One Last Spin
Before you peddle those old vinyl albums on eBay, here's how to make them part of your digital music collection
April 7, 2003
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 Digital conversion can keep you
spinning your old LPs (in virtual
form) for years to come |
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Exile on Main St. (sides one and two) is the only vinyl record I ever listen to—and even this one doesn't get much play. I've got more than 100 albums staring at me from the bookshelf, screaming to be auctioned off on some website as relics of a bygone era. But rather than ditch them and repurchase (or download) all my favorites, I decided to turn vinyl into digital. And it's not as tough as you might imagine.
The cheapest way to do it is to use your computer. I used a Pentium 4 HP Pavilion with Windows XP. You'll need a cable to connect your PC to your stereo; I purchased a $7 Y-adapter audio cable, with RCA jacks at one end and a mini stereo plug on the other, from RadioShack. And you'll need sound recording software to magically transform the analog signal into digital bits. I shopped around and settled on a package called PolderbitS Sound Recorder and Editor (available free for a 14-day trial, $19.99 if you decide to keep it; available for Windows only).
After you've connected your stereo to your computer sound card, you can begin. When I launched the recording program, I selected "line in" as the source and "CD quality/stereo" for sound quality. (This sets the bar high, and if the record hasn't held up well over time, then you might be disappointed with the results, but this way you'll get the best quality possible). I set the recording levels so that the peak meters hovered in the yellow zone (if they slip into the red too much you get distortion). TIP: You need 10 megabytes of free hard disk space for every minute of music you plan to record and store a high quality. If you run out of room, stop recording, burn what you've got onto a CD, delete the original files and start again.
A big downer is that the recording is done in real time, which makes it incredibly time consuming. But consider it an opportunity to get reacquainted with your catalog. The only editing I did was to divide files containing multiple songs (I recorded one album side at a time) into individual tracks, which PolderbitS' sound editor lets you do with one click of a scissor button. PolderbitS records in the uncompressed "wave" file format; if you prefer MP3s, the program also offers this option, or you can use an MP3 converter (look for one at download.cnet.com).
If you don't want to deal with all the fuss of the PC, you can handle everything from your stereo using a high-end component like the Yamaha CDR-HD1000 ($499; the 1300, the next step up, is $799) . This luxurious unit lets you copy songs from practically any source-including your turntable-onto its built-in hard drive. It's a nifty, but not cheap, way to take your vinyl digital.
No matter what you use to record your old albums, the results will depend on the condition of the source material (Did your records get much play over the years? Have you kept them free of dust?) and whether your turntable is spinning at precisely 33 1/3 rpms. And one last tip: A damaged needle can cause problems, so make sure you've got everything up to snuff on your old system. Exile turned out well, but I was disappointed with the digital copy I made of REM's Reckoning (an album I listened to almost every day in 10th grade) so I sprung for the few bucks it cost to burn it off Listen.com's Rhapsody service (see "Sanctioned Services"). I'm still going to keep the LP though. I like the cover art.
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