LPs to MP3s

[JimD]

Anybody else have a pile of old LPs they nearly never listen to anymore? They were all purchased decades ago in my case but have been maintained so they don't sound bad. And I still have my old turntable with an AR drive with a custom single pivot tone arm (shure cartridge). Not really high end but I thought it was when I bought it. Anyway, I got to googling around last week to figure out how to transfer some LPs to MP3 format so I could load them onto a SD card I keep in my nuvi to play tunes while I drive. I had some success but still clearly have a lot to learn.

Being cheap, I did not jump on all the $40-$150 opportunities to buy "stuff". You can get phone pre-amps which are needed if you don't have an old receiver laying around but I have one of those I rarely use. The signal from the turntable is not loud enough and requires equalization before inputting to the sound card of your computer. You can also get turntables complete with software for around $100. If I had not already had a turntable I like, that would have been an option. Since I had most of what I needed, I just bought a RCA to 1/8 inch plug adapter at Radio Shack ($6) and downloaded "Audacity" plus an add on to produce MP3s. The software is "freeware" written by a guy that now works for Google. It seems very powerful but difficult to catch onto. I am confident an expert could do amazing things with it but I struggle to do the basics. But I got a few things recorded yesterday afternoon.

You hook the turntable to the receiver like normal and use the tape output to go to the sound card. That should get you music coming out the speakers of your PC. Then you set up Audacity. I googled for tutorials and got useful information. The help files are not much. I can record a single song or an entire album and turn it into a MP3 but I am struggling with dividing up an album into the individual tracks. I stopped when it started frustrating me yesterday but I think I am about there.

Anybody else done this? Tips?

Jim

[cabinetman]

I did the same thing you did, with the same download. I have both LP's and reel to reel tapes. I found out that my turntable, a Dual 1019, with a Shure cartridge, needed an amplifier (receiver). When I got to the reel to reel is where the problem really got evident. The tape deck I had at the time Teac A 4000 decided not to work. So I picked up a Teac A 6010 at a garage sale. It has a pre amp, which getting to configure less the receiver got me nowhere.

I signed up on an audio forum and there are some knowledgeable audiophiles that will help. I temporarily lost interest when my receiver (Yamaha) died.
.

[tseavoy]

I've been doing the same thing off and on over the past several years now. I have a Toshiba turntable. I bought a battery powered preamp from TracerTek, I think, then used a freeware program called Wave Repair. If you register the program, you can also edit out pops and scratches on the LP, but I just used it for recording. It records to a wave file. If I want MP3 I use another program called alltoMP3 to convert the .wav files.

-- I just looked at the tracer tek website. I don't remember paying that high a price for a preamp ($59).

Tom on Marrowstone

[JimD]

Best deal I saw on a phono pre-amp was a TC-750 for $43.50 at a website "phonopreamps.com". There was at least one favorable review of this amp by a magazine (came up when I googled). Google likes to send you to "DAK" but the reviews I found for them were not favorable. Phonopreams.com has an amp for $29.50 which was also about the price of a cheap one I saw on Amazon.

Audacity removes pops and scratches. That part is fairly easy. You select the area of the recording with the scratch, you can listen to it by hitting the space bar, and then you tell it to remove the noise. It is tedious to do a bunch of times but not hard. Probably the general comment for the program - takes a long time but works well. And VERY frustrating when you want to do something simple, there is nothing in the help about it, and you can't figure it out. For instance, to move around in the recording, there is a bar at the bottom of the screen you can drag forward. Took me a hour to figure that out. Works nice once you know.

I'll have to try that website, C'man.

Jim

[Alex Franke]

Yeah I've used Audacity for some reel-reel tapes. One thing I like is that you can compensate a bit for poor recordings. For example I had a couple tapes that payed faster at the start and end and normal speed in the middle -- the change was gradual. It took a little trial and error, but I was able to make it would a lot better by changing the pitch over time.

but I am struggling with dividing up an album into the individual tracks.

You should be able to separate into tracks by selecting a song then using "export selection" (I think that's what it's called -- if not look in the File menu for something similar.) You can also split a selection to a different track and do it that way. Also look for a "silence locator" -- I think under the tools menu -- that you can use to break a collection of songs up into individuals at the "silent" points.

[JimD]

I found something that seems like it will be very useful if you use Adacity. There is a website "audacityteam.org" that has a manual, a wiki, and a forum all for users of audacity. I bookmarked an article on inserting labels into the file to mark tracks. It seems like it would be the easiest way I've seen. If you label the tracks you can then export them into separate files with one command.

