DIY: Vinyl resurrection - Turn LPs and tapes into digital media files

By John Woram, CNET.com on 26 May 2005

Tags: cassette | diy | lps | resurrection | tapes into digital media files | vinyl | step | volume | turntable | recording

Step 5: Adjust the volume



Use Control Panel's "Sounds and audio devices properties" dialog to enable the Windows Volume Control dialog. Click to enlarge.
Once everything is connected properly, you'll need to set the monitoring and recording levels on your PC. To do this, look for the speaker icon on your taskbar. If it's not there, open Control Panel's "Sounds and audio devices" applet, click the Volume tab, and check the box next to "Place volume icon in the taskbar." Click the Apply button, and the icon should appear on the taskbar. Double-click it to open the Volume Control window. You'll see a collection of faders, one of which is labeled Line In. This controls what you hear while recording the music to your PC. If you don't see it, select Options > Properties to display a list of available volume controls, check the Line In and Volume Control boxes, and you're done. Back in the main Volume Control window, make sure Line In's horizontal Balance fader is centered, the Volume fader is about half to three-quarters of the way up, and the Mute button is unchecked. Do the same for the master volume control.

Next, adjust the Line In settings in the Recording Control window by choosing the Options > Properties > Recording button from the Volume Control window. This controls the level at which the music is actually recorded, which is what really counts. Now you can power on the preamp, turntable, or tape deck and start playing an LP or tape. Gradually bring up the fader or volume control on the preamp.

The program you're recording into likely has a recording-level meter. Make sure this level doesn't consistently stay in the red zone. If it does, the recording level is too loud, and you'll get unfixable digital distortion.

Tip: Double-click the taskbar's Volume icon a second time to open a duplicate Volume Control window and choose the Recording option in that window. Now you have both the Playback and Recording controls visible at the same time.

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schmee
08/06/2005 09:11 PM

hhmm, in recent years there have been a number of turntables available marketed specifically & purely for this purpose, made to hook straight up to your pc &, I assume, with bundled software. Funnily enough, this being cnet & all, I thought this article was going to be product review & comparison of some of these items. That would be info that's not readily available & would be really useful.

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schmee
08/06/2005 09:18 PM

a s sume, a-s-sume, a.s.sume good grief, shocking, lame, inept, stupid censoring software on this site, unfknblvbl LOL, you can tell it's an american parent company. parents don't have an option, they have a duty & a need to run content filtering software, don't inflict his crud on the rest of us.

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jmallet
30/09/2005 05:36 PM

I Have turned some of my LP's to 32 Bit CD Music using Software "Goldwave". The Music comes from my HiFi Amplifier and connects to my Sound Card in my computer, I setup Goldwave to accept the music which starts to come in. Afterwards I save this to my harddrive and later burn to my CDs.

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