I’ve talked before on the FSS about the pains (and they are painful) I often go through when copying my records for on-the-go listening. These days you’d think most labels would be decent enough to give download codes with all their vinyl but it’s still a crapshoot.
Why don’t I make things easy on myself and just buy CDs or download from iTunes? Or easier yet, just steal them from the intertubes? Cause if I have the option I’m always going to pick vinyl. Even though I’m listening to music on the go more often than at home I want to know that I’m getting my money’s worth when buying an album. And I don’t feel that’s what you get on the iTunes Store at all and only marginally so from a compact disc. Records are big, unwieldy pains in the ass, but the artwork is huge and the sound is fantastic. If you give a shit about music it’s THE only format that matters.
That being said, when I’m in my car it would be impossible to listen to vinyl, and since I’m in my car roughly an hour and a half a day, digitizing my music is a necessary evil. Now I’ve gone through more programs and wires and methods than conscionable and I still never quite feel like I’m “there” with the process. It’s a lot like making cassette tapes but there’s no high speed dubbing and in fact when you’re done recording the audio you’re still far from done as now you have to break the album down into tracks, tag all of the songs, import the artwork, and convert to a sensibly sized format. And even then after all is said and done there’s a great chance you might pull away in your car the next day and find out the recording is un-listenable and you’re back to square one (or like what happened to me last week my iPod couldn’t handle the size of the files and just skipped right past them to something else letting me know how much it hated me).
So here it is in 20 Steps or less the best way I know how to copy my vinyl (incidentally this will work with cassette tapes and your momma’s Engelbert Humperdink 8-Tracks too). I sincerely hope it helps and if any of you loyal FSSers know better ways to do things hit up the comments section. And feel free to email us too with any stories, tips or tricks for future reference.
Step One
Download audacity. It’s free. This astounds me as it’s really a monster of a program. It makes Garage Band look like a punk biatch. The version I am using is 1.3.9.
Step Two
Hook your computer up to your stereo. Now I’m going to leave this part up to you. Like I said I use the iMic which is a line level RCA Stereo to USB dongle that you can buy for around 30 bucks on Amazon (they even have a piece that connects directly to a turntable if you want to spend a little more). There are other methods depending on your setup. For the purposes of this tutorial though make sure you are not using a variable connection. That is to say make sure that you are not connecting your computer to a headphone jack or other output that requires said output to be controlled by a volume knob. I’m not saying you can’t do this. Shit, I did it for years. But this is a delicate science that involves a butt-load of trial and error to find the best volume to output to your computer. If you want to tinker with volume knobs be my guest. But make sure you have a pad and pen handy and mark down the exact levels you’re using on your stereo so you don’t have to figure it out all over again each time. What you should try to do is use either the “audio out” or “monitor out” found on the back of your amp.
Step Three
Start with an album you’re familiar with. Really really familiar with. This way you’ll notice if it sounds like shit quicker than you did if it was something new to your ears. You also might want to start with something you can’t buy on CD. This way when someone asks you what you’re listening to you can get all high and mighty with them and be like “oh it’s this awesome vinyl-only German import that like 50 people have ever heard”. Remember you’re an audiophile. It’s all right to be a little arrogant.
Step Four
Open Audacity on your computer. Under the Audacity drop down click Preferences. Ideally you should go for a Sample Rate of 44100Hz. This is the norm for audio CDs. Any more and your ears won’t be able to tell the difference. Now choose your sample rate. 16-Bit is your best bet. With 24 and 32 you’ll get more dynamic range but the files will be enormous and since the whole point of this is to take your music on the go this would be pointless.
Audacity Preferences
Step Five
Let’s take a second to test the levels now. Click Record on Audacity (Red Circle). Then go over to your record player and fire it up. You will have some dead space at the beginning of your recording but we can edit that out later easily. Once the music starts playing you will notice Audacity building a waveform. Look at it. Pretty isn’t it? But seriously look at it. You want to make sure that the waveform has form to it. What I mean by this is you don’t want a tiny sliver going across, and you also don’t want a solid bar filling the space. Ideally you want a waveform that fits the space without peaking past it. Look at the top and bottom edges of your left and right channels. Are they peaking within the confines of the boxes they are in? If so good let it record. Probably though you will need some adjustment. If you do not need any adjustment skip the next step and move on to Step Seven.
