recording to laptop- what set up do i need?

[MrShadow]

hi, im placing this under newbie because its a very newbie topic and dont know where else to place it.
i did leacve a intro on the intro thread to let people know my situation and how it affects my making music,but i am non verbal classic autistic,mildly intelectualy disabled and severely epileptic among other things and its took me years to get to this stage of making music again as epilepsy has completely damaged my short term and working memory,ive also just got back into collecting vinyls, i still have my decks and active speakers-whether they work or not is another thing,the mixer was broke so i am currently making an art project out of it as it gave me years of memories.

my question i need to ask is what kind of set up do i need to record my tons of vinyl to one of my external hard drives- i will purely be collecting and cateloguing my music.i have lots of things planned, i am planning on starting a radio station aimed at other disabled people at some point in the near future and im getting a PPL licence before doing that- i already have a server i can run shoutcast off and open source software for mixing,ive got it all planned.

i was wondering if its possible to record from turntable to laptop like this:
1 X pioneer DJ PLX-500-K direct drive and hook it straight up to the laptop via USB cable,or do i have to have a mixer,an amp and speakers?
i dont want to hear it out loud as i live in a care facility and my own space is tiny, i also woud prefer just having 1 turntable and the laptop if its at all possible due to space again.


i hope i managed to get that across correctly, thanks and cheers to anyone who reads or replies to this.

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[bouldersoundguy]

It appears that you can connect it directly to a computer via USB. It might be the case that the conversion quality is set by the turntable's USB converter (maybe CD quality 44.1 kHz/16 bit wave file or MP3), which might be just fine with you. If not, you could get an audio interface that allows a higher quality file format. The turntable does have an internal phono preamp, so you don't need a separate device for that, which is convenient.

If you're going to do processing on the files (remove noise or raise the volume), I'd record CD quality wave files or better. If I were doing this I'd record 48 kHz/24 bit wave files. MP3 is okay for an end product, but not so good as a starting point for audio you want to modify.

 

[rob aylestone]

You have what is needed - the USB output on the Pioneer is fine - so download something like audacity, which is free if you don;t wish to spend any money - and off you go. It will work fine!

 

[spantini]

^ What they said

The Pioneer site indicates you need only plug the USB from the turntable to your computer (following the proper connection procedures). Then use their FREE Rekordbox software to make the transfer from analog to digital. The PLX-500 has it's own pre-amp and does not require a driver - so the literature says.

I tried accessing the Rekordbox manual via the Pioneer site but it is unavailable. I'm assuming it's manual will be included with the software when downloaded.