There are many ways one can digitalize records. The easiest one would be getting an USB turntable that connects straight to your computer via USB interface and it also comes with a software that helps you with the whole process of ripping and editing music from LP records. That approach works great, it’s fast, easy and reliable. In my opinion however, it’s better to get a mixing console and hook up your turntable to it. The price of the analogue mixing console is around $US 200 which is about the same as the USB turntable. In my opinion, it’s better to get a mixing console because it is more versatile and can be used for recording live music, podcasting and live broadcasting of audio over the Internet. A simple 4 channel audio mixer is more then enough for digital re-mastering. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to hook up your turntable to your mixing console, rip and digitalize your music.

Requirements:

- Turntable
- Speakers / Monitors
- Analogue or digital mixing console
- ADC - Analogue to digital converter (optional if using analogue mixing console)
- Hi-Fi stereo receiver / AMP (optional)
- Chinch cables
- Software for digitalizing music (In this tutorial I’ll use CD spin doctor. It’s a part of Roxio Toast suite)

Tip: Computer itself performs analogue to digital conversion. If you want to achieve better quality, use external ADC converter.

Before we begin, please, make sure that you’ve connected everything as shown in the Figure1:

Click to enlarge

And here is how everything looks when it’s connected to a mixing console:

When you have connected everything, you are ready to start setting up your system. In this tutorial I will use CD Spin Doctor software for digitalizing music. If you are not familiar with it, please refer to help files.

When you run CD Spin doctor, click on “Start a new recording” button and set preferences like this:

Input Device -> Built-In Audio
Recording Quality -> CD Audio
Input Source -> Line In

Now, you are ready to start recording. Prepare the record and make sure it plays well on the turntable and that you can hear it plays trough the speakers / monitors. Hit record when you are ready. Digitalizing music is a real-time process so you have to wait until all songs are played. When recording process is done, you will get a new dialog where you will be able to split songs, name each track and fine tune audio quality. You can use “Auto Define” option to split songs, or if it does not work, you can split songs manually.

If you want to additionally tweak your audio, click on “Filters” and play with “Noise Reducer” sliders until you manage to clean your file as much as possible. I don’t usually mess with “Sound Enhancer” and “ EQ10 filters, but If you are not happy with the sound of your files, you can tweak those as well and see what happens. In the end, export your files as AIFF if you want loseless files or mp3 if you need to compress them. For additional questions, drop a comment or contact me.

Download loseless sample (AIFF) 10,9MB

“Meet a Geek” is a pilot project of series of Interviews with cool geeks of the Interwebs. In the first interview (which I’m planning to do every month), I have the pleasure of talking with Neha Tiwari. Neha is San Francisco based geek,blogger, producer and host at Revision 3.

Davor: When did you first start working with computers and technology in general?

Neha: Well, my first computer was a hand me down from my uncle–I remember it running DOS and having the lovely yellow & black color interface color scheme. The only game on there was a Pro Golf game–which I played even though, honestly, I am not into golf!

Davor: Your first paid job was for CNET News.com, how did you like working there and what exactly was your job?

Neha:I loved working at CNET . My manager, Harry Fuller, was supportive and an inspiration for what I would hope to end up as in my career. The team at CNET News.com was smart, savvy and very friendly. While there, I was an Associate Producer that basically reported on a vast array of tech–from videogames to green innovations. I couldn’t ask for a better first paying gig!

Davor: I couldn’t help but notice that some really cool people left CNET in a really short period of time and continued their careers elsewhere. What motived you to quit your job at CNET and continue at Revision 3?

Neha: Well, I actually did not quit, but my department was closed. I know that a lot of people left, but I think that this media space is so small that everyone cycles through different companies. It’s good to keep it fresh and challenging.

Davor: Do you only do video editing at Revision 3, or are you also producing?

Neha: It’s actually reversed! I do mostly segment producing, but also edit some of my stuff as well.

Davor: What other geeky stuff do you like?

Neha: Oh man…what don’t I like! For starters, I have loved comic books since I was a child…and comic book conventions. Marvel has to be my favorite, but I was a DC fan growing up. Favorite hero? Spiderman, hands down! I also love learning about technology and how it all comes together. Plus, social networking is something that I love to research and experiment with.

