Since that time, my old direct-drive turntable was struck by lightning and the replacement I bought has the built-in, switch-selectable pre-amp as described above.

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HagFan

[This message was edited by Ron Page on 20 January 2005 at 09:51 AM.]

quote:

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can you just use a stereo mini-jack out of the back of a receiver/amp and plug it into the audio input of the computer and copy LPs or cassette tapes locally and then burn it to CD? If so,exactly how, click for click?

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1. Record to hard drive. I'm an old analog guy too, and I look at this the same as if I were going to transfer the LP to tape. The only difference is that you are using the computer as a tape recorder.

(a) Hook-up: The signal from the turntable needs to come through a pre-amp to boost the volume. So use the Line-out of your stereo, and plug this into the Line-in on your computer.

(b) Recording: You need a recording program to do this. There's a million of them, many free or low priced. The reason I like Polderbits is that the recording is real simple. No dialog boxes or menus. You open it up, and it kinda looks like a cassette recorder. There are level meters, Record, and Stop buttons. Something an old analog guy can understand......set the levels, and press Record.

2. Editing. A cassette tape is one long recording, and the only way to navigate between songs is to Fast Forward or Rewind. You could do this on a CD too, but it is much nicer to cut the long recording into individual song 'files'. That way the songs appear in your CD menu as Track 1, Track 2, etc. When you create your CD (called 'burning' it) you add each individual 'file' in the order you want it to play. How do you make individual song files?

(a) The easiest way to understand (but a pain in the pooper) is to record one song off the LP, stop the recorder, save the recording. Repeat this with each song.

(b) The most efficient way, once you learn the program, is to record one entire side of the LP, then 'edit' the recording into individual files. Polderbits (and many other programs) will automate this process by searching for the silence between songs and cutting the recording there. Or you can do it manually, which is often more accurate...especially if your music has silent passages that might fool the program.

(c) Name your files and save them. Mp3 is smaller in size, but will have to be converted back to wav when you burn them. Most burning software will do the conversion automatically.

(d) Optional: If the recording has excessive scratches or hiss, you might want to clean it up. In my tutorial, I used Depopper, which is pretty simple to use.

3. Burn to CD: This is going to vary slightly depending on what CD creation program you use. Basically, select 'Music CD', assemble the music files in the order you want them, and burn.
Both Polderbits and Depopper have fully functional free trial periods so you aren't out anything if you can't get the hang of it.

[This message was edited by Tommy Mc on 27 January 2005 at 06:19 AM.]

A decent (and free) wave editor which does the same thing is available at the link below.