# Good way to convert Vinyl collection to digital?



## mikey7182 (Jan 16, 2008)

My dad has been sitting on hundreds of awesome old albums that have been packed in a box for years. We listened to it all when I was a kid but he never breaks them out anymore. I thought it might be cool for Christmas to convert all his old vinyl to digital. He doesn't have an iPod but he has an Android phone, so my idea was to rip them all to a hard drive and ultimately have the files end up on Google Music so he can access them on his phone and PC. I am just curious if anyone has converted their vinyl over to digital files, and what the best way might be to do it? I've seen USB turntables that allow you to plug directly into a PC, then I've also seen interfaces such as this one:

LPs To CDs - LPs to MP3s - LPs To Your iPod - Vinyl To CD Perfection Turntable And Interface Mixer

My dad already owns a turntable as well as a 1TB hard drive. I could probably sneak both of them under the radar if the converter would do the trick. Anyone with experience doing this want to chime in?


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## stopdrpnro (May 15, 2008)

Itunes


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## stochastic (Jan 24, 2012)

mikey7182 said:


> My dad has been sitting on hundreds of awesome old albums that have been packed in a box for years. We listened to it all when I was a kid but he never breaks them out anymore. I thought it might be cool for Christmas to convert all his old vinyl to digital. He doesn't have an iPod but he has an Android phone, so my idea was to rip them all to a hard drive and ultimately have the files end up on Google Music so he can access them on his phone and PC. I am just curious if anyone has converted their vinyl over to digital files, and what the best way might be to do it? I've seen USB turntables that allow you to plug directly into a PC, then I've also seen interfaces such as this one:
> 
> LPs To CDs - LPs to MP3s - LPs To Your iPod - Vinyl To CD Perfection Turntable And Interface Mixer
> 
> My dad already owns a turntable as well as a 1TB hard drive. I could probably sneak both of them under the radar if the converter would do the trick. Anyone with experience doing this want to chime in?


So if you want to use a system like the link you posted, the hard part is going to be the length of time it takes you to complete the file naming/id3 tag task and the physical length of time it takes to play through a collection of 100 albums. Furthermore, that system only goes into the mic input of your built-in soundcard in the product's video. Quality will _seriously_ suffer at that sound juncture. The interface with phono preamps is all you're paying for in that 'mixer'. Get some good preamps connected to a nice soundcard (USB makes sense) if you want the process to sound better. Yes, that program includes software, but it does the same thing as Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder that is free.

If you can spare the money do the investment in a good soundcard. You can then justify it financially as partly for a future RTA project. For that product's $70 price tag you can find a better quality solution. IMHO. I've bought hardware preamps at my local home store for ~$15CAD - same quality that you're buying for $70. Maybe you're paying $55 for the fader, blinking lights, multi-channels, cros channel mixing capabilities, pre-fader headphone outs, and other hardware switches that you'll not need in this project? Take those $55 and buy a used CL/ebay/etc... USB soundcard. Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions on that purchase/possible deals, etc... 

EDIT: I see it comes with an audio technica stylus too (pre-mounted for god knows what record arm direction). If your dad already has a good sounding record player then this piece is redundant or BAD, but if he doesn't then this'd be a good step.


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