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CD Recording FAQ
7. AudioCD
7.5. Converting vinyl (LPs) to CD
Vinyl audio used to be considered superior to digital audio because of its better bass response. However, vinyl disks are too fragile and sensitive to static and scratches, so it is always be a good idea to convert rare and expensive LPs to CDs.
The basic step for this is a analog to digital conversion using your sound card. You have to connect the record player to the line-in of the sound card through a phono preamplifier. A pre-amp suitable for the job can be found for less than 50$.
The sound card must have a good quality Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), so that it provides a clear signal with minimal noise. For example, Turtle Beach sound cards are well known for their good quality DACs, while you may prefer to use professional, but also much more expensive, sound cards, like those used in studios.
After that, you have to adjust volume levels for line-in, so that the signal doesn't get clipped, since you can normalize sound later, but you can't make up for clipped sound. To adjust volume levels, you have to make sure that the volume meter never touches the top during recording.
If you record a concept album or a live performance, it is advised to normalize the whole album instead of each track separately.
Once you record all material on your hard disk, you have to use specialized sound editing software in order to edit sound and remove as much noise as possible. Some cd recording suites also offer tools for audio restoration.
Things you have to do are:
- Correct DC offset
- Normalize
- Remove hiss
- Remove static
You may want to go even further, but this also means that you will have to delve into the science of audio editing, and this can be really time consuming.
Correcting DC offset and normalizing usually require a single step. To remove hiss, you usually have to select a silent part and let the software determine what to remove based on that sample. To remove static, you can use filters provided by software to do that automatically, though you may have to experiment a bit, depending on the case.
If all these sound too complicated, you may prefer to use software specialized for this kind of work (transferring vinyl to cd).
Once you have cleaned and adjusted sound, you have to separate each
track (if you haven't already), and then determine the gaps between
each track and write the cd.