Taking Care of Your Old LPs - Transferring to CD Part 2

Mar

19

Taking Care of Your Old LPs - Transferring to CD Part 2

≡ Category: Equipment, Loose Talk |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

If you want to have more control over the LP to CD conversion process than a turnplayer/CD Recorder combo can afford you, there is another solution.

RECORD PLAYER TO COMPUTER

Basically, you will need to transfer your analog signal (that’s your stereo) to digital (that’s your computer), where your sound card will record the signal. For that, you will naturally need something called an analog to digital converter.

Once you’ve got the signal to your computer, you will need software to record the signal and then process it. By process it, I mean get rid of any clicks or pops, divide up the recording into tracks, etc. An excellent and inexpensive way to do all of the above is the Xitel INport Deluxe.

There’s a bit of a learning curve involved to do this effectively, but believe me, it’s worth it.

You’ll want to use a sampling rate of 41000–any more than that and you won’t be able to tell the difference anyway. Don’t worry too much about what the sampling rate means right now. It’ll become clear once you start using the software. Use .wav files instead of mp3 files. When you edit .wav files, there is no loss. They take up more room than .mp3 files, but the results are worth it.

SOUND SURGERY

If you want to do a little more elaborate surgery on your sound files, you’ll want to invest a little money in Sound Forge Audio Studio 9:

Of course, if your records are trashed, it won’t matter if you have all the nifty CD mastering equipment in the world. Which leads to the next topic–how to clean your records the right way.