I was planning to select songs and export them tonight. I think that will work but the labeling is something I will need to do anyway and if I can just insert labels and then export them to a new folder (seems possibly in the instructions in the wiki) of my music folder, it could be pretty slick. I tried this yesterday but I just had one song separated and thought I could export that without selecting again. Instead audacity gave me one monster MP3 for the whole album. Not terrible but not what I wanted.

If I can get this working, audacity has a nice "pause" command when you are recording. It lets you start recording an album and when it's time to flip it over, you can hit the pause button, turn the record over, clean it, and then restart recording. So it's pretty easy to get the whole album into one file. I just need to get the part about splitting it apart again working for me.

I listened to one song on the way to work that I transferred yesterday and it sounded very good. My bimmer has a decent sterio (I have the middle grade system with 10 speakers) and I listened to 4 songs. One I recorded digitally from the LP yesterday. One was recorded live and I got the digital file. And two were ripped from CDs (at maximum fidelity). They all sounded about the same in terms of quality. This has encouraged me to figure out my "tracks" issue and keep going. I have a pile of LPs.

Jim

[Alex Franke]

Also look for a "silence locator" -- I think under the tools menu -- that you can use to break a collection of songs up into individuals at the "silent" points.

I looked this up -- it's actually called "silence finder" and it's meant to do just what you're talking about. Here are the details:

Splitting recordings into separate tracks

Look under the heading "Automatic labelling based on silences" -- Good luck!

[Rich P]

Jim,

I've done 30 or so LPs using your setup. Here is my process...

1. Start up Audacity and start a "timed" recording to match the length of the side of the LP. Have the LP queued, start it and then start the recording. You will want to watch the meters to be sure you are not overloading the signal. This will result on a stereo audio track.

2. Repeat this (on the same "project") for the second side.

3. Depending on how well taken care of your LPs are, you can easily spot pops, clicks and scratches on the screen. Zoom in on them, select them and use the silence tool to remove them. They are usually of such short duration that you won't hear the silence. There is also a pop/click removal tool which works well for the background "hiss".

4. Insert a "label" track, visually locate the start of the first "track", place the Audacity cursor there and "insert label at selection". Enter the title of the track into the label box. Repeat until done.

5. Do a "Export multiple" based on the labels, select the export type (I used FLAC) and fire it up. You can also enter the LP title and the artist. Press "go" and in a few minutes you have your MP3 tracks.

Be sure you are using the beta version (1.3 or better).

I've not done this in a while so don't recall the precise menu options but all this can be done via the menus. Happy recording...

Rich

[germdoc]

I got a USB turntable for (as I recall) $40 or $50 from woot.com. Seemed like a great deal at the time...

I converted about a dozen albums, then got busy with other stuff.

It's easy enough to record either with Audacity or with the (lousy) included freeware, but here are the hitches: you have to play the album at regular speed, and my turntable doesn't have an auto off, so you're tied up for 45 minutes or so. The processing of the song is pretty straightforward, but it can take a long time to remove hiss and identify song breakpoints if you have a slower processor. I have not had luck with having the computer identify songs digitally, so I have to enter the track names manually.

As you can tell, it's all a bit of a time-consumer. As I have Rhapsody at home, at work and even on my iPhone, I can listen to almost any album in my collection of over 800 records anytime, so it's almost irrelevant, with the exception of a small number of locally-produced or rare records that have not made it to CD.

Like "The McCallie School Stage Band, Glee Club and Handbell Choir Play Their Hits (1975)", featuring yours truly on upper-octave handbells. Funny that hasn't hit the bigtime.

[phi1l]

I've converted over 50 analog disks mostly LPs but some 78's too... & I am about 1/2 way through the pile. After a while you develop a process that gets what you want don quickly.

Here's a brief summary of what I do. If you see something here you don't quite understand, try googling first,

I started with the Xitel INPort Deluxe, but you may not need the whole package.. At the time I bought it it was they only thing out there, Now I see Roxio has a package too. They are priced about the same & look like they have about the same features. The INPort includes an A to D converter, a very long high quality audio cable, and 2 software programs, one of recording & one for ripping.

If you don't have a turntable, you can now get one that will do the A to D conversion & out put a digital signal to a USB port.


The A to D converting can be done by your sound card if it does recording, & if you have a audio equipment, you probably have the cables too, you will need a an adapter to get from the RCA plugs to stereo 1/8 plug the audio card accepts.

If you go directly from the turn table you can use a pre-amp if you have one, ( got a Pile Pro) but it isn't necessary, Audacity can equalize the files for you.


IF you hear the 60hz hum on your recordings you probably created a "Ground Loop" somewhere in your setup. In that case you will have to make a run to the the nearest Radio Shack for a ground loop isolator.

Once you have all the wining set up you are ready to go. I use the LP Recorder & LP Ripper software that cam with the Xitel package. The Reorder allows will automatically set the recording level or you can set it manually. & it will record a side to a giant wave file.

