How to Record Music From a Record Player onto a CD

This will show you how to record your old records, or any other audio source onto CDs.

Things You'll Need

• Record player
• Computer
• CD burner
• RCA to Stereo Headphone adapter cable

Instructions

1. 

   First, you need get the cable from the Record player to the computer
   You can get the RCA to Stereo jack at Wal-Mart, for $10.97. Here is a link to the cable http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9875911.

2. 

   Next, you need to get your record player and put it close to your computer if you can, otherwise you will need a longer cable. Once you get the record player near your computer, connect the RCA end of the cable to the record players audio out. Then, connect the stereo jack to the Line in Jack on your computer, NOT THE MIC jack. If your jacks are color coded on your computer, use the Blue jack NOT the pink jack.

3. 

   Now that you have everything connected and ready to go, you need to get a piece of software called Audacity, which can be gotten for most operating systems here, http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Once you download and install the software, run it.

4. 

   After you run the software, change the record device to set it to record the 'Line In'. Showed in the Picture: turning the volume up, and the line to the left of the settings drop down menu.

5. Now that you have it set, start the record playing at the start of the record. Hit the record Button (Red circle) and Audacity will start recording.

6. If you want to have separate files for each song, just hit stop at the end of the first song, and stop the record from playing. Go to File and choose new and then just start the record player playing. When the silence between the first and second song starts, hit the record button again.

7. Once you have the songs recorded, just go to 'File' and choose export to mp3. Name the file and save it somewhere.

8. Now that you have all the files saved, open Windows Media Player and choose Burn. Open the folder where you saved all the recordings in a explorer window, and drag them into the burnlist window. Once you have all of them there, just hit burn. Make sure you have 'Audio CD' selected and not Data CD.

9. Stick the CD into a CD player and you should now have your record on CD.

Tips & Warnings

• May take a little trial and error to get the volumes set at a good level.

• Listen the files before burning to see how they sound.

• Might waste a couple CDs getting it right, but otherwise not much will happen.