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Comment by abruzzi | Hacker News Reader

I have lots of stuff that I have ripped from vinyl to digital because they never made the just to digital. I am not a purist, so keeping the vinyl and playing it from vinyl isn't my preference, just saving some of my favorite albums so I can keep listening to them.

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I was 22 when CD first came out and didn't get a player or any CDs until I was 25. I've still got a bunch of vinyl I bought before that. What would it take to digitize those?

Obviously, I'll need a turntable. Can I simply get a turntable that has L and R line out, connect that to two of the line in inputs on my audio interface (a PreSonus AudioBox iTwo) and record L and R from the turntable as two tracks in any handy DAW (probably GarageBand), split those tracks up to match the song splits on the LP, mix corresponding L and R (with the L track panned all the way left and R track panned all the way R) and export those?

From what I've read, the only potential gotcha here is that you might need to add in a phono preamp in between the turntable and the audio interface. But I am very much a beginner so don't take my word for it!

Yeah, you'll need a phono preamp.

My dad bought a USB turntable which worked great with Audacity. I'm not sure which model or brand it is, but there are lots available. He didn't bother splitting the tracks as he is happy to just listen to whole albums, but that would probably be fairly easy to automate if you had a lot to do. Will that audio interface you have keep the two inputs as separate channels? Seems more likely it would mix them into one mono channel (on my similar interface the left and right outputs are the same unless you have a stereo signal coming from USB).

I'm no purist, either. But I'll buy a box of old vinyl for a pittance now and then, just to spin them up and see what's on them. I've been well-rewarded with some real gems, like Maurice Andre's Trumpetissimo. It's so beautiful it gives me chills. I never would have expected that.

https://www.amazon.com/KARIUS-PEDERSEN-WALLWZ-TRUMPETTISSIMO...

I used to play a trumpet, and have no idea how a mere mortal could make it sound like that.

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