Digital music forum: 10/20/06 Converting old vinyl records and tapes to digital

In order to get music that isn't in digital, I ask everyone for their old albums and convert them to CD's for them. I have converted hundreds.

There is plenty of hardware information in these posts, so I will only talk about software.

I use three programs that have been around for ages. I don't really need all three, but each has its' own complications and simplicities. I want the simple features of each one.

"Total Recorder Pro" is absolutely the best for converting old albums and tapes. My reasoning is I don't have the time to sit and record each song individually and I don't like to cut the wav at the end. Total Recorder is the best at cutting the songs into individual tracks while recording. That is, I record the whole side of the album or tape and the songs end up as individual tracks in the directory in the computer. I even get the little quips between tracks. I can also manipulate the fidelity of older more used albums creatively if I choose.

"Exact Audio Copy" (free) is my tool of choice for editing the tracks. I don't always edit a track for clicks and pops as it leaves some nostalgia in the recording. Most of the noise is at the beginning of the album and between tracks on the vinyl and does not record. But, if the album is really damaged, and has noise in the middle of a song, I can open the wave in EAC and edit out the noise and manipulate the wav pretty much any way I want. I can expand the wav file so far, I can see the noise and completely remove it without damaging the track.

I have been a fan of "Musicmatch Jukebox" for years for creating CD's. I like to see the detail of the Album and Name of the song streaming on my player. The tagging on Musicmatch is the best I can find. The Gracenote look up feature does not always work with vinyl and tapes as the new digital CD versions of the same albums do not always have the same songs or in the same order. Since I allow Total Recorder to cut the songs into tracks while recording, Musicmatch allows the best tagging after recording without much effort.

The CD recording features of Musicmatch for volume leveling and fade in and out are quite sufficient for the average person.

Exact Audio Copy will also record the CD. It is a more sophistacated process, but if you use it, you will get quality that is unsurpassed by other than very expensive equipment and software. It has been around for years and the cost is a postcard.

Everyone is amazed at the quality of the CD's I make from their albums.

The conversion recording is unattended with my Total Recorder setup and the CD finish time is unattended with my Musicmatch setup. The only actual time I spend on a conversion is the EAC edit on the older dirtier albums and the Track Tagging with Musicmatch.