About three years ago I made a start on creating digital versions of my LP collection, for listening in the kitchen and in the car. The results were encouraging (with one reservation, which I'm coming to) but the project went on pause when we moved house.
Now I'm keen to resume and, in the process, deal with the one problem I had before. I made my first set of transcriptions using Audacity on an old (2006) XP laptop. I think this struggled for processing power at times, creating skips and glitches in the output files. (I've had the same problem using it to rip CDs.)
Now I have a newer, better laptop with a multicore processor and much more memory. It also has Windows 7, as you'd expect. So far so good, but it does present two possible problems with my Griffin iMic USB sound card:
1. It's not supposed to work with Win7;
2. I can't find it.
So what might I try instead? No need for a phono preamp as I already have that in my amplifier. Powered through USB would be an advantage, as would variable gain and a headphone monitor socket.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Fri 20 Jul 12 at 11:30
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I was given one of these for Christmas:
www.amazon.co.uk/Citronic-128-515-AC-1USB-Capture-Device/dp/B000MMU1JQ/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1342781132&sr=8-16
works with Vista so presumably OK for Win7.
Start the record, hit record and leave it to it.
Last edited by: gmac on Fri 20 Jul 12 at 11:48
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Depends on how much you want to pay."USB Sound cards" go from £2.99 to £299. For 2.99 you get squat in the way of software or drivers or quality or function or support.
Sound Blaster is a name to trust with better than average drivers software and support
www.ebuyer.com/239672-creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-go-pro-sound-card-16-bit-70sb129000002?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products&gclid=CK2SzJWOqLECFSsntAodhAYAjQ
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I use one of these, 25 quid ish:-
www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UFO202-U-phono-Audio-Interface/dp/B002GHBYZ0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342785727&sr=8-1
I'm 99% sure I've used it on my Win7 machine, but I'll double check when I get home.
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Thanks chaps. A further look at the Griffin site now shows Win7 (but not Vista) in the compatibility list for the iMic, so I'll start by opening a few more boxes in search of mine. So
Some of the other options, such as the Behringer, claim to need no driver, so that will help too.
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Quick update: opened some stored boxes and there, in the one the CD player had travelled in, was the iMic, along with the decent-quality RCA to 3.5mm interconnect I'd forgotten I had for it.
A quick check behind the amp for the tape outputs and it was connected. Windows automatically installed a driver for it and pronounced it ready for use, although it still took some tweaking of Win7's default settings to get the computer to recognize any input. (I'm using Nero 11 Wave Editor to record, rather than Audacity - although I'm having to use Audacity to export to MP3 because any attempt at compression seems to crash Wave Editor.)
So all seems well. I'll record a few more albums and form a view on the quality before I decide whether to go looking for something more sophisticated.
Thanks all round to those who offered advice.
}:---)
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Further update: playing my first four tracks in the car this morning I'm thoroughly pleased with how they turned out. Nero offers all sorts of post-processing tricks but all I did was normalize the level to 0dB to match the tracks taken from CD. The source LPs were in good enough condition not to require any de-crackling or de-clicking, which also meant there wasn't too much noise to boost.
Split into tracks and exported to 320k MP3 files, the music sounds as good in the car as anything else on my iPod: voices sound natural and cymbals and basslines are well defined and easy to follow.
An old chestnut but after a while without them I'm struck by how good the best of my LPs sound. I have favourites from the 80s that I've bought again on CD and the LP version is a livelier, punchier listen. Only with chamber and orchestral music does the lower noise floor swing the balance back to CD. Why did I leave it so long?
(Didn't mention computers at all this time; even mentioned a car. Is that enough for this thread to be released from Geeks' Corner?)
}:---)
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USB sound card for Win7 - ....
