Recording from turntables to PC problems

[danthebangerboy]

Well, after your excellent help with recording live streams i thought i may be able to pick your brains about another problem i have got. What i am trying to do is transfer some of my vinyl collection onto my pc.

I thought the easiest way would be to use the record (which i would presume to be an output) connection from my mixer and connect it to the line in connection on the pc. I capture no sound at all.

So, next idea, use the pre-out on my amp, no, still no sound at all.

Next idea, use the amp (out) connection on the mixer that normally goes to the amp, I get very tinny, bass-less and treble heavy recording, much like the sound you can hear from a vinyl record needle with the volume turned down, but which was very distorted and fuzzy. distortion and fuzziness was fixed by turning the gain on the mixer right down low (way below normal playing levels).

next idea, use the output directly from the turntable that usually goes to the mixer instead. the same tinny bass-less distorted sound ( i have no volume control via the mixer now!)

So, finally i try using the tape deck (out) connection on the amp, as since my mixer runs through the amp using the tape deck (in) connection this HAS to work! No! absolute silence as in the beginning.

i am scratching my head with this one now as i have literally ran out of options (and combinations!) of what to do to make this work. I mean simple logic dictates that if you connect the output of something, to the input of something else, whatever 'it' is will be transferred, ie, recorded. I have no idea what to do next. Any ideas anybody????

[steve]

I thought the easiest way would be to use the record (which i would presume to be an output)

Not necessarily - it may be an input. On my mixing desk there are 2 pairs of connectors labelled "Tape" - one pair also marked "In" and the other pair "out". The "Tape-in" is for connecting a cassette player (or similar) to the mixer for playing music from the cassette player through the mixing desk. The pair marked "Tape-out" is for recording from the mixing desk.

I get very tinny, bass-less and treble heavy recording,

That is typically what you get if you do not use a "phono pre-amp".
Records are recorded with very low levels of bass, because otherwise the grooves in the record would need to be very wiggly. Record players need to play through a special pre-amp to correct this by reducing the treble and boosting the bass. This is called "RIAA Equalisation", and is applied automatically by phono pre-amps. The Phono pre-amp also boosts the level of the record player signal.

If you have a hi-fi (separates) amplifier with a phono input (for connecting a turntable), you may be able to use this.

A typical setup is to connect the turntable to the phono input of the amplifier, then connect the "Tape/Record" output of the amplifier to the "Line Input" of the computer sound card.

If you do not have an amplifier with "phono in" for a record player, you can buy small (often battery powered) phono pre-amplifiers quite cheaply. Of course, the best ones are quite expensive, but even phono pre-amps costing as little as £20 GBP can give reasonable results.

[danthebangerboy]

The phono input is all fine as the sound is perfect when i am playing the records as usual, its the output from the amp to the computer that is causing the problem (i think) as the playback that has been recorded is bad, as mentioned above. The amplifier im using is a very old, but very good one. Its a hitachi sr 1100.
Here are pictures of the amp in question..

http://www.snapdrive.net/files/531691/h ... 0front.jpg

http://www.snapdrive.net/files/531691/h ... 20rear.jpg

I am using the 'tape in' input on the amp for normal playback. (3rd set of rca connections from the left) For my recording output i have tried the 'tape out' connection (4th from left) and 'preout' (5th from left) The only thing i just thought of that could be part of it is maybe this amp has to be set to phono radio or aux in order for it to send an output signal through the pre-out connection and will not work using the tape moniter feature. The only way i can get any kind of decent quality playback is to use this feature of the amp as i get truely terrible 10000x times too loud and nasty sound if i use any of the other inputs on the amp.

[steve]

Unless your turntable has an in-built pre-amp, (and it sounds like it does not), then the turntable should be plugged into the "phono" socket.
You should then be able to take an output from either the "Tape out" or the "Pre out".

This is almost identical to the set-up that I use for recording vinyl.

i get truely terrible 10000x times too loud and nasty sound if i use any of the other inputs on the amp.

I suspect that the problem is the input on your computer - I think you are plugged into a microphone input and not a line input. Microphone inputs are around 1000x too sensitive for the line level output of your amp.

If your computer does not have a line level input (many laptops do not), then you need to get a sound card that has a line level input. For a laptop, an inexpensive USB sound card such as the Behringer UCA 202 should do the job nicely.

If your computer is a desktop/tower computer, it will probably have a line input as well as a microphone input, but if not, you can add either a USB sound card, or a PCI sound card.

[danthebangerboy]

Mine is a desktop pc pentium 4 2.53ghz. 1gb ram, the sound card is some kind of built in jobby, although i can record from my technics tape deck with my setup as it is and the quality is very good, well, as good as it can be from a tape. i have got the lead in the line in jack (blue one) on the soundcard as i made that mistake once before when i first got the leads, and nearly gave myself a heart attack due to the loudness!

I have found that if plug any leads into the pre-out jack on the amp it effectively cuts all the sound, weather the amp is on radio, aux, phono, whatever. I have also tried running my mixer into the main in jack on the amp, the sound is good quality but fairly loud and constant, and the volume control is inaffective regardless of what setting the amp is on. So i can get sound to the mixer, but can't get it out again to the PC!

Going back to the tinny treble heavy bassless recording i CAN actually get, is there a plugin for audacity that does RIAA equalization as this would solve my problem.

*EDIT! I have just found the RIAA option in the equalisation menu so it has solved my problem completely! thanks for your help steve.