The tutorial is very detailed but it has one major flaw: If you‘re buying an USB audio interface with a built in phone stage you should not use any other device (i.e. your stereo receiver) to get the signal from the turntable to the computer. The Behringer U-Phono UFO 202 is good enough for beginners and has a built in phono stage. So all you have to do is plugging the turntable directly into the Bearinger and the Behringer into the USB port of the computer. Additional tips: - Use a high quality turntable with low wow & flutter. You don’t want the speed of the record to fluctuate. - Use a high quality phone cartridge. You don’t want to re-record everything you realize the first one was crap. - Put on headphones while recording, turn off your speakers, and sit down. You don’t want the cartridge to pick up the audio in the room or your footsteps on the floor. - Set your recording levels as high as possible without clipping. If you record too low the surface noise will be too high. Every record sounds different and needs new adjustment. There is no single value for every record. - Normalize your recordings to -1 dB (after removing clicks and pops) before you export the track. - Use a widely supported audio format with good quality: 320 kbps MP3 < 256 kbps AAC (ABR or VBR) < 320 kbps AAC (ABR or VBR) < FLAC or ALAC I have wasted many years making mediocre recordings and am now in the process of making some really good quality recordings. Try to nail everything in the first place and avoid as many mistakes you can.
When I downloaded the Audacity software and opened it, my first thought was, “What have I gotten myself into?” But, thankfully, I found your video, and I’ve now transferred my first album to iTunes. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks so much for detailing the process so clearly!
Superb video - I learned a lot and thank you! A few tips I have found useful; I agree that an outboard D.A.C. to U.S.B. is the highest quality method as this eliminates distortion and noise caused by your sound card but if you wish to try without too much expense I recommend the following: Buy a 3.5mm stereo jack plug to R.C.A. phono lead (these can be had quite cheaply) and plug the stereo jack end into your computers microphone input. Most pick-up cartridges are magnetic and need R.I.A.A. correction applied to reverse the noise reduction curve applied when the record is mastered. The easiest and most robust way to provide this is leave your turntable connected to your audio amplifier and connect the R.C.A. jacks for your computer lead to the tape out sockets on your amplifier. This allows use of the amplifiers built-in R.I.A.A. equalisation and also supplies a higher voltage signal to the cable - directly connecting a pick-up cartridge to the computer can severely degrade quality due to lead capacitance - especially if a long lead is used. This higher working voltage will also help to minimise any noise (hum etc) caused by tour sound card. As a side benefit it also means any audio source connected to the amplifier (tuner, tape, d.a.t) etc. can be recorded without swapping leads. The signal recorded can only ever be as good as the signal provided so before starting check your turntable set-up (alignment, tracking weights etc) and your vinyl is clean - loads of RU-vid videos on both of these subjects. If it's a particularly important project I like to record one track at a time rather than a complete album side. It takes longer but has some real quality benefits. For instance most styli accumulate dust and fluff as the record plays causing audible depreciation; doing one track at a time means each track can be recorded with a pristine clean needle. A minor point you may think but if you're archiving you want the very best signal you can get. Secondly Audicity has a fade in / out function which I find invaluable when digitising vinyl; All records have an obvious noise floor (pressing rumble, vinyl hiss, crackles) and I like to fade in before the selection starts (this removes the sudden jump of noise when playing back - it provides a nice smooth fade-in to the music) and fade-out does the same at the end as the tune "fades to black" rather than coming to an abrupt stop. You can, of course, play around with these to get the best results for your liking. None of the tips above cost anything but a bit of time and trial and error so good luck and I hope you find them helpful
I've been thinking about ripping my 300 records to digital for about 10 years and was always confused as to how to do it. Your tutorial is fantastic! Now I get to spend the time listening to music I haven't heard in years while moving them onto my phone. Kudos to you sir!!
Yes, I also tried doing it, but always got crappy, distorted results. The combo of the converter, this video, and Audacity instructions have given me perfect results. It takes some time to do it right, but well worth it for my many swing era songs.
