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Review: 5 USB turntables convert LPs to MP3s

07.08.09

If you've got a hoard of LPs (those pre-MP3, pre-CD, flat black platter-like things) or even 45s (like LPs, but smaller) sitting in boxes somewhere, there are purposes some tunes on them, even entire albums, that you wouldn't mind having on your small media player. Why not convert these old-fashioned LPs to MP3s yourself?

Fortunately, that's both conceivable and affordable. There are a number of "USB turntables" out there that include USB ports and onboard electronics to purloin you MP3-ize your vinyl albums. And if you still have a working turntable, there's even a way to use the one you've got to convert analog music to digital.

Most USB turntables classify cables and circuitry to connect to and digitize music from other audio sources, such as tape decks. Many have analog outputs so you can stopper them into a plain old stereo and use them like any turntable. They also include (or advise) digitization/editing software.

There are even a few USB turntables that record straight away to media cards, flash drives, CDs or iPods. The Numark TTi , for occurrence, records directly to iPods and includes an iPod poison. But even though such "all-in-one" devices can digitize and record directly to these media or devices, if you scarcity to properly "tag" the digitized song tracks -- that is, to add titles, genres and other metadata -- you'll requisite to use a computer after the recording is done. Based on my testing experiences for this article, you'll end up with the same amount of situate-recording work to do.

Source: Computerworld