Convert your LPs into CDs

Recording the LP

The time for us to record our vinyl records in the computer’s hard disk has finally come. The procedure is the following:

• Record the LP in Wav format;
• Edit the generated file to normalize it’s volume level;
• Edit the generated file in a way to eliminate the noise inherent to vinyl records;
• Record the Wav files on a CD, in the CD-DA format (audio CD), allowing the CD to be played by any CD player.

For the recording, you will need to use a recording program for Wav files. There are many programs on the market and you will even use the program that comes with your soundboard. In case you do not have this kind of program, you can search https://www.shareware.com for “wav editor” and you will find many programs of this kind. We particularly recommend the Cool Edit (https://www.syntrillium.com) and the Sound Forge (https://www.sonicfoundry.com), which are the most used ones by professionals of the area.

After having installed the Wav recording program in your computer, the rest of the procedure is relatively simple.

The first step you should take is configuring the computer’s mixer. The mixer is accessed by double-clicking on the speaker icon that exists on the task bar (lower right corner). There are two configuration screens that you will need to work at. First, the configuration of the reproduction controls. To do this, select the option Properties from the menu Options. In the screen that will appear, select “Reproduction” in the field “Adjust volume to” and mark all the existing boxes in the field Display the following volume controls”. This will display all the volume controls existing in your soundboard. The mixer will be displayed will all the volume level adjusts for reproduction. You should select the box “Without audio” for all the inputs that will not be used: Microphone, Auxiliary, Modem, Video, Synthesizer, CD, etc. The inputs Volume Control, Line and Wave are the only ones that should keep unmarked, for you to be able to hear your work during the recording and editing process.

Next, configure which input will be used to record the Wav file. For doing so, select the option Properties from the menu Options of the mixer. On the screen that will appear, select “Recording” in the field “Adjust volume to”. Then it will appear a mixer equal to the previous one, but this time you are adjusting which input will be used to record. Select Line (marking the existing box “Select”). The volume control Line controls the volume level of the record player. We recommend that it keeps adjusted in the middle.

After having configured the mixer, you just have to choose the option Rec (Record Sound or similar) in the recording program, click the icon that indicates the beginning of recording and put side A of the LP to play. But before doing that you should verify the recording level for the sound not to be too low or too loud (what leads to sound distortion). This verification varies according to each program. In Sound Forge, this happens automatically: you click to record and a window containing vertical recording level indicator bars appears. Just put the record to play about in the middle of it and adjust the Line volume control (in the recording configuration of the mixer, that control we have recommended to be in the middle of its course). The ideal is to adjust this control in a way that the audio stays in the average, hitting the level of -3 dB of the graphic, with maximum peaks of 0 dB. Obviously, this adjustment is not that simple.

But, lucky us, most Wav editing programs have a function called Normalize, which analyzes the recorded audio and adjusts the volume of the file properly. That is, with the adjustment that we recommend (mixer control positioned in the middle), the sound will be recorded at a volume below the recommended, and after we will, by means of the editing program, correct the volume of the file. Our recommendation is that you always record at a lower level (and never higher) and after correct the volume with the function Normalize of the editing program.