Exceptionally clear and thorough. KUDOS! One more thing viewers should consider is that a good digital copy will always be unfailingly faithful to the the sound of the record. If the record sounds bad, so the will the copy. You demonstrated this with click removal, but it bears noting that a sub-par turntable and cartridge setup will make even perfect records sound -- well, not as good as they could. Before you go to the trouble of copying, have as good a record playing system as you can afford.
Wow! That was VERY detailed! I have to give you credit for being so patient! I really appreciate your making this video, I will refer back to it time after time when I start recording. Many thanks Roy!
Great video, My turntable does not have a USB port, My solution was to plug the pre-amp into the MIC IN port of a digital audio/voice recorder. The quality is actually a lot better than most would think. Once recorded onto the recorder, then plug that into my computer using the USB cable and copy the MP3 or WAV file over. One benefit is it doesn't matter how far away from the computer the turntable is.
i guess Im asking the wrong place but does any of you know of a way to get back into an Instagram account? I stupidly lost the account password. I love any tips you can give me
@Rohan Silas Thanks so much for your reply. I found the site thru google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.
The most useful Audacity explanation somebody has ever done. Other tools are available, Mac programs like Vinyl Studio and Pure Vinyl but Audacity can do much more with proper settings. Thanks once more
For years I have been moving my Vinyl over to PC but was never sure it was right.. as bits I knew should be there.. were not there.. I knew the ION deck was putting out a stereo signal and clicked all the correct buttons on Audacity.. But.. Still just getting what apparently was just 2 x Mono.. Until (Thank you..) you mention the PC Sounds/recording setup.. At last successful STEREO recording.. Now I have to go back and re-do 100 Albums.. Aaargh. Thanks again you hero..
Your advice at 5:44 cannot be understated when using the UFO202... However, I would advice anyone to connect their phono straight to the UFO202 and not first to the Amplifier. You would be introducing all kinds of extra circuitry introducing extra noise. Just hook up the phono lines and earth lead to the UFO202, set it to Phono Input and hook it up with USB (only) to the PC to record. There analogue phone sound is then made digital straight away, with the leas amount of extra wires or circuitry, ensuring best and cleanest possible sound. You can then use the USO202's line out to hook it up to your amplifier without affecting recording quality. I just wish I had seen this tip at 5:44 earlier, I just recorded over 1600 records from the 70's to the 90's in hifi mono :-(
I personally prefer digital music for the convenience, however having a vinyl collection of all your favourite albums that you can physically hold and play is just FUN.
Thanks very much for specifically addressing a problem I was having. I did not know what "export multiple" meant. So, after labeling the tracks I was trying to export using just the "export" in the "file" menu. Hence, I was not getting separate tracks. Other RU-vidrs have suggested much more labour intensive ways of getting an exported track for each vinyl track. Your very complete instructions have saved me much unnecessary effort. Thank you.
thanks so much for this. I just thoroughly cleaned more than 100 old 7" singles I'd love to transfer to digital and then into my itunes library. It will take a lot of views but you've sure given me confidence I can do it now
For live album or prog album where a lot of the tracks bleed together, I do not separate each track but instead just separate side one on to. I do not want to put a moment of silence of each track on a live album and I do not want to interrupt to flow of a prog album when tracks are bleed together. Usually with prog albums most people listen to them in one setting all the way though.
I bought a sony usb turntable which comes with software but I'm already familiar with audacity so I will use that program as you did to record my vinyl. Many thanks again!
Great video. Instructor very well-spoken. This is one of the best ones on RU-vid. I was reviewing several, to recommend to a friend. I have done this for over a decade, starting with the German software Magix. Converted over 120 LPs. It has been fun and learning along the way.
Thanks so much for making this video. It was really informative and well spoken. I learned a lot about Audacity. There are some cool tools and options that you mentioned. I will certainly be taking advantage of them. I just bought a turntable after years not having one so I can start digitizing all the LPs that I have. Thanks again.
This is probably the best video I have seen on this topic. As a lifelong Sound Forge user, I loath Audacity. It seems a little odd and quirky to me. Some things work in ways I'm not used to. Your video made the software seem a lot more user friendly than I was expecting. And I think it has a feature that Sound Forge doesn't; the ability to change recording volume levels in software. Or at least my (non pro) version doesn't have that feature.