Some programs claim they will do the recording & ripping automatically, but don't believe it, especially if you have a lot of classical recordings. THE LP Ripper software makes suggestions, but if you have tracks that have very sort sections or pauses in the music, it will guess wrong.


Once you have the tracks ripped, you will probably want to do some processing with Audacity. You can spend a LOT of time diddling with Audacity.
The first thing I do is manually go through & remove the big pops & clicks, I still haven't found a descent automatic Click & pop remover. I use the "repair" effect to after selecting the pop or click peak. You want to do this first, because those peaks throw off the normalization process that you will want to do next. At a minimum you will want to normalize the recording level so all you recordings will have a similar level. Next if you have vocal recordings you will probably want want to filter the recoding through the compressor. Then after levels have been set, do the noise removal is necessary. That's about all I do in converting. You will have to experiment to figure out what you want.

I have a Saitek Cyborg keyboard that has 12 extra programmable function keys that I have set up to speed the recording processing.

Finally, I burn the tracks for an LP to a CD for back up then bulk convert to 128kbps MP3.

I have been rather cryptic here let me know if you have any questions.

[JimD]

Thanks for the advice.

There is a forum on the AudacityTeam website where several people report good results with ClickRepair - available at www.clickrepair.net. One guy reports successfully eliminating clicks and pops from most of over 100 LPs with it. Some needed additional attention which he used audacity for.

Jim

P. S. addressed edited, thanks

[phi1l]

Thanks for the advice.

There is a forum on the AudacityTeam website where several people report good results with ClickRepair - available at www.clickrepair.com. One guy reports successfully eliminating clicks and pops from most of over 100 LPs with it. Some needed additional attention which he used audacity for.

Jim

you must mean www.clickrepair.net

I will have to check it out. But my primary reason for removing the Clicks first is because they prevent proper normalization, most "click killers" I have tried attenuate the clicks to some level but also modify desired peaks in the sound. Manually, you can isolate the modifications to the desired individual click. ClickRepair looks interesting, though.

[Rand]

If you hunt around on the web you can probably find mp3 bit torrents for a lot of your old albums and save yourself some work.

I like isohunt.com

[JimD]

I successfully converted the first album last night to MP3s (it is "Boston"). I think I could have found it on-line but once I got the hang of it the conversion was not so bad. Labeling worked great. The only issues I had were spotting the beginning of the songs (I did one wrong and messed things up), and using a "/" in a song name label (it was in the name on the album and I wasn't thinking). Audacity error messages do not say much so I had to remember from the Wiki what the issue might be. Audacity just quit converting when it got to that track. To find the beginning of the songs is pretty easy if you just use the time of each song (on the label in my cases so far) to get close and then look at the audacity file playing short sections until you zero in on it. Writing down the start as it is recording (if you are listening as it plays) also saves time later. The second one (Imperials - Heed the Call) went much smoother. I am figuring out more stuff in Audacity - it is really a nice program for a freebie.

I can also see the value in a click/pop reducer, however. Boston had been played a bunch and even after cleaning with a special brush it was a little noisy. I will listen to it in the car and decide if I want to spend $40 on more software. Audacity's noise reducer is mostly an eraser, it seems. I need to expand the file more ("+" key at the top of the screen) when I am learning the noise I want to erase but I get varying degrees of success. I agree with the comment somebody made that it is more of a hiss remover. The other two albums I've done were in better shape and I think the MP3s will be fine. The time consuming part of this is playing the albums so Audacity can create the file. The other stuff doesn't take a lot of time (but I am not trying to do a bunch of cleanup).

The pause key came in handy for another issue last night. The last song on the first side of the Imperials album started skipping. I paused the recording, increased the weight on the stylus by .5 gram (if I remember the units and marking of my tonearm), and tried again. I later erased the bad minute and a half. I doubt this is the last time I will need to make an adjustment like this.

Jim

[Rich P]

Jim

Once you get the hang of it, use the Transport->Timer Record feature. Set a duration that will more than handle the side of the LP, start it up and walk away. It will automatically stop recording. Just delete the tail end of that "track" and do the same for the next side. Only issue is if you get a skip or a stick, in which case try to capture that portion or just start over.

Another help is to be sure your LP is as clean as possible. A mixture of rubbing alcohol and water worked for me. I dried as much as possible with a lint free towel and then used an old Discwasher cleaner. It did seem to help with the smaller background noises.

I used the Fit in window and Zoom to selection a lot to narrow in on big scratches and ends of cuts on the LP for label insertion. I really could have used a "Zoom previous" function and posted a suggestion at the Audacity forum but nothing so far.

Rich