Importing from vinyl and tapes

Question

I am about to buy my first iPod, a shuffle. What is the best way to import music from vinyl records, and cassette tapes? How do I do it exactly?
A lifetime of music and recrded material to be transfered.
Thanks.

Answer 1

One way is to connect your Turntable/Cassette deck (through the Tape out sockets of your amplifier) to the audio in socket of your computer. On the computer you'll need audio editing software to capture and edit the resulting long file into individual tracks that can be added to the iTunes Library. There are a number of commercial programs for this (I use Sound Studio for the Mac but there are Windows programs). If want to try out the process first you could try the open source program Audacity which has Linux, Mac and Windows versions at this link: Audacity
In addition to the software you'll need RCA to 3.5 mm audio plug cables to connect the Tape Out sockets of your amplifier to the audio inputs of your computer. There's a short guide to recording here: How to record from vinyl and cassette to a computer also from the BBC Copying Vinyl Recordings to CD
If your Mac or PC hasn't got an audio in socket you can have a look at the Griffin iMic which connects to a USB port and comes with some software of it's own: iMic USB audio interface