipment, then the best we can expect is a channel for each intrument and vocal, 192kHz sampling and 24-bit. Not that I am poo-pooing this quality, because most people wouldn't be able to tell very much difference between vinyl and these digital recordings if any. Let me clarify, the quality of a CD is low enough that the true waveform, the analog signal, is not accurately represented by the CD's digitized signal. However, when you bring up the sampling rate enough and the number of bits per sample, then you have a much more accurate digitized representation of the analog signal. So, it comes to the point that the human ear, especially the untrained human ear, will not be hear the difference.
 
Boy, I sure don't want to get sucked into the digital vs. analog debate, but although you probably don't care, here are my two cents. I've been involved with audio since way before the CD came around, and I have an extensive vinyl record collection with some LP's dating back to the 1950's. I also have a high-quality turntable and cartridge.

I would have to agree that some vinyl records sound simply astounding. I would also agree that some CD's sound astoundingly bad. But most fall somewhere in the middle.

If you know anything about how analog records are manufactured, there is no way you can argue that relatively massive distortion can be introduced at any number of steps in the process. Since LP's are a physical medium, produced by a physical cutting stylus on a lacquer blank, then plated, cast, and pressed, with each record pressed of lower quality than the one before it due to wear on the master, it's a miracle they work at all!

But vinyl's biggest drawbacks are related to the physicality of the medium. CD's don't have surface noise, clicks, pops, rumble, wow, or flutter, and they don't suffer gross distortion from mistracking or wear. Plus you can play them in your car or at the beach. 🙂 And any idiot can get amazingly good sound from a $49 CD player, but it takes almost religious devotion and mountains of money to get similar quality from vinyl. I think that's why there is (or rather, was) such resistance to the CD by vinyl afficionados - the snob factor.

Anything you give up by being limited to a 16-bit word length is more than made up for by the other advantages.

But simply put, a well-made recording will sound good no matter if it's analog or digital. But it is much less expensive to do it digitally.
 
Heheh Workin' I didn't say it was easy to make Vinyl sound better than CD. Just under optimal circumstancees a Vinyl is better, I don't use them or even like them (in fact I hate the bloody things), I far prefer CDs (for most of the reasons you mentioned becuase I don't have religious devotion and mountains of money (not mocking you, I thought it was a good quote 🙂). I think CDs are far better than LPs for a million and one reasons, but just becuase I don't like LPs doesn't mean I can't accept that they do have a strong point (or maybe two 😉)

 
Noriaki don't get me wrong, I like LP's for a few reasons that have nothing to do with sound quality. Although I have transferred all my old LP's (that aren't available on CD) onto CD-R, I still listen to the vinyl copies sometimes. The ritual involved with playing vinyl, due to its &quot;finicky-ness&quot;, like careful handling, a loving cleaning, and finely made and adjusted playback machinery, put me more in touch with listening to the music compared to just slapping a disc in the tray and pushing the &quot;play&quot; button.

I think a lot of times the &quot;gear-heads&quot; get way to carried away with the hardware and forget what it really is all for - listening to music!
 
Most of my record collection is on vinyl, which I have collected since the late 60s, and still pickup at garage sales for 25cents each. I'm still happy that vinyl has been replaced by CDs, since I can only stand so much &quot;rice crispy&quot; records.

...hag
 
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