StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I have a decent size LP collection that I am interested in transfering to my computer, and then either burning onto CD or ripping to MP3s. Since I know next to nothing about this, I thought I would ask the good people in this forum for your recommendations.

I have a Thinkpad T40 Laptop, and have used a component y cable in the past to play music from Itunes / CDs. I am guessing I would use the same cable but connect it to my microphone input.

So, what recommendations software-wise do you have for capturing audio? Do I need a higher end audio card than the default thinkpad? I am guessing the fact my microphone input is monaural is no good right? Any thoughts on a filtering program to filter out high frequency pops?

Moderators, wasn't really sure if this should be here or in AMP.

My suggestion would be SoundForge, but I think that's a professional (read: expensive) program.

you may need a soundcard with a special connection that will let you hook up an LP player to it, depending on the player's connections. although probably just any audio ripping utility will do the job so long as you can hook it up. (iirc, there are a handful of mp3 players out there as well that let you rip straight from the LP. but they're few and far between).

You need two things:

LAME MP3 Encoder

EAC (Exact Audio Copy)

EAC is, hands down, the best audio extractor I've ever used. Combined with LAME (which encodes the extracted audio to MP3 format), you're more or less guaranteed the best quality MP3 from a given source. And yes, you can record from LPs or other analog sources.

Best part is, both of them are free.

You will need a phono stage in between your sound card and your sound card to perform RIAA equalization. The ThinkPad's sound is crap, use something like the Echo Indigo IO.


You can then use some recording tool to get the audio and then use LAME to compress it to MP3

I would suggest Nero wave editor, 'cause it's got some nice editing tools to smooth out the captured audio. But... you probably won't get it free. mine was bundled as part of Ahead Nero CD burnng which was packaged with the last CD R/RW drive that i bought. Still... an external cd writer wouldn't set you back too much, and is a useful assett if you don't already have burning capability.

You can save them as Wave format, and then encode to mp3 format with LAME or whatever program you like. Nero can save directly to Mp3Pro format, but I wouldn't recomend it.

Thanks to all who replied with recommendations.