Sound Forge has the best and most intuitive user interface by far and relies on your sound card's control panel in terms of input signal level. Which makes sense since it is in the signal path anyway. No need to add another layer of control that could possibly interfere with the data stream.
The USB out isn't always the best option anyway. Some turntables use really cheap conversion hardware. The Behringer UFO202 he shows off is a really good item for this sort of work; it can be used with almost any turntable, and isn't terribly expensive, and it also works with tape decks, tuners, and the REC-OUT feature of receiver/amps. Bonus: What a lot of people don't realize is the UFO202 is actually a USB sound card with a built-in preamp for magnetic phono cartridges. It can be used as an audio output device for a PC or as a simple preamp to connect a magnetic-cartridge turntable to a standard LINE-IN port of an amplifier.
@@xaenon The mic-in may be mono, you're right, but in desktops we have the third connector wich is line in for amplifyed signals, wich is stereo, and it doesnt boost the sound like the mic in, introducing less noise. It's not ideal, but probably ok for most people, and maybe better than some cheap usb dacs used in some td's
@@eduardoavila646 The only reason I mention it is some computers the input jack is shared between mic and line-in functions. And it baffles me still, but even in line-in mode, the sound is mono in my laptop. It's why I use that Behringer thing he discusses in the vid.
Make sure that “Insert at zero crossing” is enabled! Not all software will use that same terminology (not sure what Audacity calls it). Otherwise when you make a selection cut you might cut a waveform anywhere during its amplitude peak or valley. This is includes waveforms between tracks. If you don’t enable this feature you will get digital pops and clicks.
Yes great video thanks for posting this. Was having trouble with quality with another program. You made Audacity easy. What windows player do you like. Looking forward to new vids
UFO202 is the best 16bit/44.1khz analog to digital device that I've ever owned, I do have a 24bit/96khz Terratec Phono PreAmp iVinyl, Both are German products.
Gonna try this tomorrow...hope this works. I have this one record album that I'd like to listen to, but the record is so unpopular and old that it doesnt even really exist on the internet.
You don't need an analogue-to-digital converter at all! Though you may need a preamplifier if your pickup is magnetic and there's no built-in preamp in your turntable. If your pickup is ceramic, its output is at line-in/out level already, thus you'll only need a cable with RCA sockets at one end and a sub-miniature stereo headphone plug on the other. The sub-miniature plug connects to the computer's line-in socket on the back of the tower(or side of a laptop). The analogue-to-digital processing is done by a sound card in the computer itself. If, perchance you have an audio mixer, you'll likely have 2 microphone inputs, 2 magnetic phono inputs, perhaps 4 line-in connections(tape, ceramic pick-up or other auxiliary source) plus 2 outputs, one to feed a monitor, the other to feed the line-in of your computer(lead with sub-mini headphone plug and 2 RCA plugs needed here), then you'll need GOOD software, and by that I DON'T mean Audacity, I use Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio 10. Cost me over $100(Australian) but worth every cent! Audacity is free and worth it, you get the quality you pay for.
Very good video but you made a slight error at the export stage. You selected 24bit flac files, but you only captured at 16bit so your end files would have been unnecessarily large.
...great and informative vid, but youre removing the pops & clicks which is part of what makes vinyl so amazing!! lol 🙄 thanks for the share brother, now let the fun begin! 🔊🎶
7 лет назад
Great video. Bro, you have same taste as I have, Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Genesis etc.. Thanks so much! FLAC is the best. /A Mac&Vinyl fan
Brilliant video! Thanks Roy. So nice to find such well informed and clearly presented material. You've got a new subscriber, keep up the good work. BTW if you're not already working in the field of adult education, you should give it some thought.
My instructions said "use line in" but the only thing with line in is an ancient Windows XP tower. Its 32 bit, maybe 16 bit, and even the 32 bit Audacity will not load onto it. But when I hook up some good speakers to the headphone jack from the Audio Technica turntable through the Line In the sounds are really fine, just no digital conversion. I think I will try again with a much newer computer, at least Win 8, maybe 10. But the newest ones only have the single little jack, no chance to use Line In and Headphones at the same time. I'll try again later; maybe I'll have to monitor the actual sound output using the lowly laptop speakers.
