Vinyl to I-pod

[Doug B]

Having been brought into the 21st century by wife & kids with a birthday present of an I-pod i was wondering if there was a way of putting my vinyl collection on to the I-pod. :?
I`ve seen turntables that do this, but before i rush out & buy one, i was wondering if it was possible to wire my existing turntable via the amp (if necessary) to my lap top.
I can`t imagine it will be as easy as that sounds, but any advice would be gratefully received.
Cheers.
Doug.

 

[Saintsman]

Doug,

Not really the answer you wanted, but I have the Ion USB turntable for exactly the same reason, and can thoroughly recommend it. Comes with its own simple to use software.

HTH

Paul

 

[motownmartin]

It may depend on your laptop, I have done exactly this on my old desktop, the way I done it was to get a lead (headphone extension) plugged into the headphone socket then on the other end fit an adapter to convert the socket into a plug/pin and plug directly into the sound card or sound in socket, now you just need the software to trim and split the tracks that you have recorded.

Your ipod software should do the rest, I converted mine to MP3 and put 200 tracks on each CD for the car.

 

[andrewm]

If you have an Aux-Out on your amp (or pre-amp) and Aux-In on your computer then a suitable lead should be all you need. Audacity (which is free) should be fine for splitting tracks and topping and tailing the recording. Then use iTunes to convert to mp3.

Andrew

 

[Harbo]

The down side to doing it is that it all happens in real time - you cannot speed up the turntable
40 mins per LP takes 40 mins to record, then you have the other processing time - so allow plenty of time.
I have about 4k LP's so gave up on the task and bought some of my favourites as CD's too - you can copy them at high speed!

Rod

 

[Charlotte]

This is sort of complex to get right...

Does your laptop have a "mic in" or a "line" in? If the manual says that it's both, realize this is BS and find out the measurement level of the input and hence which it is.

If it has a mic in, use an Ion table - it's cheaper and less hassle. If you have a line in, there is no reason not to hook your turntable up to a phono stage/amp and run that into your computer.

The important thing is that there is far enough between the noise floor and the recording level to cut the noise without marring the recording. This is why the output/input levels need to be matched.

 

[Gower]

Doug B,
I've just bought a Veho turntable from the Times that included Audacity software and a spare stylus for £64.90. It might be me, but I find the Audacity software not to very user friendly. I'm very happy with the hardware and will hunt for better (for me) software. Maybe some forum member can point me in the right direction.

Cheers,
Jim

 

[superunknown]

I have one of the USB turntables too, they are excellent and will do just what you want with ease.

This is a page I have had bookmarked for a while that may help...

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Convert_LPs_Into_MP3s

Also a google search with give you a ton of advice.

Good luck

 

[Doug B]

Thanks to you all for the replies.

From the looks of things it would be easier (for me) to go down the route of a usb turntable.

Thanks again.
Doug.

 

[cambournepete]

What you want is this.
It connects between your existing turntable (MM or MC) and your computer.
You just need to download some free recording software.