Analog to Digital

Rippin' records to mp3 this morning before I go to campus. Here's how to do it:

1. Hook your turntable up to a stereo amplifier that has a line out and get an adapter cable that goes from the 2-prong out to a 1-prong in so you can plug in to your computer. Obviously, you need an amp with a proper phono input, otherwise you'll need to buy a phono pre-amp (which are cheap.)
   
2. Plug it in to the line-in. I'm doing mine on a cheapo Dell laptop and it works fine; if you want to get all fancy with a proper audio card, party on.
3. Install Audacity.
4. Install Lame for Audacity.
5. Fire up Audacity, play a record and adjust the line-in volume. Mine is super loud, so I had to turn it almost all the way down otherwise the recordings sounded all fuzzed-out.
6. Hit record and play the record. Once you're done, zoom out (Ctrl+3) so that you can see the blocks of sound that represent each song. Drag over each selection and select File -> Export Selection and save it as a mp3. Do that for each song.

It's fun, albeit time-consuming. The goal is to have a lot of the 90s Pac Northwest indie rock that I got from C ripped by the time she comes over to hang out on Sunday so that I can give the mp3s to her as a thank-you for the records.