Bought above item and it has no output control, so all recordings are at the highest level and distorted. Item came with Audacity 1.2.6. I can’t adjust the input thru Audacity. I can adjust the output. Do I need to buy another turntable with output control?
Check the equipment thoroughly - in some cases there is a volume control hidden underneath the unit.
Is this the only turntable that you own?
Does the turntable have analogue outputs (for connecting to an amplifier)?
The specs for this turntable say, in part: “Ceramic Stereo Cartridge” Uuugh! This will lathe your vinyl. This is the type of cartridge that came with “slam-and-play” turntables in the 60s. No wonder it only costs $40.
Do yourself a favour and get a better turntable, with a “magnetic” cartridge.
– Bill
has RCA outputs on rear. didn’t know ceramic cartridge was a bad thing. so, you guys that know what your talking about please tell me that things I should look for in buying another usb turntable. i would really appreciate it! thanks very much!
“You get what you pay for.”
That said, don’t spend $500 either.
I’d look for:
- magnetic cartridge included
- metal platter (not plastic!)
- output volume control (not essential in my view, but others may disagree)
Other than that it’s hard to know from looking at web pages how good the TT is. Belt drive is generally less expensive than direct drive and can work well in a properly constructed TT. I have no experience with the latest batch of USB turntables, so can’t recommend makes and models.
– Bill
no volume control. i have my 70s phillips belt driven turntable, my 70s pioneer sx 828 amp/tuner/receiver, and my akai reel to reel. i still use the pioneer. the phillips has a pickering cartridge. if i was smart enough i could probably use the phillips and the sx 828 with the audacity to do the same thing i’m trying to do with this reject Vibe turntable.
I started out with an ION iTT-USB turntable for my transcriptions - I soon junnked it because it gave far too much wow&flutter (probably down to the very lightweight plastic platter - the electronics were good though and it did at least have a volume control.
I resurrected my old Technics SL-150/SME arm from the attic and gave it a home service. And bought a phono pre-amp (ARTcessories DJ-PreII) and an external USB soundcard (Edirol UA-1EX now superseded by the Cakewalk UA-1G). This setup gave much better results.
I have the Phono preamp, my Nakamichi tape deck and my wife’s old FM tuner connected to a three-way passive switch (SkyTronic) which is in turn connected to the Edirol USB soundcard. This avoids having to re-plug the soundcard all the time to change inputs - and the SkyTronic has a very low noise floor.
I have gain controls on both the pre-amp and the Edrol soundcard - this enables me to leave the Edirol set for FM capture from the BBC and I can use to pre-amp control to vary and optimize the signal level for my LP captures.
You can get combined phono pre-amp/USB soundcard devices - ARTcessories makes a good one the “USB Phono Plus v2” and there are others (I particularly like the build quality of the ATRcessories kit) - the Edirol was useful to me as I also had a MiniDisc collection and the Edirol has a digital S/PDIF input so I could go stright-through digital from MDs.
I assume your amp has RCA outputs - if your computer has a line-level input (not a Mic input, you will overload one of those with a line level signal) you could work by plugging from the amp to the line-in on your computer. This will then use the soundcard on your computer for recording. I personally prefer the quality of my Edirol over my PC’s onboard soundcard.
I hope you kept the receipt for the Vibe - send it back, it’s junk - and use your existing kit … 
This set of tutorials from the 1.3/2.0 manual should help you: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tutorial_-_Copying_tapes,_LPs_or_minidiscs_to_CD
WC
kept receipt. trying to get seller to respond.
I think I solved this!! 
I got one of these and it took me a little while to figure out how to get the recording level right. It’s ok by default for quiet parts but hits the upper recording limit and distorts once most songs get going.
To fix this you need to go to your windows audio controls, (little speaker in the bottom right of the task bar) right click and select recording devices.
You should see the usb microphone, click that, click properties, select the levels tab, and bring that sucker down to about 10%, that works for me, no more distortion.
you can’t use the audacity microphone level, you just get quieter, fully distorted recordings.