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Easy peasy lemon squeezy digitalization achieved!

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AGiLiT View Drop Down
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Joined: 21 Feb 2017
Location: Houston, TX
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    Posted: 19 Mar 2017 at 5:25pm
As mentioned elsewhere in the forums, I have only recently put a mothballed turntable back into service with the goal of finally being able to rediscover my youth, which has been packed away in cartons and cartons of vinyl sitting in a closet for 20 years, and to digitize some favorites for portability. I just wanted to share my success story in getting my first LP from vinyl to the cloud.

My first challenge was the need for a phono pre-amp.  I have been swapping between a Gram Amp 2 SE on loan from the US Loaner program and an old Hagerman Technology Ripper an audiophile friend of mine lent me to get me started.  Boy, I'm liking the Gram Amp 2 SE!

Evaluating the various pathways to get from analog to digital, with cost, convenience, and quality all as factors in the decision, I looked at:
  • Input via. a soundcard.  This would have been challenging, since my personal computer is a laptop and my wife's tower is nowhere near where the turntable sits.  I would have to buy a soundcard and probably build or buy another unit to house it. This also means unplugging and reconnecting the turntable from my receiver when I want to switch from listening to recording and bringing a computer into the audio equipment configuration to manage the digital capture workflow. Not very convenient and could be costly in the end.  
  • Using a USB interface.  This would have required either replacing the Gram Amp 2 SE, which unlike the Ripper, doesn't have a USB output, or supplementing it with an outboard A/D converter.  Basically the same issues as the soundcard solution.
  • Using a CD/RW Recorder.  In the end, this was the way I went.  It turned out to be an easy peasy lemon squeezy!
I bought a TASCAM CD-RW900MKII - a step up from a consumer grade unit, but still quite affordable.  I'm taking analog out from my receiver into the CD/RW recorder.  That way, I don't have to unplug and replug my turntable when I want to record.  There is a meter on the unit displaying the input / playback levels, and the input signal levels are adjustable so it's easy to set levels before recording.  Pop in a CD/RW disc; start recording; drop the needle; pause the recording to flip the album when side one finishes; restart; stop when album completes; finalize the disc and take it to the computer.  This produces two tracks:  one per side of the album.

Using Audacity software, which is free, it was quick and easy to trim out unwanted lead-in and run-out bits off the front and tail of the recordings, find the track separations, label the tracks, remove a couple of minor pops, and export to .mp3.  It will also do FLAC, which I will use if there is anything I want to archive, but since my goal is portability, .mp3 gives a nicer file size and the quality is just fine listening over Google Play Music from the cloud or transferred to a microSD card and inserted into a phone.  I'm sure I'll have things to learn to deal with special situations, but this is looking like a very manageable, efficient, and effective workflow with results that meet or exceed my expectations.

...and so the journey begins!
  

Tony
Houston, TX
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