Caring For Your Old Records - Transfering To A CD

A lot of old fogies (like me) may have a library of 500 or more LPs left over from back in the days before CDs. And a good thing, too. A lot of those old LPs were never reissued as CDs.



Or maybe you've heard about some classic LP that isn't available on CD and, heaven forbid, you're starting a small LP collection. What do you do when you want to hear one of your LPs? Take it out of the cardboard sleeve, plop it on the turntable and let 'er rip?



What Happens When You Play A Record

Well, if that's what you're doing, every time you listen to your record, you're degrading the quality of the vinyl it's pressed on. Every time a phonograph needle passes over the record, it wears down the grooves. Every time you take the record out of its sleeve, it's like rubbing the vinyl with fine sandpaper, EVEN if you're smart enough to store your records in archival sleeves. Better to play the record once, when you need to make a CD. How do you do that? Well, there are a number of ways. I'll start with the simplest.

Turntable/CD Recorder Combos

For the technophobe, stereo manufacturers have thoughtfully made it easy for us by creating turntable/CD recorder combos such as the TEAC LP-R400.

The advantage of such a system is that it's a cinch to transfer your records to CD. In the case of the TEAC above, this combo turntable/recorder will even be able to sense track breaks on the record and transfer them to CD.

But what if you want to have more control? What if you want compile only the best tracks from several records, for example? Then you're going to need a more complex solution.

Basically, you will need to transfer your analog signal (that's your stereo) to digital (that's your computer), where your sound card will record the signal. For that, you will naturally need something called an analog to digital converter.

Analog to Digital Converters

Once you've got the signal to your computer, you will need software to record the signal and then process it. By process it, I mean get rid of any clicks or pops, divide up the recording into tracks, etc. An excellent and inexpensive way to do all of the above is the Xitel INport Deluxe analog to digital converter.

There's a bit of a learning curve involved to do this effectively, but believe me, it's worth it.

You'll want to use a sampling rate of 41000 -- any more than that and you won't be able to tell the difference anyway. Don't worry too much about what the sampling rate means right now. It'll become clear once you start using the software. Use .wav files instead of mp3 files. When you edit .wav files, there is no loss. They take up more room than .mp3 files, but the results are worth it.

Sound File Editing Products

If you want to do a little more elaborate surgery on your sound files, you'll want to invest a little money in a .wav editing product like Sound Forge Audio Studio 9.

The World's Best Music Production Software And Training!

Of course, if your records are trashed, it won't matter if you have all the nifty CD mastering equipment in the world. Which leads to the next topic -- how to keep your records clean.

Archival Record Sleeves

All right, some of you are probably audiophiles. You have plastic sleeves for all of your records. You hold the records by the edges when you play them. You don't have kids who use your records for a frisbee. Or dogs. Or cats. You actually clean your records. You actually change your needle now and then. This part of the article is not for you.

For the rest of you, if you have any kind of collection, you'll need plastic archival sleeves. The paper ones your records came in disintegrate, leaving dust on your records or worse, the dust grates against your record like sandpaper when you remove it from the jacket.

Cleaning Your Records

But before you use these sleeves, your records had better be clean. That can be accomplished in most cases with a simple record cleaning brush and solution.

If your records only have a bit of dust on them, an even better solution is compressed air, which is often used for blowing dust out from the inside of a computer cabinet. Just simply point the nozzle at the dusty record from a few inches away and spray. Voila! No more dust.

But what if your records are really, truly dirty or worse yet, covered with mold? Well, the first thing to do is to wash them with warm soapy water. But what then? If you truly value your record collection, then you'll want to invest in a Keith Monks or Loricraft record cleaning machine, both of which are pricey but worth it.

Michael D. Kydonieus attended the Berklee College of Music, majoring in composition, and considers himself a "jazzbo," which is defined in the Urban Dictionary as "a jazz musician, DJ, connoisseur or aficionado, esp. an older male." He runs a blog called Jazzbo Notes at http://jazzbonotes.com/ which mostly consists of reviews of jazz recordings and articles like the one you just read.

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