[quote=“Lurkerguy, post:5, topic:40998, username:Lurkerguy”]
That’s exactly what I was using- the RCA female to 1/8th into mic input on computer (internal soundcard).
[/quote]That doesn’t work. Because of the way the signal is cut onto the record, you’ll wind up with absolutely no bass doing it that way. All Phono preamps use what’s called the RIAA EQ curve to get a legit signal out of vinyl.
It looks like this:
Now…imagine any digital song you have and applying the inverse of that…that’s what you’re doing when you run a turntable into a mic preamp.
Neither of those sound cards have inputs. If you use a DVS, you can use your DVS sound card, and it’ll sound fine. If not, run the signal through your mixer (EQs flat…correct gain staging), though most DJ mixers sound like crap compared to high-quality standalone phono preamps……but if they’re good enough for gigging, then they’re good enough for digitizing as long as you’re not going for archival recordings.
If you need a suggestion of a good, cheap sound card…I like my Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. It’s annoying…the drivers aren’t perfectly stable on OS X Lion, and I sometimes need to restart to get any audio to come through……but it’s not a huge deal when the card sounds fine and costs right around $100.
It depends. If your tonearm is set up right, you don’t need to do anything. If you made the classic DJ mistake of ignoring anti-skate and screwing the weigh all the way down, it’ll sound like crap……just like it sounds like crap to play vinyl like that.
Get a circle bubble level. Adjust the feet so the tonearm is level.
Read your cart/stylus’s manual for suggested tracking weights. Stay in that range…and the lighter the better as long as you’re getting a signal and not causing it to skip.
Set the height so the tonearm is as level (parallel with the floor) as possible.
Find a record (it doesn’t matter what it is…buy one if you have to) that’s only cut on one side. Put your stylus in the middle of the blank side with the record spinning at a normal speed (and the volume off…it sounds weird) and adjust your anti-skating so that the tonearm/cart doesn’t slide back and forth. It should stay in the middle (or close to it) like there was a single closed groove on the record even when there isn’t.
Use that for digitizing vinyl, and when you go back to just DJing…keep the same settings. If you find it skipping more, don’t go above the suggested weight…just teach yourself to control the vinyl better and use softer hands.
The reason it matters…audio on vinyl is pressed as Mid and Side signals (as opposed to Left and Right…kind of a simplification, but it works for a DJ’s purposes). Mid is encoded as side-to-side movement of the needle, side as up-and-down. So if you use too much weight, you collapse the stereo image in a weird way. If your anti-skating isn’t correct, you cause a DC offset. Neither sounds good.
