Convert your records to CD - Part 2

The sound of silence
You may also wish to clean the music you are re-recording, by which we mean remove or reduce imperfections in the source material.

If the entire album would benefit from an overall treatment, perform these actions universally while the original captured recording is still open in Sound Editor. Otherwise, split your tracks as described and work on each in turn.

Choose Select All from the Edit menu, click on Tools, and then on Apply Effect to Selection. Now select the DeClick utility. Play the file and adjust the DeClick and DeCrackle sliders until you achieve a balance that muffles most of the background noise without adversely affecting the music.

To reduce tape hiss, use the Graphic Equalizer tool and gradually reduce the treble until you achieve an acceptable balance. This is why you need good speakers or headphones.

You can also zoom in on the waveform, select a specific part of a track - an unfortunately prominent scratch, for instance - and use the DeClick or Equalizer tools to minimise it.

To delete part of a recording altogether, such as a few seconds of silence at the beginning of a track, select the appropriate section of the waveform and hit the delete key.

With experimentation and a steady hand, you can enhance the quality of a recording and remove general imperfections or, if you like, apply Sound Editor's other advanced effects to dramatically change the track.

Disco inferno
When you have named, saved, split and cleaned your tracks, you're ready to commit them to disc. Open Roxio's Creator Classic application and tell it that you want to make an audio CD. Now add tracks to the playlist in any order you like.

It doesn't matter which format you saved them in with Sound Editor as they'll be converted to audio CD format automatically. Nor, odd though it seems, do you have to worry about file sizes. Ten WAV files could easily top 4Gb but they'll fit on a 650Mb recordable CD as long as the combined duration of the tracks is no longer than 74 minutes (or 80 minutes for a 700Mb disc). Creator Classic keeps you abreast of the current running time as you add new tracks.

Click on the Transitions button to specify the gap between any two tracks - this can be zero - or to have the start of one track cross-fade with the end of the previous track by a few seconds. In Project Properties, you can also 'normalise' the project. This is important when burning a CD of tracks culled from a variety of different sources, as their relative volumes may differ substantially.

Normalisation saves you constantly having to adjust the volume level during playback. However, this is not usually an issue when making a direct transfer of an entire album from vinyl or tape to CD, as you'll probably prefer to preserve the original track volumes.

Now pop a blank recordable CD in the drive, click on Burn, and a few minutes later you'll have an audio CD at your disposal.

Music for the masses
Roxio Creator 7 is just one of several tools that can help you digitise an old music collection. Alternatives include Nero 6 (£45), Steinberg Clean from Pinnacle Systems (£25, or £60 for the Plus version that includes a hardware pre-amp) and Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 2005 Deluxe from FastTrak (£30).

These all offer a high level of control over the editing process in both automatic and manual modes. Magix Audio Cleaning Lab even includes the cables you need to make connections, and don't forget that virtual pre-amp feature.

All of these products include CD-burning utilities so you can move through the record-edit-save-burn process with ease. For a completely free approach, check out Audacity, an open source program that records in the WAV format from any connected source, such as a cassette deck or turntable, and includes some truly impressive editing tools.

Windows XP users might also consider Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition, a snip of a program at £13. Its Analog Recorder utility is designed specifically to record from LP or cassette, making this an easy and quick way of getting music onto your computer.

There are anti-hiss and anti-pop tools for removing the worst artefacts of old media, you can split tracks automatically or manually, file naming is particularly straightforward and you can even add copy protection if you really want to.

However, tracks are saved only in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, so check that your portable player supports this format if you want to take your music on the move.

What you can't do with Analog Recorder alone (or with Audacity, for that matter) is make an audio CD. For this, turn to any CD-burning program that supports the WMA file format - Roxio Creator and Nero both do - and your captured files will be converted to the audio CD format on the fly during burning.

In fact, you may already have, or can certainly acquire, some good free software for making CDs. Windows Media Player, for instance, is already installed on your computer and has just the tools you need. Or you could consider one of the alternatives such as iTunes.

Both of these are designed primarily for playing music files on a computer - see 'Jukebox jury' below - but they can also turn a hand to churning out CDs.

