I have a decent-sized vinyl and cassette collection, and I'd like to listen to some of it on my mp3 player. What's the easiest way to do that? Keep in mind that I'm very technologically challenged, so please put it in terms a caveman would understand.

At the moment I have a record player, a preamp that connects the record player to my mini system, and a walkman for my tapes.

Get a device known as an "audio interface" ($200+) then connect the device to the audio interface and the audio interface connects to the computer. from the computer, you install some recording software.

Most desktop PCs and many laptops have a Line-In socket for plugging in other audio devices.

Use this to plug in your VCR or record player preamp into the computer. From there, it's simply a matter of capturing the audio, and encoding it.

A program I like to use for this task, is Audacity -- downloadable free-of-charge from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ for Unix clones, Apple MacOS X and Microsoft Windows.

The interface, as far as recording is concerned, is pretty self explanatory. I generally record my LPs in one take -- hit record, put the needle down... wait for that side to finish, flip the LP over and put the needle down again, then hit stop when the LP finished.

Once recorded, tracks can be split via the "Split" menu item in the "Edit" menu. Simply place the cursor between two tracks, click, then press CTRL+End (not sure what it is on Mac) to highlight to the end of the recording -- then select "Edit->Split" to split the track. Once complete, use the "Export All" item of the "File" menu to save each track separately.

Then use whatever encoding program you like to convert to MP3.

I had similar problem, but I actually solved it by pirating mp3's of what I had from intarbutt, it's faster to download a torrent than to rip a vinyl (plus, you won't scratch it even more)

>>4
this is true.
some artists now include a code for a free legal download with their vinyl releases, which i think everyone who has ever released a record on vinyl should do retroactively to the beginning of recorded music.

>>3

Thanks a lot, I'm going to give that a try. But what about the cassette situation, do I have to buy anything extra for that?

>>4

I've done that in the past, but a lot of the records I have simply aren't available to pirate -- more specifically obscure 70's and 80's hardcore and punk records. I've checked slsk and oink, and no one bothered to rip a good chunk of my collection. Unless you know of a better place to look?

>>6 Well... your walkman has a headphone socket that can be plugged into your line-in socket does it not? Failing that, any tape player with a line-out or headphone socket will do.

All you'd need, is a suitable cable.