[blindza] LIttle OT: Used combination of audacity software, and a normal, oldish hifi to record an LP

  • From: "Jacob Kruger" <jacobk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "BlindZA" <blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:21:29 +0200

Hi, think might have mentioned this in past, but, I specifically have a couple 
of records/LPs that I want to copy over into MP3 files, so can then listen to 
them on PC, or MP3 player, etc. etc.

Either way, we hooked up a pretty standard old hifi, which had it's own record 
player turntable on it up to my laptop using a standard 3.5mm audio jack cable, 
but with an adapter on the hifi end since it had the larger diameter socket on 
it, and then I plugged the other end of the line into my laptop's actual stereo 
audio line in, started up audacity with a new, clean project, started the 
record playing, and hit the record button in audacity - note there is you use 
ctrl + F6 to navigate between the 3 primary sections of audacity software's 
interface, and, when focused on record button, you use the R key to start 
recording from your chosen audio input source, and then space bar to stop 
recording, and you can then either save the project as such, or specifically 
export either the selected bit of audio, or the whole project into actual audio 
files, but anyway.

Main thing is found the wiki page on using audacity with regard to recording 
either phono, or old tapes, and, I thus had a sort of idea relating to what 
effects I would want to apply to the audio to take out the bit of white noise, 
and sort of echo/reverb it had in it, so I pretty much first told audacity to 
then select whole recording of each side of the LP's recording, told it tot 
then normalise the audio - pretty sure that applies to making all peak sound 
levels be roundabout the same loudness, and then after selecting one piece of 
each track which had only the sort of white noise in it before, or inbetween 
each song per side I told the noise removal effect to detect/interpret that 
white noise, and then selected whole track, and asked it to carry out noise 
removal across whole track.

Lastly, after using audio player software, gomplayer, to set sort of bookmarks 
inbetween each track, to know the exact times of those points, I just selected 
each single song chunk and exported the selection out one at a time, with the 
track names, etc.

Anyway, actually came out sounding pretty good/decent, and this was an oldish 
record - think had bought it from somewhere like the sunnypark sunday flea 
market stall a long time ago in early 90s, and while the sound quality may not 
be 100% perfectly digital as such, it pretty much sounds like an authentic 
record playback sound, which is more like what I wanted in any case...<smile>

Now, if anyone is interested, here's the webpage relating to using audacity 
along with jaws screen reader:
http://vip.chowo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/jaws/Audacity-1.3.3-Guide.html

And, here's the audacity wiki page specific to phono/tape recording:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CD

Now, not really relevant, but gomplayer is just a nice, simplified interface 
multimedia player that lets you control whole interface using 
context/right-click menu, and apart from track/file bookmarks that carry over 
session to session, it also lets you do things like quite easily speed up and 
slow down playback, as well as either applying effects like voice emphasis, or 
voice removal, but anyway:
http://www.gomlab.com/

Stay well

Jacob Kruger
Blind Biker
Skype: BlindZA
'...fate had broken his body, but not his spirit...'

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  • » [blindza] LIttle OT: Used combination of audacity software, and a normal, oldish hifi to record an LP - Jacob Kruger