Turntable to USB convertion

[astondog]

I have been looking at the USB turntables for a year now and read conflicting reports about them and also they do not seem to drop their price even on Ebay.
Is there any reliable cheap convertion that can be brought to use an old/existing deck?
Thank you

[ZebUK]

Simple answer, yes, but setting everything up would be a little more complex.

First you'll need to make sure your existing deck has output other than pre-amp. For example, a deck plugged into an amplifier then take the tape record out from the amp and wire into your PC - this is how I've done it. (By this I mean using an input on your sound card - eg. mic)

You then need some software to record from the source and for this I use SoundForge but there are many other free programs out there. I use this because I can see the waveform on the screen and can easily crop the ends off to remove the bits that I don't want like extended silence. It also allows me to edit the recording like increase the volume.

[rojash]

Records are produced by filtering the audio to prevent over modulation of the grooves on bass notes (the RIAA curve). You should be able to take raw output from the deck if it is fitted with a crystal or ceramic cartridge, as their raw frequency responses approximate to the compensation required to extract the original signal. However, if you are using a magnetic cartridge, you will need to use a suitable pre-amplifier to obtain the correctly compensated signal. One way of doing this would be as ZebUK describes.

Most of the USB turntables on the market come bundled with the Audacity audio recording and editing software.

This excellent program is available free from:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

[romko]

simply get a hifi turntable of almost any vintage, and a hi fi amp with line /tape out (places like cash converters ) plus a 2x phono to 3.5mm jack lead, and you're away. I use nero wave editor to record it on my hard disc.

most the gear can be picked up second hand or at boot fairs for next to nothing!