B
BradW
Guest
I have a turntable with a built-in preamplifier. I use a cable with 2 RCA plugs on one end and a 1/8" stereo plug on the other to plug it into the computer’s Line-In jack on the motherboard (or sound card).
I use GoldWave (Audacity will work, too, but I like GoldWave’s features a little more) to record the Line-In audio while I play the album. It records as a .WAV file, so there’s no compression loss of quality.
I use GoldWave’s editing features to remove the silence at the beginning and end of each side, and between songs if it seems too long. I don’t do a lot of pop/hiss removal, as it can introduce other sound distortions; I select just the most objectionable noise and fix just that part. As one person said, “hey, it’s an album. It’s supposed to have pops!”
I add marks between the songs, and tell GoldWave to save each mark as a separate .WAV file.
I use Nero Express to take the .WAV files and burn a CD from them. By using the uncompressed .WAV files, it’s as close to the original quality as my turntable is capable of.
Then I use GoldWave again to export all the marked pieces as MP3 files. These I import into iTunes and add all the tag informaion.
I scan the album art on my all-in-one printer/scanner. Because albums are about 12" x 12", I have to scan in two pieces and lose just a little from one side . I use the picture stitching software that came with my digital camera to combine the two scans back into one. I then use SureThing labeller software to make the jewel case insert and CD label. For the scanning and labelling I use .BMP format, again to get maximum quality. I then convert the .BMP scans to a .JPG (MUCH smaller) and use that for iTunes cover art.
I use GoldWave (Audacity will work, too, but I like GoldWave’s features a little more) to record the Line-In audio while I play the album. It records as a .WAV file, so there’s no compression loss of quality.
I use GoldWave’s editing features to remove the silence at the beginning and end of each side, and between songs if it seems too long. I don’t do a lot of pop/hiss removal, as it can introduce other sound distortions; I select just the most objectionable noise and fix just that part. As one person said, “hey, it’s an album. It’s supposed to have pops!”
I add marks between the songs, and tell GoldWave to save each mark as a separate .WAV file.
I use Nero Express to take the .WAV files and burn a CD from them. By using the uncompressed .WAV files, it’s as close to the original quality as my turntable is capable of.
Then I use GoldWave again to export all the marked pieces as MP3 files. These I import into iTunes and add all the tag informaion.
I scan the album art on my all-in-one printer/scanner. Because albums are about 12" x 12", I have to scan in two pieces and lose just a little from one side . I use the picture stitching software that came with my digital camera to combine the two scans back into one. I then use SureThing labeller software to make the jewel case insert and CD label. For the scanning and labelling I use .BMP format, again to get maximum quality. I then convert the .BMP scans to a .JPG (MUCH smaller) and use that for iTunes cover art.
