Line In Port

Hey people,
First off, I'm not sure if this is in the correct forum - between hardware and accessories.

Anyway, I've got some old LPs and lots of cassetes, and want to convert them to CD's . I thought I might as well use my laptop to this instead of getting ripped of at the local audio store.

From some research, I've realised that I can use the Line out port from the audio player to the line in port on a computer. Thing is, laptops don't have line in ports. The only thing that gets close is the mic port but I'm a bit unsure whether this will give me good quality recording.

I've recently stumbled across USB audio adapters such as the imic, which essentially have a small in built sound card - which are supposed to give better quality than the mic port. Would anyone recommend using these? They are quite expensive, apart from the imic which is supposed to be Vista incompatible.

I also thought of getting an external sound card. Will this be a good move?

Hope someone can help!!
Jam.

 

All you mention sounds like it would work fine. Cost seems to be one consideration you have. I have used the mic-line in method a few times and find it acceptable for my needs and hearing. If doing records wouldn't many noise issues be kind of balanced by the fact that LP's have noise already. Not that I have had any noise issues but have heard people mention it. If you are going to use noise canceling software anyway it could deal with both. I would start cheap. What software will you be using to accomplish?

 

Hmmm, yeh - best to try out the mic-line in method first. In terms of software, I don't really know. I've heard Audacity is a good free program. I've got Sonic Stage Mastering Studio pre-installed on my laptop and was whethering this could come in handy. Any of these sound any good for recording sound?

And also for cleaning, is the Magix cleaning tool any good. Actually, I'm sure you have to pay for that right? Are there any free alternatives?

Thanks , jam.

 

On the new laptops, the microphone port is also the line-in port. Onboard audio chipsets are usually not all that good quality, not that it matters with LPs or tapes unless you have really good equipment.

 

Just as long as you are not compressing the audio at any point along the way you will be ok. That means no .mp3s - stick to WAV only from start to finish.

 

Unless the equipment is really good, the distortion and noise in analog recording will overshadow the distortion from a little lossy compression.
Therefore, just compress to MP3 (bitrate around 128kbps-320kbps) so a lot can be stored on one CD. If absolute quality is important, use FLAC.

 

No, no, and no. There is absolutely no need to compress any music here - if you are making an audio CD, your only limitation is total time, not file size. If you must compress, use EAC w/LAME 3.97 to a VBR 200-220kbps mp3.

 

The whole point of compression is to be able to fit more into the same space. FLAC can compress quite significantly without any loss of quality. (It's lossless, after all.) MP3 or OGG can compress even more but also degrades the quality. Not that it would matter much with reasonable amounts of compression as the source probably isn't very good quality to start with.

 

But you aren't limited by space on an audio CD, only time. You have 80 minutes. Fill it with the highest quality audio that you can, no matter if its 10mb/minute.

 

Any halfway decent vinyl/turntable/cartridge combo is capable of far better sound than CDs have ever had. Don't introduce further degradation of the sound by compressing. Use straight, uncompressed wav and then burn to CD as CDA files.

When I want to seriously listen to my music, I still get out the vinyl. For background or in the car or boat, CDs are fine. But for real music enjoyment, analog in/analog out always.

 

As someone said above, check if your laptop mic is also line-in slot.

On my laptop when you plug something into the mic, it gives a popup window asking what was plugged in , with choices like microphone, line in, some other stuff i forget what..

 

It really depends on the quality of the equipment.
But WAV is no better than FLAC. FLAC is lossless which means it uncompresses exactly to the original WAV, as opposed to MP3 and OGG that only uncompress to approximately the original WAV.
So use FLAC and save some space. Or if you can stand a little less quality, use MP3 or OGG and save even more space.

And yes, bitrate matters on any form of digital media. It is possible to store about 4.8 hours of audio on a 700MB CD if it is in 320kbps MP3. But with uncompressed WAV, only 66 minutes.

 

Thanks guys!! Really appreciate it.
I'll be having a go at using the mic port on the weekend. My laptop model is only about 2 months old and therefore may also integrate within it, a line in port etc.

The file type discussion has been really helpful to me. I'll think I'll stick to WAV (sos star882!! ) . And software, looks like I use the free Audacity - it has some sort of noise removal utlity as well so I'll give that a bash instead of buying a paid program.

Thanks again people,
Jam.

 

Use FLAC since it is the exact same quality but smaller size.

 

Audacity doesn't support the FLAC format I think. Sonic Stage Mastering Studio may - I'll have a look. But still, like other people have said, when burning to an audio cd, size doesn't really come into consideration but only the total length of all the audio files i.e. maximum of 80mins.

 

How is that accomplished? All of the audio CD's I have ever done were limited only by total time. I could take 128kb mp3's and still only have 80 minutes on the disc.

Compatibility may be a problem. I don't see a point to FLAC in this case because he only wants to convert his music to digital, to get it onto a CD. If he were creating a digital music archive, then sure go ahead and do FLAC. But in this case it is an extra unnecessary step.

 

As far as I know when you put songs on a CD as MP3's you are burning as a "data" disk not "audio" disk. If you burn a MP3 to audio disc it is converted back to WAV/cda and becomes much larger in size while still suffering the effects of compression. The max data a standard CD can store is 700MB's no matter what format. Many newer CD players can play "data" disks (MP3's) much more than 80 minutes. If the goal is to go straight to CD and not store on HDD I would not compress. But I store on HDD so I do compress.

Audacity is what I use and yes it has noise canceling feature, I have cleaned up some pretty bad line noise and liked how it worked.

 

Sure, but I assumed we were talking about CD Audio

I guess I shouldn't have assumed that.

In that case then, if he did do an MP3 disc the best method would be to take the WAVs and run them through LAME 3.97 with a VBR preset to 200-250kbps. The end result is transparent, and people can't tell the difference from the original in blind hearing tests. Then he could fit anywhere from 50-150 songs per disc. The only thing is, the CD player must be able to read VBR MP3. This takes a little bit of advance know-how in setting up the program. I just have it all set up already so the program handles it all as soon as I click go.

 

Agreed and understood. I only took issue with when I think you posted size does not matter which is misleading in some ways as CD's do have a set capacity. On to what you say about a compressed format and saving. I save at 192 and 226 not VBR it works for me I can't tell the difference with my 40 year old ears and equipment. You might be correct on your compression. I like it so I can save on HDD, if I were OP I would consider compressing as CD's fail and get lost and I have no problem with lousy I mean lossy compression.

 

If you actually calculate, 44,100 samples per second X 2 bytes (16 bits) per sample X 2 channels X 60 seconds per minute X 80 minutes = 846.7MB.
So you can't fit even 80 minutes onto a 700MB CD without using compression.

And Audacity does support FLAC.