Burning vinyl onto an I-pod, what's needed?

strider

Trying to help someone burn some of his record collection onto an I-pod. I've been looking at the Pro-ject Phono Box II USB, and was curious as to what else he'd need to be able to do so. From my take on it, you've got a digital signal from the Phono Box to the computer, but I'm not certain what he'd need, software-wise, to work with I-tunes. Any help's appreciated.

nms

I've done it the boring way: phono into a stereo receiver, run a tape out into the PC's line in and record the signal to a .wav file. Then burn to a CD.

I assume your friend is trying to do it without stereo equipment, so this is no help at all . Is he a good enough friend that you would loan him a receiver you weren't using (if you have an extra)?

dkg999

Search on I-POD forums. There's plenty of forums with info. on how to get music & video onto the I-POD. I'm having some issues with an PSP, but I used the online forums to get info and software suggestions for getting stuff to my I-POD.

strider

nms wrote: »

I've done it the boring way: phono into a stereo receiver, run a tape out into the PC's line in and record the signal to a .wav file. Then burn to a CD.

I assume your friend is trying to do it without stereo equipment, so this is no help at all . Is he a good enough friend that you would loan him a receiver you weren't using (if you have an extra)?

Yeah, that may be boring, but damn if I didn't think of it. I guess I'm just projecting my inherent desire to buy audio equipment on him. Talking to him he's got the equipment he'd need to get it done. What program would you use to record the incoming signal?

nms

strider wrote: »

Yeah, that may be boring, but damn if I didn't think of it. I guess I'm just projecting my inherent desire to buy audio equipment on him. Talking to him he's got the equipment he'd need to get it done. What program would you use to record the incoming signal?

Kristal audio engine. It's free for non-commercial use and seems to work really well - I just downloaded it recently to suck music off of Pandora.

If you've ever used a "real" mixing board the interface will be very intuitive, and the help pages on the web are pretty good.

When doing records, I found it was easiest to do an entire side in one go to avoid the hassle of re-synching the needle after every track and the accompanying "pops" of lifting the needle on and off. The individual songs can then be exported out of the large file as .wav, or .aiff if you prefer.

As for burning the tracks, WMP will do it, although there's a question of how well. Use your favorite, I guess.

BaggedLancer

Costco sells USB Turntables for about $100 that will take your vinyl, convert it to mp3 or wav right onto your computer so you can just dump the files onto your Ipod. That in my opinion is probably the easiest way to do it.

Sherardp

BaggedLancer wrote: »

Costco sells USB Turntables for about $100 that will take your vinyl, convert it to mp3 or wav right onto your computer so you can just dump the files onto your Ipod. That in my opinion is probably the easiest way to do it.

+1 and exactly what I was going to recommend.

strider

Yes, I'd agree it would be the easiest. However, I don't think he's real thrilled about the idea of subjecting his album collection, some irreplaceable, to a $100 turntable setup.
Would there be benefits other then convenience to using something that would output to the computer via USB? Talking to him, at this point he'd be fine with not spending any money, accepting the level of quality, and being able to get things done the way nms suggested. If he were to put out some money, I think he'd spend the extra $80 or so and get the Pro-ject USB box.