Converting vinyl to mp3 | Vital Football

Converting vinyl to mp3

Buddha

Vital Football Hero
My turn to be wx!

So, my son is beginning to get into listening to music and appears to have some taste! He's been raiding my vinyl collection and is now a fan of The Stone Roses, Bad Manners, The Pogues, The Kinks and (early, I only have early!) Bob Marley and The Wailers.

Now he wants a record player himself, and I've told him that I'll get him one for Christmas. Thing is, he also wants to be able to listen to music on-the-move using what I think of as a 'walkman' but what I understand are now referred to as mp3 players that play audio files rather than cassettes! I'd like to be able to convert some of my records that he likes into mp3 files for him to have on his 'walkman'!

Can anyone help with some advice please? I've had a look at some turntables that are billed as being able to convert vinyl to mp3 and they have a usb port. Does anybody know, if I bought one of these would I need to also buy some software for the computer to be able to perform the conversion? The more I think about this, the more I suspect the answer is, yes! But what is the software? And how much does it cost?

It's Christmas and so I want to get him what he wants. Having said that, he is still relatively young and as this will be his first 'music system' of his own it doesn't need to be top of the range or too expensive! Any advice would be gratefully received.
 
Yes, thanks, rambolerambole, I've just been looking.

But I'm an analogue person and I find all this digital stuff a bit confusing!

One of the ones I've been looking at clearly says, "CONVERT YOUR VINYL TO DIGITAL MP3 – Connect via USB to PC & using the included software" but then another one (that's actually more expensive) simply says, "Recording Vinyl to MP3 - Convert vinyl records to MP3 format files via USB for later playback on your laptop or mobile phone."

With that second one, do I just assume that the software is included or not? And if not, what software would be needed?
 
If the deck is from Ion they provide free software. Search for EZVinyl. I've transferred most of my vinyl to iPod with it. It's basic but it works.
 
So you want to convert Vinyl to mp3…without knowing much about the process at all it sounds like it would be time intensive/expensive/complex to me…but maybe some of the options above will work for you, i don't know.

You might just be better off buying the ‘new’ mp3 versions of those songs instead. Not sure how many albums you’re talking about here. You can get mp3 albums for pounds online - it might be cheaper than some of the options recommended above.

That said, I use Spotify to stream all my music. It would almost definitely have all of those artists you mention, and I'd definitely recommend it as an alternate option. Although there's a few key things you'd want to consider.

The non-advert version is about a tenner a month, or free with some mobile phone contracts.

Key point to note for Spotify is that while you can download the music to listen to offline (so don’t always need an internet connection), if you stopped paying your money, you’d lose access to the downloaded music (I’m not sure how they enforce it but they do). As long as you can get over the fact you never technically own the music and are just ‘borrowing it’ and would lose the access to it if you cut off your contract…it works well. It works pretty well for me as long as I pay my money – which I am happy to do as I like the service. I’ve used it for years and years now. It’s a wonderful library of pretty much every song I would want, and many I don’t! I rarely can’t find a song on it. It also has lots of up and coming bands on it too. I remember you mentioning a band “The John Langan band” a few years ago and I found them on Spotify, and liked it.

This might work for your son? I would assume he’s already heard of it before as he is young and I'd imagine a good number of his friends will have it. He might already have it, I don't know.

You've said before he's a 'boy of principle' (probably not a direct quote but that's the impression I got from the SE situation you described recently), so there's a chance he might disagree with it...and while I don't know you, I suspect your ethics may not agree with Spotify also (specifically - supposedly the lack of money they give to artists). Not sure if you've considered it before.

But I suppose you could justify it with the fact you’re aiming to only stream music you actually own already, and were only intending to make personal copies of anyway. In this instance the artists would actually get more money (even if it’s marginal) from you than they would if you were to make the copies yourself. Not sure if this would make you feel any better about it.
 
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Looks to me like sound advice from AK. I would say from my own experience that transferring from vinyl to mp3 is an ultimately disappointing experience. None of the qualities of vinyl survive but all the imperfections do and there is a general loss of life. I transferred a lot of much loved vinyl but ended up wiping nearly all of it and replacing what I could with digital.

Owning stuff is an illusion at the best of times and it's particularly true of music. Can you get to hear what does you good is all that matters. Buy the stuff you want him to have digitally, or buy him one of satan's vouchers. He'll say the right things if you convert yourself but he'll barely listen to the lifeless impersonations.
 
I have done a lot of this having loadsa cd, tape, LPs and singles so that I can play them on iTunes or similar.

It is bit of a pain and obviously you do lose something but buying a cd or mp3 track of a favourite track can be disapointing to say the least.

Thats because The same song on different CDs are of differing quality especially when they are from ‘all time hits’ type CDs.

I have now all of the Beatles stuff from CDs but they are from official re-releases of original tapes but even so you cannot beat the sound of the original mono recording on vinyl. Some of the stuff I have though cannot be bought either on CD or mp3 and thats where the vinyl to mp3 software comes in.

