Vinyl-records to MP3/CD

[Romain Kang]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:50:17PM +0100, Parkblue wrote:
> A few of my precious old records (Morris Nanton and a 1957
> Rachmaninoff-recording are two gems that come to mind) are longing to be
> converted into digital format. How do I go about that? What equipment
> besides the obvious (record player, iBook (600)) do I need, and what do I
> have to watch out for?

For what it's worth, the NY Times just ran a couple of articles on
the subject.  Access is free with registration, though after a week
the articles go to archive status with additional fees required:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/technology/circuits/01basi.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/technology/circuits/01bbox.html

Since I do location audio recording, I have a good A/D convertor
(Apogee Mini-Me) that I hook up to the stereo which I run via USB
to the Powerbook, usually 24 bits at 44.1k sampling for LPs with
Spark ME software.  I then copy the WAV file to a Windows desktop
where I use Cool Edit Pro (now available as Adobe Audition).  I run
a click/pop plugin filter, normalize and dither to 16 bits, then
run a CD burning plugin in CEP.

In principal, I could move the Windows box and the stereo to the
same location and do the whole project in CEP, but it's much easier
to move the PB around, and it's acoustically and electrically
quieter.  I also use the PB + Mini-Me when I'm making location
recordings, so recording LPs is nearly the same process.

Romain