A Relatively Ideal Waveform
Step Six
Go into System Preferences/Sound on a Mac. PC users will probably have to access their sound card through Control Panel. Adjust your input volume. I suggest doing this while audacity is still recording so that you can see how your adjustment immediately affects your waveform. Once you got a beefy waveform that isn’t peaking past the confines of its space you’re good to start actually recording. Keep it simple and just get up and drop the needle back at the beginning of the record. We’ll edit out all your testing later.
Step Seven
Grab a cold micro brew or a hot coffee with organic soy milk and sit down and listen to your record while Audicity records it to your computer. Take the album art out and take a hard look at it. Read the lyrics and list of people the band would like to thank. You’ve done this before right? Also, make sure while you’re listening that the album isn’t skipping at any point. You don’t want to listen to your record skipping in the car tomorrow. Do you?
Step Eight
Side A is done, get up and flip it over to Side B. Repeat Step Seven.
Step Nine
When the record is done hit the stop button on Audacity (Yellow Square), turn off your stereo and get ready to sit down for the tedious part.
Step Ten
Start by going to the end of your waveform and highlighting any dead space by clicking and dragging your mouse. To be safe though, first click the waveform where the last song ends and listen to it by hitting Play (Green Triangle). Once you are sure that the song is over start highlighting from there back. Sometimes your waveform will look like dead space but really the song is still fading out. That’s why it’s better to listen before cutting. Click Edit/Cut. Now go to the beginning of the waveform and do the same thing. If you have dead space in the middle where you flipped sides just ignore it for the time being.
Step Eleven
Put your cursor at the very beginning of the waveform. Click on the Eyeglass with the Negative symbol in it until you can see the entire waveform. Once it’s all visible at once look at it. Can you recognize where the songs start and stop? If so congratulations, you are awesome! Count up the number of songs you see. Do they match the number of songs on the album? If so you lucked out as breaking this waveform up will be a relatively painless process. If not, get ready for some tediousness.
Step Twelve
With the cursor at the beginning of the waveform click Tracks/Add Label At Selection. Now type the name of the first song on the album. Which for the purposes of this tutorial is Stay Hungry. You are copying the Twisted Sister “Stay Hungry 25th Anniversary Edition” right?
Labeling Your Tracks
Step Thirteen
Click roughly the part of the waveform where it appears the next song starts. Zoom in by clicking the Eyeglass with the Positive symbol. Now some albums have space between the tracks. If this is the case you can play it safe and put your cursor dead center in the space between tracks. Personally I prefer leaving as much of the dead space at the end of the previous track as possible. I like it when tracks start with music instead of a little silence. But this is up to you. Just be sure you don’t cut it so that part of one track is split with part of another track. This will fuck up future mix playlists for years to come. If the songs run into each other you’ll have to be a little more precise with things and listen to where one ends and the next starts before positioning your cursor. Feel free to zoom in as far as possible to find the exact sweet spot to split the tracks. Once it’s where you want the break to be click Tracks/Add Label At Selection again and type We’re Not Gonna Take It.
Aligning Your Cursor Between Tracks
Step Fourteen
Repeat Step Thirteen with the rest of the album. When you get to the part where you flipped sides on the record label this dead space “To Be Deleted”. And remember spelling counts. It’s I WANNA Rock not I WANT TO Rock. The Sister ain’t about correct spelling or grammar. They wear ladies makeup for Christ sakes. You think they care about rules? They threw a high school teacher through a basketball hoop!
Step Fifteen
Select File/Export Multiple. This will bring up a dialog box. Pick an export format. The default is “Other Uncompressed Files”. This should be a 16 bit WAV file. For now go with this. Under Export Location pick the folder where you want the files to be saved. If you haven’t made one yet you can create one now too. Now click Export. You will have the option of entering the band name and album name and such. Ignore it. Just keep clicking OK past each track. When you reach the last track and click OK Audacity will begin exporting the songs. When all is said and done another box will pop up saying Successfully Exported The Following # Files. Click OK and open iTunes.
