Audio help required

lzh · October 10, 2002 7:29AM

I just got Toast to go with my new iMac so as I can burn CD's. That's all fine. The manual for Toast raves on about how you can use Toast to digitise all your old vinyl records and tapes so as you can put your old music collection on to CD. A great plan....but how do I get the music off my vinyl and into the mac so I can fiddle about with it in toast? What lead/device etc. do I need to buy? I have a flat panel combo drive iMac running OSx Jaguar.

Any advice much appreciated. Thanks. <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

robster · October 10, 2002 7:42AM

Hi,

I'm not sure whether the FP iMac has a line in (and I can't be bothered to check!) but if not you could:

Go buy a Griffin iMic, which gives line and mic inputs to your Mac via USB, it's OS X native and needs no drivers. Griffin also provide a beta of a program called Final Vinyl that is made to use the iMic to convert vinyl records to your computer. You simply plug the record deck directly into the iMic, no amplifier needed, then you can convert.

Hope this helps...

Rob

[ 10-10-2002: Message edited by: robster ]</p>

lzh · October 10, 2002 7:54AM

Thanks mate,quick reply much appreciated.

I could not find a "line in" on my FP iMac otherwise wld've been much easier.

Will this line in also enable me to plug my Minidisc player into the Mac?

Can I try you with another question...is there any way to get radio broadcasts downloaded using Real Player off the Mac into a format that could then be burnt to CD or saved on minidisc for later playback (my other half's a teacher he needs to playback radio excerpts to kids in a class room, the classroom has not Macs or PC's in it!). Thanks, L.

overhope · October 10, 2002 1:37PM

Yes, you can plug a MiniDisc player into an iMic and record the output (I know this from practical experience in dubbing concert audio from the mixing desk back into video in iMovie). One caveat: currently OS X doesn't pass sound from the iMic to the speakers (unless something's happened recently that I missed).

As for getting audio from RealPlayer, i'm unaware of any means to crack it back out of the RM file. However, you can sneak around this by re-recording the analogue sound, at the cost of some sound quality (probably not a consideration for this application!).

Having just had a look at Final Vinyl (didn't know it was out there, thanks robster!) and it will do this quite happily: just get an audio lead with 3.5mm (headphone-type) jacks both ends, plug one end into the Mac's headphone socket and the other into the iMic and whatever audio is playing will be recorded to the hard drive. You can find such a lead in virtually any audio shop, shouldn't be more than a fiver.

Since this software also supports audio pass-through, you can also listen to music from any other source through your Mac's speakers (I've got my iPod playing through it now!).

[ 10-10-2002: Message edited by: Overhope ]</p>

lzh · October 11, 2002 2:32AM

Thanks Overhope.

In the end I ordered something called an Edirol UA1A USB Audio capture thingy which has two lines in and out so should give better sound quality than the iMic...but your post indicates that my only hope of getting RM stuff out of the Mac is with the iMic.

My apologies if I'm being really dense but will I be able to do all that stuff with with the audio capture device I've got or am I better off calling up the store and ordering an iMic instead?

(nb: <a href="http://www.edirol.com"; target="_blank">www.edirol.com</a> if needed...) <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

overhope · October 13, 2002 12:07PM

You can do the same with that piece of kit, but Final Vinyl requires an iMic.

However, there is software which isn't hardware-dependent: I've been using <a href="http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/"; target="_blank">SoundStudio</a> which also has a waveform editor and allows for pass-through.

[ 10-13-2002: Message edited by: Overhope ]</p>

Audio help required

Comments