do you have an audio in to your computer?

Maybe? I've never tried. I have audio out- does that count?

Nope ... birds and bees and all that.

Hmm. So what would I need? A cable and some software?

If you don't have an audio-in, you'll also need either a sound card or some kind of USB geegaw.

Huh. I wonder if I have that already. I listen to music on my computer- doesn't that mean I have a soundcard already?

And why am I such a computer ignoramous when I spend so much time on one?

Hmm. So what would I need? A cable and some software?

I'm sorry, I don't know. (This is actually something I've been wondering about myself.)

I do know, however, that audio in is different than audio out. I think what hellbient was getting at is you need some way to digitize the music. If you had a sound card that accepts input from outside the computer, getting some version of the music onto the computer and subsequently burning it to a CD would be trivial. The hard part, from what I hear, is getting a quality version of the tunes into a digital format.

How many holes does your sound card have? Do any of them show an arrow pointing in? On mine, in the audio in is blue.

S_R: Can you come over to Marin? I am all set up to do it at home.

Here's the basic sequence:

needle - phono-stage - pc audio in. After setting your levels, you'll record each side as a WAV - adjust audio to taste - use PCWave software to cut into tracks - burn to CD.

About the phono stage: An LP is recorded with built-in RIAA equalization to cut the lows and boost the highs, so the needle doesnt' jump the groove on low freqs. All record players have a circuit in them that inverses the equalization, restoring the signal to normal. It's also a high-gain amplifier, because the signal from the record needle is so small - 200 mV or so. The output of the phono stage is "line level" or about 2V.

Recording the line signal w/ the PC is just like recording any other signal. You'll need software to make the recording; I'd use Audacity.

I'll check out the soundcard. But yeah! Triode, I can totally come to Marin. When do you usually have time? I will have to sneak the album out of Mom's house first. And where are you? (I'm in Albany- 15-20 min from San Rafael.)

What is a phono-stage? And could you just record one song at a time so you don't have to cut anything? (Is that what you're talking about with PCWave?)

S_R: my email is in my profile. Just bring the LP and the rest is easy.

"phono-stage" is a high-impedance preamplifier (aka preamp). Back in the old days, when men were men and sheep were nervous, HiFi systems were built up of separate components - turntable > preamp (with tone and volume controls and bizarre things like "loudness" filters [which was for faking the tonal range of loud music when the volume was turned down low but most stoners thought it meant "use while playing really loud" leading to Spinal Tap "goes up to eleven" jokes]) > power amp > speakers.

We are talking tubes, reel-to-reel tape recorders, pre-stereo ancient dark ages before transistors, cell phones or personal computers. Like so long ago that most of you were still dead then.

But! You can still get a plain vanilla preamp that is equal to or better than the antiques. No fancy controls, just a gain adjustment. Good news - they are really inexpensive. Bad news - it's a kit and you have to solder it (an ancient technique for joining two metals together and very useful for making solid electrical connections.)

Or you can get a preamp on eBay for about the same $$$

nope, I have no pre-amp, just what I think is called a receiver. I thought it was called an amp, but the crutchfield site says no.

Thanks, Triode. I'll take you up on in, sometime in the next couple of weeks. (Mom's BD is 7/26.)

sm: your reciever probably has "line out" or "tape monitor" jacks on the back. These are what you are looking for. It sounds like you are in business.

Look on the back of your computer for the jacks where the speakers plug in. There will usually be three round jacks 1/8" -- one of these will be line in.

Your reciever line outs will be two RCA jack and the computer's line in jack will be 1/8" Stereo.

You can get a cable at Radio Shack that has two male RCA plugs on one end and one male 1/8" stereo on the other.

Then you will be cooking with gas.

Sorry, I didn't figure out that you had a turntable and reciever....

yup- I'm old school enough for that. But I think I will take Triode up on his offer. I only have the one album to do. Everything else I own(ed) on vinyl came out on CD. This LP did, too, but he remastered the vocals and now it's really boring sounding.