Davor: … and non-geeky?

Neha: Hmm…non-geeky. Maybe socializing [offline], snowboarding, and reading the latest and greatest on the NY Times bestseller list.

Davor: What do you think about girls in the new media these days, do they really know their onions, or they are just there because they look attractive? (I am referring to female hosts of various new media shows).

Neha: Great question. The representation of women in media is a topic that I am very passionate about. Sure, women will always be judged on looks in media [look at CNN, for example], but that’s not to say that there is much more to them. It truly is just an exterior—honestly, come walk into Revision 3, and you will see that most of us “on-air” ladies don’t even wear makeup or do our hair when we aren’t on set. With personality, I really do think there is a fine balance between being likable on camera and a so-called “ditz.” I have met people who don’t seem to be genuine, or not really into what they are talking about. Luckily, I don’t work with anyone like that; from Sarah Lane to Veronica Belmont, these girls know and love the stuff they cover. My style is to always make sure that I truly believe in what I am producing. I won’t do it otherwise.

Davor: Can you tell me about the future projects you’ll be working on at Revision 3 or maybe some place else?

Neha: There are some things in the pipes, that are releasing very, very soon. I am pretty excited about them and can’t wait till they launch!

Davor: Star Wars or Star Trek?

Neha: This question isn’t fair. It’s like Sophie’s choice, and I can’t choose! I will tell you that I am a Star Trek TNG/DS9 girl, and that I love the “old” Star Wars films. I also think that Episode III isn’t as bad as people make it out to be.

Davor: In the end, I just have to ask you, are you single? (wait, someone is knocking on the window… oh, it’s Spiderman… :laughs

Neha: Ha. Well I like to keep my dating life pretty private…there is a reason it isn’t on my Facebook! But yes, I am pretty much single. Thanks for making this g33k squirm!

Davor: Neha, thank you very much for the Interview

Neha: You are very welcome. Thanks for asking such thoughtful questions!!

More about Neha Tiwari at: http://nehatiwari.com

All material published with exclusive permission.

net4mac is a brand new social networking service on the interwebs. Just when you think that there can’t be any more social networking services, a new one comes up and surprises you. net4mac is a bit different and it’s solely for Mac users. If you want to register an account, you can’t do it from the web browser as you usually would. Instead, you have to download standalone Mac OS X application that is kind of like a small web browser and then you will be able to register and use all features. This is good in my opinion because only Mac users can register. The bad thing is that the application works only on Tiger and Leopard but not on Panther.

When you install the application, you will be prompted to fill in your profile on where you will be asked about the Mac hardware you own and some personal info. It’s kind of annoying so you can skip it and finish it later after you explore the whole thing. Upon registration procedure, you should look for some friends and join user groups that interest you. The usual features include: events (which looks like iCal), Chat, and Classified Listings where you can sell or buy mac related things by posting an ad which other people can see.

So what’s good about net4mac? Well, I spent two days testing it and apart from mac os x only application that I really love, I haven’t found anything that would take net4mac out of other social networking services. On the contrary, it has less features then Facebook or Myspace and it can’t be compared to Linkedin. net4mac should be for all Mac only professionals and enthusiasts, but I can’t see a single thing to justify that. There is plenty of room for improvements, and I want to believe that the team behind net4mac will realize that, and add some more features to it’s service.

Mac Tech magazine is great! I took one year subscription and received my first issue on Thursday.

It’s a well known fact that teenagers have always wanted to learn how to play an instrument, drums, guitar or bass. They are doing that for many different reasons. While some really want to master their instruments and play like their idol musicians, others just want to be popular or impress girls. Girls always liked guys who could play say guitar. Nowadays, we have video games of sorts that simulate guitar or drums playing and it’s quite realistic. Video games such as “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” are ultimate hits on most of the gaming consoles and it’s not only for teenagers. People at Karaoke bars are enjoying it, and also there are competitions held around the world.

