Digitising music

[Zampa]

Current in the long drawn out process of recording all my LP's on the computer..

Question is...I hope this doesnt cause too many eyes to roll..bare in mind its my first crack at it!.......

So...question is......

If I convert them to MP3's...will I be able to burn them onto CD...and if I am able...will I hear anything when I play it back through a CD player..even if it isnt MP3 compatable.?

 

[breezer]

nope.

wrong format

if you make an mp3 it needs something that can read mp3 to play it.

not tried it but the cd player in a vauxhall can play mp3 so i am told by some one who tried it

 

[tim west]

If the cd player is not mp3 compatible then no, to play as a normal cd you have to leave it uncompressed and raw in WAV format, to be honest I prefer it that way, it sounds more natural so dont bother with the cleaning up tools to remove the crackles and pops of the scratches, using the tools always seem to dull the dynamics of the sound no matter what settings used and i believe you need more advanced and expensive software than what is normally supplied to get a pro sound and the knowledge to use that software expertly.

Another advantage of burning in WAV is you can convert into any other format later you only have to record your vinyls once, if you burn in mp3 then you lose some quality and more when trying to convert to another format ie the compression methods all have losses which you will compound, so my advice is burn (or just record to hard disk) firstly uncompressed and if then you wish to pack more into a cd then convert (obviously youd need a compatible player then)you'll not regret doing it that way in the first place.
Once you take away something you cant have it back and there is nothing worse than having to wade through your album collection recording it all over again.

 

[dave.m]

Use something like Audacity to do the import and recording.
Free from here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Don't get the Beta version, download the v1.2.6

 

[Zampa]

Great replies thanks all..

As I suspected, but I thought id have an ask first before I spent all afternoon re-formatting them burning them and nothing happening!

Breezer..I have a newish vox so it might be worth a try from certain ones..maybe 'the best of motorhead, the crash bang wallop years'

Tim...The ones I have done so far are WAV files..but they are massive..is 30-40 thousand KB normal for these files???...thats certainly a lot more than they would be on a pre-recorded CD.

Dave...I use audacity now..it came with the record deck im using...trouble is it went teets up somehow when I was sorting the album out into individual tracks and ended up saving everything other than what id selected to split on its own.. as I recorded each track I deleted it..so it was saving all of a collection of ten tracks..minus one...then all of the collection minus two and so on...I ended up with files that were 50meg!!

Luckily I spotted the problem pretty quick and only had to delete about 5 albums worth..

On a similar note..is there a way of actually listening to the tracks as you record them? .. I have to pull the usb cable out when I want to play them back too..

 

[Diyisfun]

You can listen when using Audacity, 'scroll up there is a link'

 

[tim west]

Tim...The ones I have done so far are WAV files..but they are massive..is 30-40 thousand KB normal for these files???...thats certainly a lot more than they would be on a pre-recorded CD.

of course it depends on length of track but I usually manage to squeeze an album onto a cd. btw i also use Audacity its a great program.

 

[Zampa]

Tim...The ones I have done so far are WAV files..but they are massive..is 30-40 thousand KB normal for these files???...thats certainly a lot more than they would be on a pre-recorded CD.

of course it depends on length of track but I usually manage to squeeze an album onto a cd. btw i also use Audacity its a great program.

So those sort of sizes aint uncommon or unreasonable then Tim?

You can listen when using Audacity, 'scroll up there is a link'

A link to the site?...I have been over the site itself and cant find a thing..im obviously doing something wrong but I think the sites is for people who have are doing the 'right thang'

 

[tim west]

Sound average sort of sizes for tracks of a few minutes each so at 30MB per track a 20+ track album is poss.

Of course the likes of Pink Floyd or others with 15 min tracks will mean less on the CD

 

[Zampa]

Hmm...actually, talking of 15 minute dirges...Ive got trick of the tail by genesis to copy tonight..

 

[tim west]

In the end its personal preference so try both raw and compressed and see which you prefer, good luck with the copying,how many you got to go?

 

[Zampa]

about 70-80!!

Hope to find some on CD before i've finished

Thing is I just dont play albums anymore..really enjoyed listening to a lot of music I bought years ago..allthough when I hear some of it i think to myself..'you actually bought that?????'

 

[tim west]

Know exactly what you mean, I suppose taste changes a bit with time.
Hip groups at the time are now looking a bit on the uncool side etc

70 -80 wow you've got your work cut out! good luck