Digitising vinyl advice needed

[glennparkinson]

I am about to start digitising some of my vinyl and as this is going to be a lengthy process, I want to get it correct first time.

I have a Project Essential turntable connected directly to my MacBook (OS X) using a USB Griffin iMic. I have used Finyl Vinyl and Sound Studio software to record some audio, but the sound quality is somewhat flat.

Is there anything I can do to boost the sound? Would connecting the laptop though my Amp make a difference? What is the best way to record vinyl, ensuring that I get a good sound quality?

If there won't be much difference to the sound quality then I probably won't bother digitising it....

Thanks...

 

[richie60]

I suspect the Griffin imic is the weakest point in the setup you have, although I cannot speak from experience as i've never heard one, it looks kind of cheap!

Make sure you have a good cartridge on your turntable feeding a phono stage, either built into the amp you use or or a separate one. In terms of USB soundcards, I would go for the likes of this: http://www.russandrews.com/product-XITEL-INport-Deluxe-USB-Recording-Soundcard-4701.htm

Just use something like Audacity to record the input & save as WAV or FLAC.

Hope this helps,

Richie

 

[robjcooper]

Glenn,

Just a quick question. You have turned on the RIAA equalisation which is required to record correctly from a turntable?

If you're using Final Vinyl :

1: Click on the pull down arrow on the 'cog' icon at the bottom left hand side of the main window

2: Click on 'Effects...'

3: Click on the '+' icon and select EQ. At the bottom of the screen with the Frequency sliders is a tick box for 'Connected to turntable' - turn that on and see if it sounds any better when you try recording.

If you've done all that, and it still sounded flat, then perhaps try going via your amp's phono input and then feeding a line level signal from the tape outs into the iMic (don't forget to switch the iMics input from 'mic' to 'line' level).

Hope that there's something useful in there and good luck - i've digitised quite a few albums using iMic and it's pretty good -

Rob