Oh sage and wise friends and techies... I need some advice.

I want to record my albums on my PC using my Soundblaster LIVE drive and its L/R RCA inputs. I then plan to burn them onto CDs. I have most of the hardware issues ironed out.

The problem I have is what software can I use that will allow recordings in *.wav format for that length? Does anyone have experience with any shareware or other applications that will do this?

Any other tricks or suggestions?

Thanks all,

Craig

PC magazine had a feature article (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,643289,00.asp) on this about a year ago.

You may also find this discussion thread (http://discuss.pcmag.com/n/main.asp?webtag=pcmag&nav=messages&msg=25413) useful.

eccles,

Thank you. I have done some searching for software and found apps that say they'll do the job. But it really help to be able to read third party thoughts or reviews.

Craig

FYI, PC Mag's latest email newsletter mentions a shareware product called Audiotools 4.60 that they've just added to their download area. http://shareware.pcmag.com/product.php?id=57518

Eccles, Thanks. I will try this. The recording piece of this is not straight forward and it is clear to me that the right software is key. I have already wasted 6 hours trying Music Match to now avail.

Hmm.. are you sure that you can't just do it straight through the "Creative Sound Recorder" or whatever they call it?

I have a lot of vinyl that I transfer to CD (hate dj'ing with vinyl) using this method. Granted, we're not talking full albums but rather 10-13 minutes at a time.. but I see no reason that a full album can't be ripped like this.

I'm recording my album right now, although I use a professional studio I also use my home studio as well. The best way to do this would be using Digidesign's Protools with a control surface. If you dont want to invest that kind of money, try a program called "CoolEdit Pro" That should do the trick. Good Luck!

Originally posted by Rx8Past
If you dont want to invest that kind of money, try a program called "CoolEdit Pro" That should do the trick. Good Luck!

Unfortunately, Adobe bought CoolEdit (Syntrillium) back in May.
Now they sell their own bloated version for twice as much.

If you can Kazaa a copy of CoolEdit or CoolEdit PRO, get it. IT is (was) the best for what you are trying to do.
Otherwise, try one of the other freeware sound editors out there.

With your live drive, you should have gotten the SE version of Sound Forge, it will do the job. If not, there is always Kazaa. I did a few old albums, just make sure your turntable is grounded to metal with that extra wire in the back. Also in Sound Forge you can eq the songs, Albums contain hardly any bass due to the grooves would be too wide to play. Therefore a little extra bass in the eq, a little clip remover to cover the scratches, and you will be in analog to digital heaven. And you can burn CD's directly from the software. Easy to use, and it came with my 1st Sound Blaster live platinum, and I think Waves, which will do the exact same thing, comes with the new audigy platinum, which is the sound card I have in my desktop PC. They both do the same things and free plug in's are available on the net, then increase the volume so they sound the same as normal CD's but watch for clipping. Sound Forge has multiple undo's but Waves allows you to stack effects and then take them out to see the difference, then you have to process everything. Creative's sound recorder is limited, look into your CD's for that 3rd party LE software, it won't do everything the full versions will, but you should be able to record a full song, and save as wave then master it. There are also Demo's available for both versions. You could also try hotfiles.com if downloading questionable software is off your list. Just like downloading MP3's

Did your Sound Blaster come with this 'console?


If so choose the proper input (most likely 'what you hear' or
'line in'. If you have Sound Forge, great! you can really shape the sound, but it isn't all that neccessary if you are using Nero or Roxio to burn to CD as these come with some useful tools for shaping the sound. If you are mixing different tracks from different albums, make sure to use the 'Normalize' function in the CD burning software to insure the volume levels stay consistant from song to song.

Hope that helps

I have Sound Forge but it came with my Sound Blaster Live Value! package almost 3 years ago. It doesn't look like this screen shot.

I will look at what it will do this weekend. Thanks to all for the ideas. One nice touch I am looking for is a package that automatically senses the end of a song on the album and starts another song on the recording. The package that does that and helps clean up the pops and clicks is the one I am looking for.

Burning the disk is the easy part. I have Roxio, Nero, Musicmatch, Win Media Player etc. They will all do that.

thanks to all who have provided ideas. This is going to be a lot more work than I had imagined at 45 - 50 minutes to record each LP and ~15 minutes to burn them, going through 200 albums is going to take the summer... Remember I have to spend time driving the 8 and working... that doesn't leave much room for anything else.

Originally posted by willhave8
Eccles, Thanks. I will try this. The recording piece of this is not straight forward and it is clear to me that the right software is key. I have already wasted 6 hours trying Music Match to now avail.

Intreresting - I've used Musicmatch before to record to MP3 from line-in sources without issue... What kind of problems were you encountering?

OK, audio is easy, lets move on to TV...

I have a tuner card, and use 'DScaler' to run it - beautiful hi-def pictures, but now I want to record onto my new 250GB drive....
(thanks Maurice!)

Is there a good PVR program around that can do the 'imitation TIVO' thing?
.
.
.
doc

Originally posted by sferrett
Intreresting - I've used Musicmatch before to record to MP3 from line-in sources without issue... What kind of problems were you encountering?

Pilot error first - which killed a few hours, adjusting levels and figuring out how to use the Live! drive inputs... Then even after MusicMatch appeared to be recording, at least it acted as if it was as I could see the files being 'created' on my hard drive anywhere from 65 to 1200MB in size, when I then exited Music Match to play the files, they didn't have the same names and were not recognized as *.wav files by any of my players. Even though the files names were marked as *.wav... Thing is I have no patience for that.

Anyway, MusicMatch does not automatically recognize the end of a song and start a new file. That alone tells me I don't want to use it.

I will get a hold of the other shareware programs mentioned above and try them this weekend.