Post #205608 by tikibars on Wed, Jan 4, 2006 6:10 AM

Pick two: cheap, good, easy.

Your best bet is a program called Peak, which will allow you to record the audio, edit the crap from the beginning and ends, and declick/decrackle the files. Toast, as rocommended above, is a great CD burning package, but can't do the audio editing you need.

There's a competing package called Spark XL that I like better than Peak, but I hear it is out of production. The declick/decrackle in it is better than Peak, IMHO.

You will also need a turntable preamp, which is a box that takes the turntable signal and boosts it up to what we call "line level". If you have an old stereo receiver with a turntable input, this will do. If you ever wonered why the tape deck and CD don't work if you plug them into the turntable input, and vice versa, this is why. The turntable needs a preamp boost to line level, and the CD player or cassette deck, or VCR or DVD's audio outputs are all already at line level.

Then you will need some sort of Firewire or USB box that will accept the line level signal from the turntable preamp or stereo reciever's output and convert it into digital data (this is caled an A/D converter), then shoot it down the Firewire pipe to the computer.

All of the boxes I can recommend are pro-quality, probably out of your budget, but I know there are consumer models out there that will do this stuff cheaply. I think a company called ART makes a box with the turntable preamp AND the A/D converters in the same box for about $100.

Just remember, you get what you pay for.