Was at CostCo the other day and noticed a USB turntable. It came with software so you can copy your vinyl to MP3's. While these may have been around for some time this is the first time I have ever seen one. What a great way to capture that old school sound that only a turntable can provide.

My company has a christmas dinner on the last work day before the holidays, and has a drawing for gifts, theres one of those in the pile.

For those who already have a turntable in their sound system, a shameless plug for Spin It Again. Have had it a few months and it works great!

That is interesting. I've been toying with how to convert the 300 cassettes I have to MP3's before they are junk. However I think I will look for a USB solution as I think the recording quality would be better channeled directly to the BUS instead of funneled through the sound card and Windows. Then I can just use Adobe Audition to record it.

> However I think I will look for a USB solution as I think the recording quality would be better
>channeled directly to the BUS instead of funneled through the sound card and Windows.

Is this really a safe assumption? It probably won't be long before somebody does manufacture a pre-packaged solution for digitizing cassettes. But, how well will the cassette mechanism be built? Or, in the case of the vinyl digitizing device, how good is the turntable? If you have a good cassette deck, I'd recommend just connecting that to a decent quality soundcard (one without a lot of internal noise) and seeing what kind of results you get. Most likely, the mechanical components of a vinyl to digital or cassette to digital transfer are going to make a bigger difference in quality than whether the analog to digital conversion happens on a soundcard or outside the computer's case on the USB bus.

I've done some cassette dumps. Really this depends on your expectations. If you are willing to do some tweaking, the results can be quite good.

Coupla things I've noted:

-record entire sides at once. Takes the most space, but it's really easy to copy and paste the tunes off into their own tracks.

-most computer sound cards are OK. Not excellent, just OK. You can expect 60-70dB and that's fairly well matched to the cassette. My old SGI system has a 90+dB sound input. The entire analog process, on that box, added about 3dB to the overall noise level already present on the cassette. No big deal.

Computer sound card will likely double that, unless it's a pretty good one. IMHO, still not a huge deal.

-head azimuth alignment is a really big deal! IMHO, this presents a problem with USB type devices, if they are all in one units, like they have the cassette drive included. (might be difficult to tweak, or feature inferior heads.

-really great cassette decks are available in the thrifties regularly. For my project, I looked until I scored a really great one, with good heads and a quiet analog amp. Didn't care about it, past the project, so I rigged the door to allow for easy azimuth adjustment.

That paid off huge in terms of upper frequency response. A good adjustment, that matches whatever was layed down on the tape, can easily reach 16-20Khz. A poor one might not make 12Khz.

Another facet of this happens to be the frequency slurring that happens on poor alignment. Mp3 / ogg / whatever wavelet encoders do not play well with this. I found they tend to amplify that artifact and make it worse.

A quick listen on phones to find the sweet spot for that tape really made a positive impact. If you've recorded on the same deck, over time, this might not be required. My stuff was done on all kinds of gear and varied significantly.

IMHO, the real advantage to a USB device is the potential for a better analog amp section. If you meant to purchase a USB device for recording, I think that's a good idea, given what I saw between the SGI and an ordinary PC.

If it's an all in one, like put the tape in and let it record, I would pass on that.

For mp3 encoding, the gold standard is LAME. Be sure and specify the 22Khz encoding bandwidth, or your stuff gets cut off at 16Khz. Opening this up tends to help good analog sources & doesn't do any real harm to marginal ones.

One can always post process in one's audio editor / manipulator of choice!

Though it seems overkill, recording in 24 bits, then down sampling to 16 for final cut, helps with analog sources that vary in overall volume. At 24 bits, there is plenty of headroom to handle the occasional pop, or louder than normal section, thus making it easy to set the overall level without having to first sample most of the tape to discover the peak output level.

I've digitized some vinyl too. Funny thing about analog media. It's overall noise level is some 70dB on average. However, the actual output level can vary considerably, and that can be a problem.

Cassettes recorded with auto-gain systems can exceed the amount of headroom pretty easy. So can well mastered 12" vinyl! That 24 bits really helps.

