Ripping Vinyl LPs...
 

Okay, so I have a lot of classical records. It's generally the cheapest way to get exquisite recordings by very famous musicians, and I really like the sound of Vinyl in general. However, it's terribly impractical when you live in Texas most of the time and don't have a turntable; I use my grandma's player when I'm home.

So. I'm hoping somebody here can give me info on ripping records to a computer. I'd like to just take my laptop over there, hook it up to the system and rip all of my albums on there, preferably in MP3/OGG format.

I ran across RIPvinyl, but I haven't heard much about it and would rather be better-informed before spending money on it. Also, I just have no idea how to hook up a laptop to a stereo system (ie: the cables required, etc.).

Thanks for helping!

Iwata does this all the time. I don't know if he reads the boards much anymore, but I think a PM to him could do you a lot of good.

If you head over to Slightlydark Forums, a guy by the name of Carl over there has done a lot of Vinyl ripping. I'd ask him for some advice.

I use one of these.

It's basically a plug and play set up. Before it gets there, I run it through a preamp, which, if set up right, can make for a very high quality sound.

As far as ripping vinyl without some equipment though, sorry, I'm at a loss. A few years ago I ripped some by just hooking my preamp into my audio jack, but the sound quality wasn't very good. Hope this was some help.

Ohshit....yeah...that's a bit pricey. I mean, I only have about 50 LPs, so I don't really want to spend buku bucks on this little project. I did consider buying a portable record player; some of the ones I've used were from the 60s and still had damn good sound quality. But I don't want to transport all those records to Texas.

I've been told that using the audio jack gives you very bad quality, so I'm supposed to use the line-in jack (if my laptop has one...I also read that Dell started manufacturing their laptops without them :().

I think I'll PM Iwata, then. Maybe he can help (hopefully). I'm hoping to get this done before Friday...right now I'm only focused on ripping one LP in particular.