Converting Vinyl Records to MP3

I've previously blogged about the USB Turntable which is admittedly pretty nifty, but maybe not $150 dollars nifty if one already has a functioning record player. For those so lucky, all that is needed is a way to get the music onto a computer. Strictly speaking, all that is needed it to run a cable from the headphone jack (or speaker outputs) on the amplifier to the audio-in jack on the computer's sound card and capture the music with a free sound editing program. No cost whatsoever except for the cable.

If one wants to spend somewhere between $150 and $0, there's a couple of solutions that aid recording and help eliminate the pops and scratches endemic to vinyl records. Also, if a computer lacks a audio-in or microphone jack, these products are essential. The first is Griffin Technology's iMic. I've used this one myself to get audio into a PowerBook. It's supported under Windows, but Griffin's Final Vinyl software is Macintosh-only. The second solution is ADS Tech's Instant Music, which I saw today at my local Walmart. Amazon's reviews are mostly positive, the main complaint being that the "four step" software is a bit troublesome to use. Both these products plug into a computer's USB port and both cost around $40.