Very soon, the Culture Of None blog will begin to share thrift store vinyl finds, and the time has come to consider the best means of converting records into MP3 files. I have been very resistant to buying the obvious leader in this process, the USB turntable. Ion’s product (shown) seems to be very common, but seems kinda flimsy and “hollow” to me. They seem to sell for $60-$80 on eBay, which is a fair price if you don’t already have a record player, but I can’t justify buying another turntable just to rip wax.
So, I searched “usb audio optical” on eBay and found this cute little box that I’m hoping will meet and exceed my audio conversion need, with a pricetag (including shipping) of under $20.
I really like optical, and my plan is to record vinyl to MiniDisc, which gives the audio a nice, warm compression and allows for plenty of track editing. Also, this will allow me to listen to the record during transfer, with the computer freed up for other activity. I expect that any software used to capture the optical input and convert to MP3 will be quite automated, and should allow me to walk away and let the computer do its thing while I do mine. We’ll see how it goes.
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I am on my way for getting the same stuff from IGOZZ.
Does this work well? What software do you use to recognize that sound gets into your computer via USB?
Thanks.
I’ve actually had GREAT results with the IGOZZ unit so far: using Audacity software, which is widely available online as freeware, here’s the source: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
There’s plenty of support and forums w/ other users regarding recording LPs, splitting songs into separate files, etc.
In fact, many reports suggest this is the software bundled with the $200 Ion USB turntables found at Brookstone and other speciality electronics stores.
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