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Tips on Trasnferring Records & Tapes

Perhaps you would rather transfer the records and tapes you have instead of buying lossy MP3's or shelling out big bucks for some of DeGarmo & Key's earlier albums. Perhaps you have some recorded concerts or interviews that you would like to digitally preserve. Whatever your reason, here you will learn how to properly transfer records and tapes with high quality in a easily explained fashion.

Equipment Needed:

  • Cassette deck and/or Turntable
  • USB audio interface with phono pre-amp
  • Computer
  • Audio recording software

Recommended Equipment:

  • A stand alone component cassette deck from a reputable brand:
    • Sony, Technics, Pioneer, Nakamichi, Akai, JVC, Kenwood, Sansui, Aiwa, etc.
    • Use high quality foil shielded RCA stereo cables for less background noise/buzzing.
    • Make sure the tape path, head, capstan, and pinch roller are totally clean.
      • Use 91-99% isopropyl alcohol and q-tips (cotton swabs) for cleaning.
  • A stand alone component turntable with a magnetic cartridge, preferrably with an adjustable tonearm.
    • Audio-Technica AT-LP60/AT-LP60-USB/AT-LP120-USB, Teac TN-100/TN-200/TN-300, Sony PS-LX300USB, Pioneer PL-990
      • Avoid the "red stylus" ceramic cartridge (Crosley, Ion, all-in-one stereos etc) turntables at all cost. Ceramic cartridges are cheap, rough on vinyl, and do significant damage over time, not to mention they sound horrible compared to Margnetic cartridges.
  • A record cleaning brush.
    • I recommend the Audio-Technica AT6012 cleaning kit or any vintage Audio-Technica record brush with any record cleaning fluid.
      • The Audio-Technica brushes are the safest to use without risk of damaging records. It actually lifts the dust/dirt out of the grooves and off of the record completely. When combined with Audio-Technica, Discwasher (RCA), or any other record cleaning fluid it will clean off dirt easier and take off fingerprints.
  • Behringer UFO202 usb audio interface with phono pre-amp
    • The Behringer is built well with high quality parts and does not contain any unnecessary features.
    • The advantage of having a usb audio interface with a built-in phono pre-amp is it allows the use of older turntable that need a pre-amp. Many newer low to mid-end turntables have a built-in pre-amp already, but for no extra cost it's nice to have available in the audio interface just in case you need it.
    • FYI: Using the microphone input on your computer to hook up audio gear will yield poor quality and could possibly do damage to the jack on your computer. Such inputs were not designed for use with anything other than (and more powerful than) a basic computer microphone.
  • Sony Sound Forge audio recording software
    • Many people will recommend the free program named "Audacity," but the quality is exactly what you would expect for what you paid for it, not to mention it is awkward and difficult to use. Yes, the Sound Forge software by Sony is not free, but well worth every penny (Sound Forge Audio Studio - retail $59.95). Advantages of Sound Forge:
      • Easy to use with interactive tutorials
      • Supports practically any audio format including popular lossless formats
      • Requires no setup for inputs
      • Automatic "click and pop" cleanup that doesn't affect sound quality
      • Superior audio level monitoring and normalization process
      • Has a range of tools and tweaks to meet any need
      • Response and processing time is fast

Basic Instructions:

Plug in your USB audio interface into your computer. The first time you plug it in it will install the necessary drivers for the hardware. Once that is done you will have to go into the sound settings on your computer and select your USB audio interface as the default recording hardware.
 
Next plug in your turntable or cassette deck to the USB audio interface "input" jacks. If your interface has a phono pre-amp setting, be sure to have it switched to off if using a cassette deck or a turntable with a built-in pre-amp.
 
Open your audio recording software and proceed to record. Make sure your input volume is not too high. Check the level monitor on the software to make sure the levels are not going into the red zone (past 0db). You can adjust the input volume via the sound settings on your computer. Personally I record the entire album to one track and then cut it up into individual songs afterwards. After you have cut it up into tracks, normalize each track individually to the automatic setting for "music" (or about -3db to 0db if it dosn't have a music setting). If you transferred a record, use the "audio restoration" (aka vinyl or click & pop remover/cleanup) feature for each track.
 
Once you are done with recording, cutting each track, normalizing and cleaning up the audio, proceed to save each individual track to a format of your choice. I recommend saving the files to FLAC format because it is lossless, meaning there is no audio compression used and therefore no loss of original recording quality (digital distortion). You can always convert from FLAC files to MP3 or any other audio file you need with free audio converting programs. FLAC files, like MP3, can be burned to a cd with programs such as Nero & Cyberlink Power2Go or from within Sony Sound Forge.
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