By John Woram
(May 20, 2005)

Let's play a word-association game. If we say "Ozzy Osbourne" and you say "Black Sabbath," chances are there's a crateful of treasured vinyl somewhere among your possessions. Those LPs may be classics to you, but they're out of place in today's CD- and MP3-driven world. No need to freak out, though--just dig out the old bandanna, turn on the lava lamp, and fire up some incense. We're transporting yesterday's albums and cassette tapes into the digital age.

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

Before you get started with this project, we recommend that you have the following:

• A turntable, a phono preamp (or a turntable/pre-amp combo) and/or a cassette deck
• A cable with two RCA plugs at one end and a 1/8-inch stereo plug at the other
• Music-recording software

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

If your sound system already has a working turntable, you're in luck. All you'll need--in addition to your PC, of course--is a cable with two RCA plugs at one end and a mini 1/8-inch stereo plug at the other. Simply connect the RCA plugs to the tape-out jacks on your preamplifier or receiver and the other end to the line-in jack on your PC's sound card.

If you long ago tossed that ancient relic with the built-in turntable, you'll need to buy a standalone turntable, along with a phono preamplifier. Though some LP turntables have built-in preamps (RadioShack's 42-7012, for example), ours didn't, so we bought GLI Pro's $79 GLX-2800 2-Channel Stereo Mixer, a fancy name for a black box that supports three inputs: one for a microphone and two more for either turntable or tape-deck signals. In case you're wondering about the turntable, it was a Panasonic Technics SP-10 MKII direct-drive introduced about 25 years ago. It weighs close to 60 pounds (thanks to an obsidian base for vibration reduction) and cost about $1,500. Used ones in good shape go for $1,000 and up. (You guessed it: The author is a serious audiophile.)

There's an advantage to having a free-standing phono preamp. If your sound system isn't near your PC, you can run a long cable between the preamp and the PC and deputize a friend as turntable operator while you attend to the PC.

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

Before you start slinging cables, make sure the power to the preamp and turntable is off and all external volume controls are set to minimum. Also make sure the speaker level is low to ensure no unexpected audio surprises send your speakers into orbit. Speaking of speakers, make sure they're not close to the turntable. You want your phono cartridge to respond to the grooves in an LP record, not a pressure wave from your speakers.

Connect the output from your turntable's tone arm to a phono input on the preamp, and the preamp's output (usually labeled "line" or "amp") to the line-input jack on your PC sound card.

Depending on your sound card, selecting the right jack may seem like a game of chance, but there are clues. Jacks are usually color-coded: Blue is a line input, red a microphone input, and green a speaker output. Additional jacks may be secondary speaker outputs or digital interfaces. Other clues, for those with good eyes or a flashlight and a magnifying glass, are the symbols engraved in the vicinity of each jack. The microphone symbol is self-evident. A series of concentric circles with an arrowhead pointing to the center indicates a line input. If the arrowhead points away from the circles, it's an output.

Life is simpler if you want to make transfers from cassette. Just connect the tape deck's line outputs to the sound card's line input, and you're done. Or if you're doing both tape and LP transfers, connect the tape deck to the preamp's second set of inputs.

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

Once everything is connected properly, you'll need to set the monitoring and recording levels on your PC. To do this, look for the speaker icon on your taskbar. If it's not there, open Control Panel's "Sounds and audio devices" applet, click the Volume tab, and check the box next to "Place volume icon in the taskbar." Click the Apply button, and the icon should appear on the taskbar. Double-click it to open the Volume Control window. You'll see a collection of faders, one of which is labeled Line In. This controls what you hear while recording the music to your PC. If you don't see it, select Options > Properties to display a list of available volume controls, check the Line In and Volume Control boxes, and you're done. Back in the main Volume Control window, make sure Line In's horizontal Balance fader is centered, the Volume fader is about half to three-quarters of the way up, and the Mute button is unchecked. Do the same for the master volume control.

Next, adjust the Line In settings in the Recording Control window by choosing the Options > Properties > Recording button from the Volume Control window. This controls the level at which the music is actually recorded, which is what really counts. Now you can power on the preamp, turntable, or tape deck and start playing an LP or tape. Gradually bring up the fader or volume control on the preamp.

The program you're recording into likely has a recording-level meter. Make sure this level doesn't consistently stay in the red zone. If it does, the recording level is too loud, and you'll get unfixable digital distortion.

Double-click the taskbar's Volume icon a second time to open a duplicate Volume Control window and choose the Recording option in that window. Now you have both the Playback and Recording controls visible at the same time.

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

The analog-to-digital transfer of an album or cassette tape takes more effort than a routine digital-to-digital transfer. After all, you can't view the source content in Windows Explorer, and you can't drag and drop files, because so far you don't have any files. All you have are grooves cut into a vinyl platter, or magnetized iron oxide coated on acetate.

That's where software comes in. Products such as Roxio's Easy Media Creator and the Nero 6.0 Ultra Edition handle all aspects of the analog-to-digital transfer. Our GLI preamp came bundled with DAK's Wave MP3 Editor Pro, a $19.95 package if bought separately. Whichever you choose, the software lets you select the input source--presumably the Line In fader within the Volume Control applet window--and the file's destination.

Turn LPs and cassettes into digital media files

When you're ready to begin the transfer, play the LP or tape and hit the Record button in your software. You can, of course, save directly to CD, which you might do if you want to save an entire LP or tape without making any modifications. If you do, however, you miss out on many of the potential advantages of transferring first to hard drive and later to CD. If your LPs suffer from what's known as the Kellogg Effect--those snap, crackle, and pop noises--you can eliminate them via software. Or, if your cassette has a song or two you'd rather not commit to disc, you can delete unwanted tracks easily. All this and more is possible using the software mentioned here--if you copy the source material to your hard drive first. When you're done, you can burn to CD.

If the copied material is one large file, split it into multiple files before burning to CD. Each file will become a separate track on the CD--the digital equivalent of the spirals between tracks on an LP. The Track Tracker option in DAK's Wave MP3 Editor Pro handles this task with ease. When you're done, you can make one or more copies to CD in a format supported by your software.