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BOOT CAMP 276 (20/05/03) – LP TO PC TO CD, part 1
Nowadays CD-writers or ‘burners’ are an almost standard
feature on multimedia PCs and a growing number of laptops and last year, in
recognition of the technology’s growing popularity, we ran a series of articles
showing how useful they can be for backing up and transporting data. We also
dealt briefly with some of the other things you can do with them, including
copying music and pictures files, so they can be played on ordinary audio CD and
DVD players.
Since then we’ve had a steady stream of requests asking for
more information so over the next few episodes of Boot Camp we’ll be looking at
these two applications in a much more practical, hands-on manner, starting with
how to turn your treasured vinyl LP and cassette recordings into audio CDs. Not
only will this preserve and protect your original recordings from further wear
and tear it also means you’ll be able to create compilations of favourite
tracks, listen to them on your hi-fi system, in the car or on a personal
player.
We are dealing specifically with making recordings from vinyl
and shellac records (LP, 45 & 78 rpm etc.) and tape (cassette, open reel and
so on) so we won’t be talking about CD-to-CD copies and compilations. This all
happens inside the PC, it’s a fairly straightforward job involving transferring
digital data from one disc to another and is a basic facility of the software
that comes with most CD-writers (usually Roxio CD Maker/Creator or Nero
Burning), so consult your program’s instructions or Help file for more
details.
Copying music from disc or tape to CD is a little more
involved but it’s certainly not difficult. There are only two relatively minor
problems that need to be overcome. The first is that your PC doesn’t have the
facility to play records or audio cassettes, so you will need some means of
connecting it to something that does – usually a hi-fi system, cassette deck or
personal stereo. Secondly, the incoming audio information is in an analogue form
so it has to be converted into digital data and prepared for recording on a
blank CD.
To accomplish all this you will need two things, in addition
to a PC or laptop with a CD-writer. The first is a lead to connect your hi-fi or
tape recorder etc. to your computer and the second is some extra software. We’ll
be looking at that in more detail next week but the gist of it is the software’s
job is to record the audio coming from your record or tape player onto the PC’s
hard disc drive as high-quality ‘wav’ files. This allows the files or tracks to
be organised and edited – some software will also remove crackles, hiss and pops
from the recording – before it is
converted into CD-A files and ‘burnt’ onto a recordable CD along with the data a
CD player needs to play the disc. Some software does the conversion
‘on-the-fly’, without going through the recording stage on the PC’s hard disc
drive but this is a fairly advanced technique and the results can be variable,
especially on older or slower PCs.
We’ll round off this week by looking at how to connect your
source audio component (record player, tape deck, hi-fi etc.) to your PC.
Virtually all multimedia PCs and laptops have two analogue audio inputs, one for
a microphone and one for an external or ‘line’ input. The ‘mic’ input is
unsuitable for our purposes because it is usually mono and configured for weak
high impedance signals. The connection therefore has to be between your hi-fi
system’s line or headphone output and the line input on the PC. Unfortunately
you cannot directly connect a record deck to a computer, the output signal from
the cartridge is not compatible with the PC’s line input so it has to go via a
hi-fi system or ‘pre-amplifier’, to amplify the signal to the correct level. By
the way, never connect your hi-fi system’s loudspeaker output to your PC’s line
input, the signal will be much too powerful and bad things will almost certainly
happen to your computer’s audio circuitry!
The cable between your hi-fi, amplifier, tape deck or player
and the PC needs to have the right type of connectors. The PC is most likely to
have a 3.5mm stereo minijack socket for the line input. Stereo minijacks are
also widely used for the line audio and headphone outputs on cassette decks,
radio cassettes and personal stereos, in which case you will need a 3.5mm stereo
minijack to stereo minijack cable. Plug-in adaptors are available for audio
components that have larger ‘standard’ jack headphone sockets. However, it is
more likely that your hi-fi system will have phono or RCA type connectors for
its line audio output, so in most cases you will need a minijack to stereo phono
cable.
Both cable types and minijack to standard jack adaptors are
widely available in high-street audio-video retailers costing from around £2
upwards; if you have difficulty finding one they can also be purchased from
specialist electronic stores like Maplin (www.maplin.co.uk).
Finally, don’t stint on length, the cable should be at least
3 to 5 metres long. This will make it easier to set up your PC next to the
hi-hi, or the other way around, and it will also keep the two systems well apart
as interference generated by the PC could spoil the recording.
Next week – LP TO PC TO CD, part 2
JARGON FILTER
BURNER
Another name for a CD writer, referring to the way data is
recorded, using a laser beam to change the optical properties of chemicals
sandwiched between the layers of a recordable disc
CD-A
Compact Disc Audio, the industry standard file format for
audio CDs, that will ensure that discs can be played on any CD player
WAV
Short
for waveform; the file extension .wav denotes high quality digital sound files
used by Windows and most Windows games and applications.
TIP OF THE WEEK
When you copy vinyl records to CD not only will you get the
music, you’ll also capture all of the noise and imperfections so make sure that
your records and the record player are in tip-top condition. Clean the discs
with a proprietary cleaner and de-fluff the stylus, and if it hasn’t been
changed in a while, now might be a good time to replace it, while you can still
get them...
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