Back when I was recording on analog media, I found that recording from another mastered source kept things pretty sane. (vinyl / radio / another cassette to cassette) The audio is consistent, unless the deck has some goofy auto gain bit getting in the way.

Recordings made from live sources varied a lot! Seems one can overdrive the media somewhat, trading overall output for some increased distortion. That posed a problem for good 16 bit digitization efforts.

Commercial cassettes, unless they are the really nicely mastered ones, typically are 60dB and fairly flat. No brainer to digitize those.

Home recorded ones can approach 80dB (with a good deck and source).

The primary differentiator for overall recording quality is the analog amp section and the DAC (digital to audio converter) device used. From there, bits are bits. An external USB device does have the advantage of being somewhat isolated from the noisy computer environment, and does not have size restrictions that limit the robustness of the amp section.

For final tracks, after cutting and pasting everything into it's own little file, a simple batch script will fire off LAME and just bulk convert them all in one long go. Damn cool.

@Missing: An aside: Whatever happened to your PDX Radio Spots site?

I've got two turntables and a microphone.

Now THAT'S where it's at!!

I think it might have been at the Costco.com site, but I recently saw a cassette equivalent of that USB turntable.

I've thought about getting one also.

Do they come with a cartridge and needle (not to be confused with Skynyrd's "Needle and a Spoon") or do you have to supply your own? I'd rather use one that I have.

I bought a preamp a while back to use for this purpose, but I think the USB turntable would be much easier!

What do you think the chances are of finding a USB 8-track system? I bet our boy Moto could fix one up!

USB cassette:
Link no good, just go to turntable then click on cassette unit.

It's on my christmas list now, thank you for the head's up! That and a 200gb USB hard drive to rip stuff to.

USB turntable:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?whse=BC&topnav=&prodid=11207411&ec=BC- EC17725-ProdID11239293&pos=0F&lang=en-US

USB drum kit:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?ec=BC-EC17726-ProdID11207411&pos=1&whs e=BC&topnav=&prodid=11238506&lang=en-US

Those Ion USB turntables and similar Numark models look flimsy. I wouldn't risk playing a record on the $99 one even once! To answer Skybill's question, they don't appear to accept a different cartridge than the cheap one supplied. The Stanton USB turntable looks solid and is pictured with a standard screw-mount cartridge. I'm guessing the headshell is standard mount as well.

I second Alfredo's statement that a high quality turntable or cassette deck is much more critical than than USB connectivity.

As for cassette decks, ALL the newer ones I've seen, with a possible exception of Tascam appear to be cheaply constructed. I have not yet looked at a USB deck in a "bricks & mortar" store, but I have my doubts.

Also, I've probably said it before (and I'm sure KSKD already knows this), but tweaking head alignment is much more effective if you can monitor in mono while making the adjustment. Any phase distortion from mis-alignment becomes very apparent when the stereo channels are summed into mono. If you still do some cassette recording, I suggest keeping your main record deck in normal alignment and using a second deck for the purpose of tweaking. If you have a dual well deck, use the "PLAY" side.

That Spin It Again software looks interesting, but the reviews really don't say much about the performance of the pop and crackle removal. I use an old version of Cool Edit Pro and in the process of removing scratches it can also hack away at some vocals and guitars if the waveform is very jagged.

Heck, I forgot I had one of these:
http://www.cpcweb.com/Captioning/Captioning_images/VideoBusDiag.jpg
I think I should be able to hook this up to my old Pioneer Cassette Deck and just capture the audio with it. My old Pioneer system was pretty top of the line back in it's day. Should work for duping LP's as well,basically anything with RCA output's.

Nice catch Randy. Of course, a MONO monitor is the best. Can't believe I forgot that! Shows you how long it's been since I dealt with cassettes.

I'll second the cheap analysis on newer decks. Better to just hit the thrifties. Tons of really great decks cheap. Just take phones with you and a reference tape.

