How to Convert Vinyl Albums to Compact Discs

If you’re like many of us of a certain age, some of your favorite music is on vinyl. I still have a working turntable, but the dust pops and scratches on my older albums are annoying. I’ve also gotten too lazy to get up every fifteen minutes to flip my records over in contrast to my five platter DVD and CD player. I’ll walk you through the steps of turning your records to CDs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Get your turntable working. If your old turntable doesn’t work, check the belts. They are the first to give way. I replaced mine with drive belts I found at an audiophile supply house. If the turntable works mechanically, and you get no sound, you might need a new cartridge, available from the same source. If your turntable is dead, then you can replace one for less than $100 on line by contacting a DJ supply house.
2. Get a pre amplifier. Stereo phonograph needles ride both up and down and side to side to create the two audio channels. The vibration is carried by the needle to a magnetic cartridge where the movement is converted to electricity. Since the motion is so miniscule, the phonograph output required a pre amplifier just to reach the line level that CD and tape players feed to your audio amplifier. That’s why if you inadvertently plug a turntable into a tape deck input you can’t hear it. There are several phono preamps on the market. You want one that creates a very clean signal. One to consider is the Behringer PP400-Microphono. It offers low noise, has both dedicated RCA and ¼” outputs and a 12 volt DC adaptor.
3. Make sure your computer has a good sound card with inputs that are compatible with your preamp. There is a whole range of products available here. Don't ignore the one that is already probably in your computer. I’ve had good luck with Sound Blaster Audigy. If you are using the Behringer PP400, pre amp, you’ll need a ¼” stereo to 1/8” stereo adaptor to mate with your sound card.
4. Make sure your software can do three things: capture the analog audio, converting it to a digital format, clean it up and out put it to CD. I use three different pieces of software, originally purchased for video production, Adobe Premiere to capture analog audio, Cool Edit Pro (now Adobe Audition) to clean up the pops and clicks and Ahead Nero to burn the CDs. I’ve heard good things about Audacity, a free, open source software that allow you to record and edit. It works with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Compact Discs playback two channels of PCM 16 bit audio sampled at 44 KHz. Once you’ve converted the audio to PCM digital, be sure to apply a noise filter to eliminate pops and scratches. You can then edit the track order and burn your CD’s. Another option at this stage is to convert to MP-3, a more highly compressed file format developed a decade later that readily plays back on iPods.
5. Get a one piece device like Crosley's Songwriter CD Burner. It’s a self contained unit that also allows you to covert from cassette to CD. (Sorry, no 8 track tapes). It consists of a belt drive turntable that can handle 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM records. It also has a Digital AM/FM Radio. They sell online for around $400.

Tips & Warnings

• It's better to apply the filter to the PCM CD audio than to the MP-3, because MP-3 is a highly compressed format.