Easy Vinyl to MP3 Conversion.

This one is easy and if you have some old (and new) records like I do you may want to check it out.

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Checklist:

* Record Player w/ RCA Jacks or something that can be converted to the headphone mini jack (male). If you haven't seen one before:


* RCA (female) to mini converter (male). Should look like this:


* Computer with sound card with line-in jack. Looks like this:


* Records. Like this one:


* Download and install Audacity (free, open source and works on linux, windows and mac)

* Download and install a WAV to MP3 converter like Lame (Multiplatform) or CDex (Windows).

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Now plug the mini jack into the sound card's line-in jack.

Open Audacity.

Play the wax.

Hit the record button in Audacity.

Soon you should see some activity in Audacity. If you don't it may be a configuration issue or you don't have the cable plugged in the right jack.

Do a short recording and then listen to it using Audacity. Make a note of the volume of bass and etc. If it sounds crappy when the beat hits then you may need to lower the recording volume. I use 0.4 as my recording volume. But depending on the record player and sound card yours may be different.

Now record an entire song. You will notice the end of the song by the lack of activity in Audacity. Hit stop.

Now you can export the song as WAV.

At this point you can either convert it to MP3 or burn it to a CD to listen to.

On linux I use command line based Lame to convert WAV files to MP3. In Windows CDex is really good.

The command I use is: 'lame -b 224 name.wav name.mp3' this will get you an mp3 at 224 bit rate.

Thats it! Your done. Acutally not, if you have a few records to do, it does take a while.