Teenagers today are mastering virtual guitars and drums, collect points and publish their scores online for other people to see. No more serenades and playing under the open starry sky. The romance is now in cyberspace. The virtual world of playing instruments and socializing on Facebook,Bebo and Myspace are certainly killing romance the way we know it. Rock on baby!

I got my 16GB iPod touch last Thursday as I already reported in my previous post. When I first opened it, I was quite surprised to see that the iPod was already jailbroken straight from the box! The box was sealed and it was a brand new although it was not bought directly from Apple. It came with 1.1.4 firmware but I did not have apple apps on it (mail,weather and google maps). I only had YouTube and a few third-party apps on it. People recommend that I restore my iPod and jailbreak it again and I did so. 

After that, I had all apple apps and a third-party one as well. I had to manually install chat client from sources. Here is a good tip, if you miss a chat client on your ipod touch, just install Mobile Chat client from sources by navigating to: “http://twenty08.com/installer”. This will add a new category “Twenty08” in installer app. from where you can install mobile chat on your iPod touch. I want to thank my friend Peter and people from Mac Format magazine forum who provided very helpful suggestions and tips. I am sure I will be writing more about iPod touch tips and tricks, and I am also preparing a video presentation of some cool hacks I discovered.  

Love my iPod touch. The weird thing is that it has already been jailbroken out of the box.

Not so long ago this little guy was the most popular geek toy. The intelligent wi-fi rabbit that can be programmed using very basic API to read the news, e-mail messages, stream mp3 music, online radio and tell the weather, turned out to be a waste of money. Here is the deal. Violet company that makes nabaztag bunnies had a false flash demonstration on their website. If you visited nabaztag.com around June last year (or earlier), you would see the bunny happily streaming Internet radio, reading e-mails and sending messages to other nabaztag owners by voice. Also, one could see nabazatag reading children books, recognizing objects and much more cool stuff all thanks to RFID support which never became available. I got my bunny (led by on-site demo) last year (see earlier posts for details).

At the time people at Violet were promising RFID support. The bunny worked quite well on my Mac and I was happily toying around with it. There were some glitches with the bunny but nothing serious. Problems arrived in December last year when Violet announced that they are changing platform and switching to Jabber. That change should make the bunny work and respond faster. That hasn’t happened!

Users had to wait for months for Violet to officially roll out Jabber platform and when they finally did, it turns to be a total disaster. Truth is that Nabaztag is now quicker but it does not work as it used to anymore. The bloody thing now won’t go to sleep or wake up at scheduled times, read rss feeds regularly and sometimes even refuses to connect at all. I’d strongly advise anyone who is thinking of buying nabaztag now, to stay away from it. Not to mention that RFID support is still unavailable.

It has been months now since youtube announced that they will increase video bit rate but that hasn’t yet happened. I was just browsing some videos on youtube (movie trailers mostly) to see if the videos are now in better quality. I haven’t noticed much of a difference. I am sure that Internet nowadays is capable of streaming higher quality video material so I don’t quite understand as for why YouTube is hesitating on improving the system? I was really looking forward to streaming high quality videos on my computer, the Wii and on iPod, but it does not look promising so far? Other youtube type websites like Daily Motion are much more advanced when it comes to the video quality but they are still less popular with users. YouTube, what the heck are you waiting for?

Europe and Australia are so behind Japan and America when it comes to the new game releases, but I am really looking forward to playing “Super Smash Brothers Brawl”. European release is expected to come out by May 2008. SSBB is already available in Japan and the U.S and it already has the highest ratings on the gaming sites. As far as I was able to see, gameplay is great and multiplayer support makes it even more interesting. Players that prefer classic Game Cube controller will be happy to hear that they will be able to use it in this game.Another great thing about SSBB is that it utilizes Wi-Fi connection which enables online gaming. I haven’t played SSBB yet but from what I’ve seen online, it looks really good.

Another great thing is that Nintendo is about launch the new “Everyone’s Nintendo Channel”.The channel allows downloading free demos of Wii games, videos and news into the internal memory or an SD card.“Everyone’s Nintendo Channel” is already available in Japan. 2008. It looks promising for all the Wii owners.