Exporting One Album As Multiple Tracks
Step Sixteen
Some people hate iTunes. I happen to like it. The version I am using is 9.0.2. Select File/Add To Library. Highlight the songs you just created in Audacity EXCEPT for the one that you labeled “To Be Deleted”. Click OK and it will start copying the songs into your library.
Step Seventeen
Now you need to find the songs in your library. Either go to Music or Recently Added on the left side bar. Either way the files will be dead last providing you are sorting by Album or Artist. If the files are not dead last click Artist to sort by artist or Album to sort by album and then go to the end and they will be there. Highlight the tracks, right click your mouse and select Get Info.
Step Eighteen
Enter the album name. Enter the artist name (if you already have another album by this artist, say 2006’s “Twisted Christmas”, iTunes will start auto-filling in the artist name… let it do this so that all spellings of this artist are identical in your library). Enter the year the album was made. You don’t have to but sometimes it’s nice to go into iTunes and see what albums came out in a given year. How else would I remember that Sister’s “Under the Blade” came out in 1982? Enter your genre (Heavy Metal in this case). Enter the total number of songs on the album. If you are a real fucking nerd enter information in the comments section about the record. For example you can note that this was recorded from the Pink Vinyl of “Stay Hungry” and that the edition came with a Free Poster. This is something I actually take the time to do as a music nerd. Click OK.
An example of my tagging for the new Dead To Me record
Step Nineteen
You will need to locate the album again since it is no longer at the bottom. This is easy as now its been named. Once it’s back on your screen highlight the first track listed, right click and go to Get Info again. Enter the track number for this song under Info, click next and number the remaining tracks. When you get to the last one click OK.
Step Twenty
Now you need to decide how you will be listening to your digital files. To make a CD look at the bottom of iTunes to see how large the album is in MB. If it will fit on a CD you can burn it as an Audio CD by simply clicking Burn Disc and selecting Audio CD. Viola you’re done. If the files are too big for a CD at this point or if you want to put them on your MP3 Player, first go to iTunes/Preferences/Import Settings. I like to select MP3 Encoder and then Custom and 320 kbps. You can pick whatever you like so long as your MP3 Player can read and play the file type you choose. Click OK and OK again once you’ve selected the format you wish to convert to. Back in your library highlight all the files for your album and right click. Now choose “Create MP3 Version”. If you picked a different file type the option will read “Create (file type you chose) Version”. Now iTunes will take the glorious high fidelity version of the album you created and dumb it down till it’s nearly useless. When it is done the original files will still be highlighted. Before de-selecting them, right click once more and choose Uncheck Selection.
(iTunes / Preferences / General / Import Settings / MP3 Encoder / Custom)
Step Twenty-One (I lied about 20 or Less)
You now have 3 versions of the album on your hard drive. If you have an external drive or a massive hard drive, keep 2 versions of the files you made. You never know when you might need them later. If not delete them and move on. To do this go to the original folder Audacity exported to and delete the files. You now have 2 versions of the album left in your iTunes Library. It’s probably best you delete the 2nd WAV version too. And since you unchecked it it’s easier to find. Search for the album again and highlight the Unchecked versions of the songs, right click, choose Delete and either Move To Trash or Keep Files depending on your preference. If you get rid of them never fear, you own the vinyl which is as high fidelity as your going to get. So any time you want to listen to a superior sounding version, play the damn record.
Step Twenty Two
Check that your MP3 version of the album sounds good and has album art by firing it up in iTunes. If the album art comes up when you hit play, you’re in luck, iTunes found it for you and automatically added it to your track tags. If not, do a Google search on the album, click Images and find one that’s 200×200 or bigger. Save it and go back to Get Info in iTunes to add it to the album.
Step Twenty Three
Feel good about yourself. You managed to get all the great things vinyl has to offer and still be able to listen to your music when you’re nowhere near a turntable. You stuck it to the man by not having to buy your record collection a second time on a newer albeit inferior format. Your hard work has finally paid off for once. You’re having your cake and eating it too. You’re living the dream. Life’s a beach. You are a winner. Now when someone asks ALRIGHT MISTER SISTER I WANT YOU TO TELL ME WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE? Stand up proudly from your desk, look them in the eye, and tell them you wanna rock. ROCK!
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