Follow these easy steps, and you’ll soon be listening to your favorite vinyl records on your CD player, or even on your iPod.

The Harder (but free) way to convert vinyl to CD

The cheapest way to transfer your vinyl to CD is to use a free audio program, such as Audacity, which is available for both Windows and Mac. This is what I’m going to show you below.

The Easy (but cheap) way to convert vinyl to CD

Using Audacity will require some manual slicing up of the audio, and cleaning up of noise, as well as finding another tool with which to burn the audio to a CD, so if you’re willing to pay some money, you can buy Golden Records Vinyl to CD Converter for Windows or Mac, and it will make the process go more smoothly.

The Easiest (but most expensive) way

If you’re really hardcore about converting vinyl to CD, and don’t mind spending a few hundred dollars, you can buy a turntable that will record your LPs to CD directly.

Here are the things you’ll need convert your vinyl to CD

That is, if you’re going the easy, or the harder way. I don’t have an LP to CD turntable, so you’re on your own if you buy one of those (though I’m sure it’s not that tough).

• Vinyl records or LPs you want to convert
• A record player with some sort of audio output. You probably have RCA outputs, but if you have USB, that’s great.
• A computer with some sort of audio input. You probably don’t have RCA inputs, thus you will need the next item.
• Appropriate connectors to get the audio from your record player into your computer. This is the most variable part of the instructions. Chances are, your turntable has RCA outputs; and your computer doesn’t have RCA inputs. Chances are, your computer has a 3.5mm microphone input, and your turntable doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio output. I use female-to-female RCA couplers, which connect the RCA outputs on my turntable to an adapter that converts male RCA connectors to a 3.5mm male connector. I then connect that male connector into the microphone jack on my computer. Ideally, I would use a female RCA to 3.5mm male connector, but I use what I have on hand.
• A CD burner – either internal, or external to your computer. This is of course optional, if you are fine with just having digital files, such as mp3′s to put on your iPod, iPhone, or other portable music device.
• Software. If you’re going the harder route, you’ll need Audacity, and iTunes. If you have another program other than iTunes that you use to burn CDs, you can of course use that instead.

Here’s how to convert your vinyl to CD using the free Audacity. You’ll of course have to download and install it first.

Get the music flowing into your computer

After you’ve downloaded, installed, and started up Audacity, you need to make sure the audio from your record player is being picked up by audacity. Choose whatever configuration of adapters you need to get your turntable audio going into your computer. You’ll probably be using an RCA to 3.5mm adapter. Plug the RCA cables from your turntable into the RCA plugs on your adapter, and plug the 3.5mm adapter into your computer’s microphone, or “line in” jack.

Now start up your record player. You probably can’t hear much because your record player isn’t being amplified. But, it is providing a signal to your computer. In Audacity, look at the options that are available in the drop-down box. One of them should be “Line In.” This is the option you will want to have selected. On my Mac, the correct option is “Default Input Source,” but I had to first change my input source by going into Preferences > Sound > Input and selecting “Line In.”

Press the record button on Audacity. If you have selected the correct input source, you will now hear your music playing. You’ll also see waveforms of your music on the new Audio Track that has been formed. If not, you may need to play around with your input settings a little, either within Audacity, or at the System level. If you’re on Windows XP, you may need to adjust the Default Device for Sound Recording in your Control Panel > Sounds, Speech, & Audio Devices > Sounds & Audio Devices > Audio.

Optimize your audio settings

Press Stop on Audacity, and celebrate just a little. But now you want to make sure you’re getting the best quality audio into your computer. Look at your sample audio track. It should say that it is a “Stereo, 44100 Hz 32-bit float” track. If it doesn’t, most commonly, it probably says it’s a mono track. You need to change this in Preferences > Audio I/O. Under Recording > Channels, change “1 (Mono)” to “2 (Stereo).” While you’re there, make sure that Device is set to “Built-in Input.”

Now you should optimize your input levels. Ideally, you want the loudest parts of the music to be as tall of waveforms as possible, without “clipping.” So, delete that last test audio track, and let’s make another. This time, keep an eye on the Input level monitor on the top right hand corner of Audacity. Adjust the slider with a little microphone on it underneath the record button so the monitor never quite maxes out – only coming close when the music hits loud points. If the monitor maxes out, a little vertical red bar will appear at the end of the monitor. Make a note of the input level you’re at, move it down a bit, and make a new audio track, adjusting until the red bar doesn’t show up anymore.

Record the music

Once you’ve got your audio settings optimized, you’re ready to start recording. Stop your turntable, delete your sample audio track, then press record again before starting up your turntable (you’re going to need a sample of that initial bit of noise from your turntable). Start up your turntable and record your first track. If you want to record the entire side, go ahead; but it will be easier to break your music down into tracks if you do them one at a time. Unfortunately, there’s no way to speed up this process, you just have to sit and enjoy the music.

Remove noise from the music

On your audio track, click and drag on that bit of audio that was recorded just before the music started on your LP. Then, go to Effect > Noise Removal…. Since you’ve already selected your bit of noise, click on Get Noise Profile on the dialog box.

The dialog will disappear. Delete all of the sound you just sampled, so that the actual audio of the song is at the beginning of your audio track (you want to do this so that your Preview will have music in it when you’re tyring the Noise Removal).

Now, select all of the audio track, and go again to Effect > Noise Removal…, and this time Step 2 will be highlighted. You can adjust how much noise you’d like to have removed. You may want to hook up some headphones to your computer at this point to Preview a couple of times to make sure you’re removing the right amount. If you remove to much, you may hurt the integrity of the music – too little, and, well, you’ll have noise. Once you’re satisfied, select “Remove Noise.”

Export the music

Now that you’ve removed the noise, you’re ready to export your track. Go to File > Export as WAV…, and save your track, making sure to name it in some way that makes sense. If you’ve recorded an entire side, you can just select a song, and choose “Export selection as WAV….” If you’re going to skip CD burning entirely, you can export directly to MP3 if you wish.

Burn to CD

Once you’ve recorded all of your tracks, it’s time to bring those tracks into iTunes, which is also free, and will help you burn the music to a CD. Create a new Playlist by going to File > New Playlist, and name the playlist. I like to go with the format: “Artist name: Album name.” Now, with that playlist selected, drag all of your files to your iTunes window. This will add those songs to your iTunes library, but also add them to your Playlist.

If you really want to get all of the metadata correct on your CD, select all of the tracks in your Playlist, then right click on them and choose “Get Info…” this will bring up a dialog box where you can set the metadata for all of the tracks on the album. Fill out this information, press “OK,” then repeat this process for each individual track, to get the track data correct. Of course, you can skip all of this entirely if it’s not important to you.

Now, click “Burn Disc” on the bottom right-hand corner of the iTunes window, choose “Audio CD,” and click “Burn.” You’ll of course have to have a blank disc handy.

So, that’s a free, though somewhat complicated, process for converting vinyl to CD. If you want to simplify the process, you can buy Golden Records Vinyl to CD Converter, or buy a Vinyl to CD turntable.