I think you could probably reduce the bitrate a little and be OK. ;D
why do you say this? I would think coming from analog you would want the highest bit rate you could possibly fit on your harddrive! analog is essentially infinite bit rate as it is continuous rather than discrete.
“Infinite” Lets not go crazy here. 
Spend $100 and get a real USB turntable. It will come with software that will make your life easier.
Anything less than a 256K MP3 won’t sound as good as the source. Granted that vinyl isn’t all that great, but why would you want to “dumb it down” even more?
Make sure you back up EVERYTHING.
I lost a HD a year or so ago and had not made a recent back-up of my library. Talk about a PITA.
Every now and then I still come across an album that’s missing. And then I have to go and dig it out of the basement and rip it again.
Well, think about it, with an analog ‘data’ stream if you want to exactly represent every aspect of said stream you would need an infinite number of bits. if your sampling rate is say, and IANARE (I Am Not A Recording Engineer), 60 bits per second that means that every second you take 60 samples of what the sound is doing but if you double that to 120 per second you get twice as much info and you can continue to double that sample rate indefinetly until you run out of storage without ever getting the same sample twice.
What software does/did yours come with?
I’ve used Audacity and have to say it’s got some pretty powerful features for editing audio. And it’s free.
Also, in your experience, do you think that the data transfer on the USB is superior than bringing the sound in through the microphone jack on the sound card?
In the past, I’ve run my old turntable through an amplifier and in through the mic-in. Sound quality is pretty good, but I’m also dealing with some old old vinyl that has some warping and scratching. I could also probably use a new needle.
And do you have a recommendation on a USB turntable? When I looked at USB turntables a few years ago, my concern was that they seemed relatively cheap compared to the high-end turntable I bought oh so many years ago.
Well, I am a recording engineer. 44.1K is the standard for CDs. Most music these days is produced at a 96K sample rate and either 24 or 32 bits. That’s getting up there in terms of resolution. So you can see that even a 256K MP3 is a vastly reduced sample rate, not to mention the data compression (like saying “hey, we don’t think you can hear that so we’re throwing it out”) that they do. But you’re correct in that more is better.
What Joe said about USB turntables. The ones I’ve looked at all came with Audacity. The pain for me is editing the metadata, not the sound input.
They come with a variety of software, none of which I use. As a veteran of the digital audio scene, I have a lot of pro quality software around. I typically use Sound Forge. But the software that comes with the TT shpould automatically recognize tracks, making thisngs a bit easier.
USB will be vastly superior to using the computer mic jacks.
You don’t need a high end TT just to do xfers.
Thanks, Denny. I appreciate the advice from someone who’s knowledgeable.
Any experience with an RCA to USB adaptor?
When I was transferring albums before (through the mic-in), my recollection is that I had to bring it in through an amplifier. I can’t recall for sure why (it’s been a few years) and I was going at it ad hoc. My assumption is that the unamplified signal from the turn table just wasn’t enough to register without the amplifier. I don’t know if that would be an issue going with an RCA/USB adaptor.
JOE
Make sure it accepts a phono input. They include a preamp.
I knew you would be able to expand. thanks Denny!
I hoped Denny would check in with his engineer hat on.
Not being argumentative - just looking for answers…
Theoretically records are analog and music is analog. Digitizing music quanitizes it into a series of “square” bits of a single value. You lose the changing value in the bit in the digital recording that is present in the same time space in the analog recording. The smaller period of time the bit represents (higher bit rate), the closer you can come to matching the analog curve. (like integral calculus).
However, analog music recordings on vinyl lose a little of the peaks and valleys in the groove every time the record needle tracks across it. So the recording is degraded with every play (not to mention the snap, crackle and pop of dust and scratches).
If analog recordings on vinyl are superior, wouldn’t there be a market for new music recorded that way among audiophiles?
Using compressed files to store digital photos does the same "hey, we don’t think you can hear that so we’re throwing it out’ game, only with light.
Carl - I believe there is a market for new vinyl among audiophiles.
However, the market is so small that the major labels couldn’t care less about it. And the costs of producing the small amount of vinyl people would actually buy are probably cost prohibitive.
But there is definitely a market. I read an article somewhat recently about a company that’s producing small runs of vinyl. I can’t recall if it was new music or not, but IIRC it may even have been a local Chicago company.
EDIT: Not the article I was looking for, but here’s one from Time in 2008 about a resurgence in vinyl. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1702369,00.html
However, if new music is digitally mastered, what’s the point of an analog play-back format?
There is a market for that. interestingly, in my experience though it is largley among punk and hardcore listeners. No idea why you need highest possible fidelity to listen to an angry englishman scream but…
True the quality degrades and you can drop some serious bucks on heavy gauge (Is gauge the right word here?) LPs that in theory will not warp as easily. But at least at first the sound quality is better.
Pearl Jam had a clause in their contract requiring that all their albums be released on vinyl as well as CD.
it’s all about convenience rather than pure sound. yes there is a small yet fantastic selection of new vinyl
Well then that leads to the question:
If the analog recording technique used on vinyl records is better, could modern methods and materials be used to make the records more robust? And convenient?
There is a market for that. interestingly, in my experience though it is largley among punk and hardcore listeners. No idea why you need highest possible fidelity to listen to an angry englishman scream but…
True the quality degrades and you can drop some serious bucks on heavy gauge (Is gauge the right word here?) LPs that in theory will not warp as easily. But at least at first the sound quality is better.
Pearl Jam had a clause in their contract requiring that all their albums be released on vinyl as well as CD.
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I have a large amount of vinyls, cd’s, and mp3’s in my collection. I probably should get rid of the vinyls eventually, but I just find that that listening to music on vinyl to be more enjoyable. I don’t know if has anything to do with sound quality, but it’s definately not notalgia since I grew up with tapes and cd’s. But there is something about different about listening to vinyl. Also, I definately am in favor the vinyl segment of the the punk industry, they work with colored, picture vinyl, and 7 inches.