Basically you are just creating a file on your computer in a readable format which could be a file with extension of e.g. .mp3 or .mp4(iTunes). As a rule given the option always go for a high quality .mp3 as that is the universal format and even iTunes can read it.
That file can then be imported to or just read by any audio player application.

For the actual turntable. Most have two connectors, one acting as a typical connection to a hifi and always a usb. The usb lead plugs into your pc so obviously needs some software.
As mentioned above the ION turntables (i am currently staring at one now lol) include ezvinyl software. It is pretty basic but ok for transferring one LP track or single at a time. copying a whole album at a time can be testing.

Yes you can use a cheap streaming service and I use amazon music as its free if you have amazon prime.
Basically my music is free as I already own it and more importantly I have tracks that I cannot now get on any streaming service or mp3 download. For those tracks I cannot get then I have used the vinyl to mp3 transfer.

Mind you I still have access to a full blown top end hifi with turntable. My ION turntable (still dirt cheap on ebay) just sits there looking sad and neglected waiting in case I ever need to transfer a track again lol.
 
But I suppose you could justify it with the fact you’re aiming to only stream music you actually own already, and were only intending to make personal copies of anyway. In this instance the artists would actually get more money (even if it’s marginal) from you than they would if you were to make the copies yourself. Not sure if this would make you feel any better about it.
How many devices can you download Spotify to under a single username/password?
 
Mind you I still have access to a full blown top end hifi with turntable. My ION turntable (still dirt cheap on ebay) just sits there looking sad and neglected waiting in case I ever need to transfer a track again lol.
I had a Linn Sondek LP12 for ages but when it came to new bits and pieces and sorting the plinth [ribbed finish], I was quoted £1,500. Sod that, so I sold it to a bloke in Korea for two grand
 
How many devices can you download Spotify to under a single username/password?
I am not sure if theres a limit.my family al use mine.i have it on my phone, My wife has it on hers with my username and wevhave it on the ipad and computer at home also. You can only listen on one at a time though, but its vaguely amusing to 'take over' what my wife is listening to at home while im out at work and make her listen to the last waltz, again.

Unless you get a family version, in which case you can listen concurrently a few times.
 
I had a Linn Sondek LP12 for ages but when it came to new bits and pieces and sorting the plinth [ribbed finish], I was quoted £1,500. Sod that, so I sold it to a bloke in Korea for two grand

Nice turntable, i only use my wifes technics rack now which is fairly good, was going to buy a top level turntable for another set of separates but hardly play vinyl now and just stream mp3s to the hifi via a DAC so not worth the outlay.
 
I am not sure if theres a limit.my family al use mine.i have it on my phone, My wife has it on hers with my username and wevhave it on the ipad and computer at home also. You can only listen on one at a time though, but its vaguely amusing to 'take over' what my wife is listening to at home while im out at work and make her listen to the last waltz, again.

Unless you get a family version, in which case you can listen concurrently a few times.
Thanks for that.
 
I am not sure if theres a limit.my family al use mine.i have it on my phone, My wife has it on hers with my username and wevhave it on the ipad and computer at home also. You can only listen on one at a time though, but its vaguely amusing to 'take over' what my wife is listening to at home while im out at work and make her listen to the last waltz, again.

Unless you get a family version, in which case you can listen concurrently a few times.

You can have six users on the family Spotify, that's what I use :-)
 
Thanks for all your responses.

Yes, I do know about Spotify and I think his mum has even got an account that he has used in the past. But, as someone pointed out, the music is only being 'hired' or 'rented', it doesn't become your own.

|I'll give this all some more thought but thanks again for your comments, opinions and insights.
 
Another option is to buy a "Video to MP3 converter" add on for your browser, go into YouTube and to look up "The Stone Roses full album" (for example). Start playing the first video and once starts you click on the rip button (location depends on the actual app), tell the add on to just convert the music and in usually under a minute you have an MP3 file waiting. Of course, the time it takes depends on broadband speed etc. Once you have hit the rip button for the first music video, just click onto the second song and repeat.

Quality of the rip depends on the quality of the sound on the uploaded video but you can listen to check it is a decent copy before ripping.
 
Another option is to buy a "Video to MP3 converter" add on for your browser, go into YouTube and to look up "The Stone Roses full album" (for example). Start playing the first video and once starts you click on the rip button (location depends on the actual app), tell the add on to just convert the music and in usually under a minute you have an MP3 file waiting. Of course, the time it takes depends on broadband speed etc. Once you have hit the rip button for the first music video, just click onto the second song and repeat.

Quality of the rip depends on the quality of the sound on the uploaded video but you can listen to check it is a decent copy before ripping.
Is that legal?
 
Of course not. Didnt realise you were so worried about legal constraints!
I'm not but if I advise someone else I would give a disclaimer - every now and then someone gets caught. Personally, I'd go down the Spotify type arrangement as you suggested