Instructions to extract audio from vinyl discs into digital music for storage

Vinyl is not advanced technology, but its pure, seductive, bold analog sound is hard to deny. However, the biggest disadvantage of vinyl is its inconvenience. Streamlining services are also starting to publish licensed vinyl albums and convert them to high-quality digital music formats. You can listen to them directly on your phone or personal computer. As for music lovers, who have already spent money to buy a huge vinyl collection, this will “consume” a significant amount of money. With the advancement of audio technology in recent years, you can now store vinyl records in digital music format and take them anywhere. Rip a CD is very easy, insert the disc in a certain CDROM player, choose the output format and quality, and have an easy digital music album. However, it would help if you had a little patience with vinyl discs, and the results will be well worth the wait.

What do you need?

To convert vinyl analog signals to digital signals takes many steps of hardware configuration, which will always have the following main components: a turntable, a phono stage, and an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter) output signal via USB and an appropriate software on the computer.

1. For those of you who don’t have anything yet.

You are not familiar with vinyl, want to learn, want to get used to it; I recommend you to buy a new vinyl tray with all built-in in it, plug it in and use it. Currently, popular manufacturers focus on features, not on quality issues. It is best not to invest in cheap equipment because it will be a useless waste of money. Cheap USB vinyl trays will often give bad music quality due to a lot of noise and background noise; regardless of whether it is in a lossless format like WAV or FLAC, it can’t be compensated. Bad acoustics are often the cause of a poor-quality needle or an ADC that “does its job” and doesn’t deliver the great sound quality of vinyl.

Should focus on high-quality devices such as the Sony PS-HX500 integrated vinyl player that was just introduced at CES2016; in my opinion, the price of $450 is not expensive for a quality product. In addition, we also have the Pro-Ject Essential II Phono USB for a little more than $370. In addition to ripping lossless digital music files, the Sony PS-HX500 can also rip the highest digital music format today, DSD.

2. For those who already have a vinyl set of wheels, levers, and needles.

If you already have a set of wheels, needles, and basic needs like Technics, Denon, Pro-ject machines, the next thing is to find yourself a Phonostage.

I like the Korg DS DAC 10R, both as a USB DAC for digital music files, supporting up to DSD5.6MHz and adding phono stage circuitry, integrated ADC converter to rip music from vinyl equipment in high quality. DSD5.6MHz volume and looks very elegant inside. Please don’t take the phono stage lightly; it plays a huge role in the sound quality of your digital recording.

3. For those who already have action and phono stage.

For those already playing vinyl with a built-in mechanism and turntable, all you need is a USB ADC with RCA inputs. To get acquainted, choose for yourself Beringer UCA222 with an acceptable price, only about $30. More advanced, we have HRT Line Streamer +, which experts highly appreciate.

Work progress

Receiving the signal from the turntable into the computer is only the first step. The next part of the process is finding the right software to capture the full audio signal. There are currently a lot of paid software that do this well, like Pure Vinyl or Vinyl Studio, for example, but if you want to save a bit of money, using the open-source software Audacity is enough. Audacity is a form of freemium software (free to use and can be purchased with additional modules, plugins, licenses if needed) that allows capturing audio signals at 192kHz quality and export to formats such as MP3 AIFF, etc. FLAC or WAV is compatible with popular music player app platforms. Its only minus point is that it has a rather confusing interface; in return, it is compatible with both Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Whatever software you use, it’s important to capture at least 44.1kHz/16-bit quality. Remember that You can “compress” the original lossless file into lossy formats with a smaller capacity for portable listening needs. Still, it is not possible to “restore” the signal from the lossy file to lossless. The conversion process will also take a long time if you have a huge vinyl library.

When the software and hardware settings are ready, it’s time to start “digitizing” the vinyl library. You can apply it however you want, but I recommend finding a quiet space to minimize unwanted vibrations from the outside, such as trains or children running around. These impacts can cause the floor to vibrate and jump during recording.

Step 1: Check the system and clean the vinyl before recording.

Before proceeding to rip vinyl, you must carefully check that your system is perfect to boot. Check if the lever and needle are in the correct position, the needle tip is too dusty or too close to the disc surface, check the wheel’s rotation speed, the oil in the ball bearing of the rotary mechanism is dry, and then start. Vinyl is not like a CD, so everything in operation affects the sound quality.

Analog signals are recorded digitally in real-time; a 5-minute vinyl track will also produce a 5-minute digital music file; you can’t shorten this period. A vinyl record usually has two sides A and B, recorded in about 1 hour. While the wheel is spinning, do not shake or have any mechanical impact on the wheel, or you will have a digital file full of noise. If you are listening through the speaker while ripping, turn on the low volume because the strong bass will shake the disc (very slight vibration, hard to see with the naked eye), the effect is not small on the recording.

Vinyl discs are very susceptible to dust in the grooves or oil from the skin of your hands when handling. If they appear on the vinyl surface, these defects will be saved during the recording process, and when they are collected, they will sound pop, sizzling, and cold. To solve it quite simply, you need to buy yourself a micro-fiber brush and dust the disc from time to time. If the discs are too dirty, use diluted dishwashing liquid, then apply it on the surface of the discs and use a discs sponge to clean it and let it dry naturally gently; rest assured that you will use this method all the time.

More carefully, use wood glue to spray on the disc’s surface, spread it evenly into a thin layer, let it dry for a few hours, and remove this film; this method is for anyone with experience.

Step 2: Connect the devices and set them up properly.

If your turntable has a USB port, plug it into the computer. However, with older turntable models that do not have a USB port, you will need to plug it into a separate preamp or A/V receiver before transitioning to the RCA connection to the line-in line on your computer with an RCA-3.5mm cable.

Step 3: Adjust the software.

Open the Audacity software (or whatever you are familiar with) and select the corresponding input. With Audacity, go to the Edit menu > System Preferences and select the “Line in” input from the drop-down menu (under the Recording section of the Devices tab). You also need to select the appropriate input in the sound card settings on your computer.

Step 4: Start receiving the signal.

Press the Record key and start recording the audio signal from the source selected in the previous step. Try recording a few tracks to listen to them and change the recording options as needed (to reduce clipping or distortion). Once you have the best setup, then let’s officially start recording.

Step 5: Wait.

That is the most time-consuming step but also the simplest. You only need to wait until the recording finishes playing and press the Stop button to stop recording.

Step 6: Split the tracks.

Most music listeners will want to split the recording into separate tracks so that each song in the recording can be heard more easily. To do this with Audacity, click and drag to select the corresponding track for each piece of music in the recording, then go to the menu Tracks > Add Label At Selection to give it a name. Some software will do better for this process (e.g., Perfect Tunes), but Audacity is free, so it’s a good option.

Step 7: Export the recorded signal to a music file.

After you have divided and named the tracks in the recording, choose the file> Export Multiple and choose the format you want to save. You can also add metadata information before clicking export to start saving the file.

Step 8: Enjoy.

After completing the conversion process, your vinyl album can be played on music players or specialized music player software.