guest wrote:I want to record all my LP albums to digital format. I want to store them in FLAC on an external hard drive. I have a USB turntable hooked up to my Dell PC. Do I need a specific sound card in the PC to do a reasonable job of converting analog to digital? Which program should I use to record to the PC (Audacity?). If the files are recorded as wav, how do I convert them to FLAC (what program converts wav to flac)? I would ultimately like to put the entire LP collection onto 160 GB (or 320 GB) ipod, so I will then need to convert from FLAC to apple lossless or mp4. Can anyone tell me exactly what free (hopefully) software I need to do all this? Thanks.

my dell came with the santa cruz turtle beach card and it does great.

I found a posting that describes how to change flac to play in itunes (but on a mac). Check out http://earpick.wordpress.com/2007/06/11 ... es-on-mac/

Someone smart on this site can probably figure out how to do this on a pc?!

guest wrote:Does mm convert wav to flac, or just the other way around (flac to wav). The info page suggests it is the latter. Has anyone used mm to convert to flac?

Yes, it can do this. I have done it.

Does mm convert wav to flac, or just the other way around (flac to wav). The info page suggests it is the latter. Has anyone used mm to convert to flac?

guest wrote:I want to record all my LP albums to digital format. I want to store them in FLAC on an external hard drive. I have a USB turntable hooked up to my Dell PC. Do I need a specific sound card in the PC to do a reasonable job of converting analog to digital? Which program should I use to record to the PC (Audacity?). If the files are recorded as wav, how do I convert them to FLAC (what program converts wav to flac)? I would ultimately like to put the entire LP collection onto 160 GB (or 320 GB) ipod, so I will then need to convert from FLAC to apple lossless or mp4. Can anyone tell me exactly what free (hopefully) software I need to do all this? Thanks.

Audacity works very well for recording. I would suggest you use Audacity as it works, its free, and its relatively easy to use. Once you have the wav files, you can use the free version of MM to convert wav to flac and to tag them. Unfortunately, MM can't convert to apple lossless, and it can convert to mp4 but only with a decoder that you have to pay for.

I want to record all my LP albums to digital format. I want to store them in FLAC on an external hard drive. I have a USB turntable hooked up to my Dell PC. Do I need a specific sound card in the PC to do a reasonable job of converting analog to digital? Which program should I use to record to the PC (Audacity?). If the files are recorded as wav, how do I convert them to FLAC (what program converts wav to flac)? I would ultimately like to put the entire LP collection onto 160 GB (or 320 GB) ipod, so I will then need to convert from FLAC to apple lossless or mp4. Can anyone tell me exactly what free (hopefully) software I need to do all this? Thanks.

Since storage is so cheap, it is usually worth encoding in FLAC, then transcoding to MP3 or whatever the codec of the year is. That way, you only have to rip you library once (hopefully).

Yes FLAC is great for sound quality, but to distinguish it you need HI-FI equipment and speakers.

The main disadvantage of FLAC is the size, and if it's of concern, encode to MP3 with preset "Insane" (320 Kbps), so the filesize will be almost 3x smaller.


By the way, mbnc, why don't you take a picture and put it on this thread:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=92844
It's interesting to see what sound systems are used by MM users.

And as I said better use 'preset standard' instead of 'self-tuned' settings with 192kbits VBR. It will give you a similar bitrate but better quality since it's higly developed and tested.

I agree with Al_G. Here few studios do vinyl cleaning very cheap, even they do transfer to WAVE (96kHz/32Bit) using professional equipment and hardware correction filters for scratches. All that depends how much you like your vinyls. I paid for several mine that are very rare and old.

mbnc wrote:If I am putting my old vinyl LP albums onto MP3 format using a free download (audacity, audiograbber, media monkey) what are the mp3 settings I should use? Remember, I primarily play my music through a 20 years old stereo (not mp3 headphones).

Thanks for your help.

If you're going through the effort of digitizing your vinyl collection, use a lossless encoder such as FLAC and transcode for portable use. Chances are at some point in the future you will regret using whatever lossy encoder and settings you choose now and there will be no way to switch.

Do some more research before undertaking this task. HydrogenAudio.org is an excellent resource and this topic has been covered many times. If you are converting many albums, you should invest in a cleaning system for the vinyl.

Steegy wrote:If you're using a 20-year old system, then I suppose we don't have to talk about optimum-quality wiring, HQ speakers, Digital SPDIF, External dedicated DAC, kernel streaming, ASIO. You don't have to understand any of these terms, because they are only used by people who really want the best quality, if they hear the difference or not

This will call a debate that I really do not wanna start.

The MP3 format with variable bit rate of at least 192 will do the job just fine. If it doesn't, then probably the problem is with your audio system, and even using 9999kbit (if that were possible) wouldn't help.

FLAC is used by people who don't mind the much bigger file size, and who really really want music with almost no quality loss (but even with 192bit VBR MP3, you probably won't hear any quality loss). FLAC (and any other lossless music format) is less widely supported, and the real benefit of "lossless" sometimes makes me wonder.
However, it's THE format to re-encode into lossy formats, like mp3 for use on portable players. You can see FLAC as a high quality back storage format, that you always can go back to to get an original good quality copy.


To get back to what RovingCowboy said: you really don't have to care of the difference between analog and digital. If you have an analog audio system, then connect the analog output of your computer or portable player to the analog input of your sound system. That's all. The computer or portable player will take care of the digital to analog conversion, as these devices have been doing for years with high quality.
If you're using a 20-year old system, then I suppose we don't have to talk about optimum-quality wiring, HQ speakers, Digital SPDIF, External dedicated DAC, kernel streaming, ASIO. You don't have to understand any of these terms, because they are only used by people who really want the best quality, if they hear the difference or not

OK........... so if I record my LP vinyl albums to MP3 format with variable bit rate of at least 192, and attach the MP3 player to the aux or tape monitor input on the back of my stereo and play through stereo floor speakers - will the sound be essentially indistinguishable from the original?

Or will it sound muddled because it is a lossy encoded format. Is there a consensus from you all whether I should encode in FLAC instead (does it take up that much more memory?). There are not too many players with a lot of memory (60 - 80 GB) that support FLAC (iaudio is one of the few I've found).

Also, which free downloadable recording software do you all like best.

same type of system i use.

20 year old or older. play analog sound it will sound better on the older stuff. digital was out 20 years ago but not in wide use.

really digital was out in the early to mid 1970's but the only one that used it then was some one that could afford it. he was Elvis presley. he put his recordings in digital equipment to get the best sound back then. and they still sound like new.