@Kq4: It's currently off line for a few reasons:

-life prioritiy is the number one reason. Too many ugly things happened. I just didn't have the resources to keep it up.

-the divshare site is a great venue for sharing stuff. Originally Scott and I threw it up to get some stuff online and maybe coax some others into doing that as well. Now that it's happening on divshare, that goal is more or less accomplished.

It might come up --might not. After the first of the year, I plan to take a look at that account and see what's possible. Interested in the domain and content? If it's still available, moving it to your host of choice isn't too big of a deal.

I've not even felt like blogging much, which leaves opengeek in a sorry state too, I'm afraid.

(not gonna give that one up though I'll feel better about it and pick that up again at some point.)

@Missing: Thanks for the update. Someone surely will be interested in all of that great material!

Am I the only one who bought one of those Phillips CD recorders for my home stereo system? I use that to record LP's to CD. It's a ponderous process, you have to do it in real time and all (my connection is analog) but the sound is pretty good. Obviously the direct to USB turntable would be better.

I don't know that it would be, unless that turntable featured a pretty great cartridge & needle.

The CD recorders are pretty sweet actually. I've a friend with one. Like 'em. The upside is it's a lot like a tape machine. Downside is some limitations on editing, etc... Of course, having made a recording with one of those things, it's really easy to just rip it to a computer and re-purpose it, edit it, etc...

All in all, not a bad way to get the material digital.

Yeah, I've made comp cd's of artists who don't have older stuff on cd, mostly locals. Pretty cool. And since I use my turntable, the quality isn't too bad. Better than paying those studio folks to do it i guess.

"What do you think the chances are of finding a USB 8-track system? I bet our boy Moto could fix one up!"

Specifically at present, I don't use USB for much beyond connecting printers and external hard drives but I suppose it could be done.........I figure what this would require is extracting the Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC) assembly from the electronics of such a digital turntable and setting it up in such a way that it could be used with a tape deck such as your 8-track.

Now as for *availability* of such an 8-track system in the stores I wouldn't hold my breath, seems like pretty much a DIY-type product at the present. But who knows, someone may be working on developing such a product right now...............


---- Scatterbrained technical details follow this line, just scroll past if you aren't interested ----

See, as far as I can tell these USB turntables' electronics (circuit board/s) would have to come in two parts--an audio input preamp section and an ADC. There would have to be, as audio coming directly from the cartridge is of a current too low to work on a standard stereo hookup, i.e. for a CD player or VCR......that's why most stereo receivers have dedicated "Phono" inputs. Logically there would also need to be a way to convert the analogue audio output of the cartridge to a digital form the computer can process, hence the ADC. Most sound cards have included similar ADC technology for years, in the line-in and microphone inputs.

Ergo, if there is a way to bypass the turntable's own preamp and connect the 8-track player's own preamp output directly into the ADC, I bet direct 8-track-to-digital audio conversion would merely be a matter of connecting a USB cable between the player and the computer!

Of course, there's always the matter of how to get the proper amount of power to the ADC without frying it (I assume the turntable is not bus-powered) but that's another problem I will save for someone else..........

It would take a little bit of work with a soldering iron, also there is the issue of physically mounting the electronics inside the player's chassis, but I don't see why it couldn't be done.

A poor man's way to build a USB 8-track player might be to get an outboard USB soundcard, such as one listed here:

http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Sound.html

and then to conceal it inside the 8-track player. The ADC and support circuitry would be powered by the USB bus (5V), so it wouldn't matter what voltage the 8-track player's electronics use.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about those boxes.......

I used to have a Sound Blaster Audigy box I use to use when I would pipe my laptop audio through a loudspeaker setup a few years ago, but then it got stolen. It also had audio and MIDI I/O's on the front and was bus-powered. (Well, mine was anyways; I think some older versions were wall-powered.)

Words of advice: NEVER leave sound equipment in plain view in your car when running into Hi-School Pharmacy even for three minutes, if you ever want to see it again when you get back!! ;o)