Ok. I am very new to this and it is clearly a basic question so apologies to all those who ask complicated questions.
i WANT TO RECORD LPs TO MY COMPUTER to play them through a Sonos system. I have the tuntable which is a Pro Ject. I used to play them by plugging the out put line(which is the only line out of the turntable) into a Bose. I have pugeed this in to the line in at the back of my desktop but audacity wont record it. It is doing something shown as a flat line when I hit record. I have read I cannot plug turntable direct into computrt and I need a phono amplifier. What is that. I dont want to buy anything else. I have seen I can buy a USB turntable .They seen very cheap and i have been told that i wont get a good recording.
Do I need a different cable to connect my turntable to my computer
Are you selecting the line-in input in Audacity’s Device Toolbar? Is the line-in port coloured blue or red?
If you are recording from line-in, you could be recording the turntable at such a low level that you cannot see the waveform without amplifying it. You need to connect through a phono amplifier both for amplification of the signal and to get the balance of high and low frequencies correct (called RIAA Equalization).
Do your Bose speakers (or whatever they are) have line level outputs? You could connect those to the computer with a suitable adaptor.
Gale Thank you so much. The line in on the back of the computer is blue and i have set the audacity input device to line in. It does record something because when i save it and transfer it to my Nas drive where i save my music i can play it through my Sonos system but it just sounds like white noise.
My tuntable does have an amplifier i think but it does seem to be an amplification problem.
I have sold the Bose(to get all modern and digital!).
So now I need to know what is a phono amplifier. I dont want to buy one just for this. Do everyday cd players have them and could i play through something which has a phono amplifier built in.
It’s unlikely but possible a cd player would have a phono input which is what you need. Usually you plug a turntable into a “music centre”, “boom box” or multi-input standalone amplifier if you don’t have a phono amplifier.
What is the exact model number of the Pro Ject turntable?
It is a phono pre-amp integrated with a USB soundcard (basically you get this sort of stuff integrated inside a USB TT - but you are likely to get much better results with your existing TT and this piece of kit).