Great video and perfectly explained. Can you translate it into Spanish? There are a lot of Spanish speaking vinyl collectors in RU-vid that want to do this but unfortunately most of them don’t understand English and there’s no videos about this matter. Thanks!
I used to do it un a similar fashion. In effect the amp would become the graphic equaliser. Id adjust sound treble, bass on amp with recording level dictated by the volume knob. Id take a cable plug it in the headphones socket and run a line to audio in on my music cd recorder. The music cd blank discs have become obsolete and do it with audacity rhanks to rhus video whuch really helped me get at it again. I prefer this way because i used to have to separate the tracks live but now you dont have to worry about that. You record everything as one track and after ward you can edit and tracklist and get it how you want it.
@@sbbinahee I first transfer my record to a cassette tape using Dolby C NR then I play the tape back using Dolby C. If there is noise, I use Audacity's Noise Reduction.
Good video, Roy. I've been ripping my vinyl to my PC for a few years now (I've gone through two PC desktops and a laptop over that time) and just bought a new Lenovo desktop (Windows 10) when my Dell finally fritzed out after ten years. I have a 40 year-old JVC turntable going through an equally vintage Kenwood stereo receiver that still plays great (been through at least five turntable cartridges, of course), but when I set everything up I found out the Lenovo PC doesn't have a Line In. The pictures on the web site show it, but the unit? Nada. I couldn't believe it. I thought every PC has a Line In as standard? It's like buying a car and finding out it doesn't come with seat belts...lol. I was almost going to disconnect everything, pack it up and take it back to Best Buy in exchange for a desktop that does, but then thought, heck, I just loaded all the software I use, got everything working, and to go through it all again seemed like a colossal waste of time. I knew you can input audio through USB but never tried it. I have a bunch of RCA cables lying around so that's no problem, but I needed to know if I can just buy a cable with a USB plug on one end and the RCA jacks on the other and direct connect from my receiver to an open USB port on my PC, but it looks like that won't work. You need an analog-to-digital converter like the Behringer you have (also one of the components Audacity lists as compatible on their manual web site), correct? I bought a Behringer UCA202 on Amazon which looks almost exactly like the one you have, still waiting for delivery. It should be a simple connect. The big question I have is do I have to find the USB Audio Codec online and download it to my PC, or is it already part of Windows 10/Audacity software and will recognize the USB as an audio input when I plug it in? Thanks. (Sorry for the long post, thought giving you some background would make answering my question easier.)
@@georgeprice4212 Just to be clear, Mic In is NOT the same thing as Line In. Mic In is for plugging in Microphones, which has a different signal voltage level than equipment used in plugging into a Line In. Good article detailing the differences. myaudiolover.com/line-in-vs-mic-in/
***** Nope physical records believe it or not. Found out Amazon carries them. Their records strait from the company so any bands still supporting them sells them.
thanks for the tutorial. i'd like to know whether to use an analog to digital converter like this video or an audio interface like many web sites have suggested.
Really nicely detailed Video! I have a question though. Why do i need an analog to digital converter? Can't i just hook the Phones output on my amplifier to a microphone input on my computer?
amazing, what difference would this method make over just connecting the RCA turntables output with an RCA Cable Male to Female Aux Stereo Audio Cable Cord Y Splitter RCA Phono? I have seen other videos that do it just like that, wonder if there is any quality improvement
Hi Roy. Thank you so much for your wonderful video. I really hope you can help me. I have the ION Quick Play LP USB Turntable. I managed to use the turntable and EZ vinyl/tape converter successfully with Windows 7. I now have Windows 10 but am unable to use the converter or play LP's. I reinstalled the converter with the disc given and then received a prompt to download iTunes. I uninstalled and reinstalled iTunes, but still, I am having problems. iTunes is not recognised and I am frustrated as I don't know what to do next. Please can you help me or point me in the right direction.