One potential problem with Windows Media Player is that it automatically and irrevocably adds a two-second gap between tracks on a CD. The only ways to force consecutive tracks to play without a gap are either to leave them conjoined as a single file or to download or install a free plug-in from Nero.

The iTunes player does let you change the gap between tracks but it's a one-time option that applies to all tracks in a project simultaneously. One point worth noting is that of these programs, only iTunes will make you an MP3 CD (that is, a CD containing MP3 files that can be played in an MP3-supporting CD or DVD player).

Get yourself connected
So far, we've rather assumed that you'll be able to connect your desktop PC to your stereo system. But what if you simply can't get your hi-fi and computer in close enough proximity to string a cable between them? Or what if you no longer have a working turntable or cassette player of your own and need to use a friend's equipment?

In both cases, the obvious approach is to use a notebook computer. However, as audio performance has not traditionally been a prime concern in notebook specifications, you may find that yours has no line-in socket, or only a cheap onboard sound chip that's ill-equipped to capture an analogue signal from the original record or tape in high quality and real time. It may even have no sound capability at all.

The easiest solution to this problem is an external sound card, by which we mean a device that connects to the notebook via USB and provides all the circuitry and sockets found in a standard internal sound card. You can also add one to a computer that doesn't have its own internal sound card or chip.

Consider Creative's Extigy model, which costs around £115 or the much cheaper 510EX from Trust, which you can pick up for less than £30.

Alternatively, you can use an intermediary device to record directly from vinyl or tape and then transfer the captured files to your PC later. For instance, the iRiver H140 is a portable MP3 player, costing around £240, that features a handy line-in socket with which you can record directly from a hi-fi. Files are saved in the WAV or space-saving MP3 formats and can be quickly transferred to your computer through a USB 2 cable link for playback and burning.

Jukebox jury
While burning audio CDs is one obvious and attractive use for captured music, don't neglect the possibilities of playback on your PC.

We've already mentioned Windows Media Player, iTunes and Real Player in the context of burning CDs but these are primarily intended to help you organise and play audio files on and from the hard disk. And they do so very nicely indeed, with custom play lists, cross-fading between tracks, on-screen psychedelic 'visualisations' and more.

Of course, once you've recorded music from an album, you can make a CD and enjoy the benefits of a computer jukebox. For the latter purpose, save disk space by converting tracks from the WAV format used during capture to a compressed format like MP3, WMA, OGG or AAC (the iTunes-favoured format).

You can do this with Roxio Sound Editor, an element of Plus! Digital Media Edition called Audio Converter or a standalone program such as Ashampoo MP3 Audio Center. This last one is available as free-to-try (£18 to buy) shareware from here.

Final touch
Now that you have (or soon will have) a pile of freshly-burned CDs, why not finish them off with professional-looking printed labels? For a quick template-based approach, try the CD Label Maker utility in Plus! Digital Media Edition. For full design control use Label Creator in Roxio Creator 7.

Be sure to buy labels that your software supports and expect to pay about £10 at the most for 30 labels. You'll also need an application kit to ensure that your labels stay firmly stuck, which will cost about the same again. Check out the PressIT range.

To go the whole hog, print inserts for your CD cases as well. For a quick solution, try using iTunes. Open any play list, click on File, click on Print, and select CD jewel case insert.

Right side of the law
Odd though it may seem, it is technically illegal to copy music that you own, whether you convert an album into an audio CD, make MP3s for playback on your computer or tape a vinyl record. Your original purchase bought you the right to play the recording in its original format, and no other.

The precise position is muddled by a plethora of national and international copyright legislation, but it is tacitly accepted that you will not be prosecuted for copying music you legitimately own, provided you do so strictly for personal use.

Should you sell, lend or otherwise distribute copies of your music, including on the internet, the weight of the law is liable to fall heavily upon you. However, if you download tracks from a legal music site such as iTunes or Napster, the licensing implications are notably different.

Although Digital Rights Management measures are designed to restrict what you may do with your files, you will typically be permitted to copy tracks to your portable player or burn them to CD. Check the service provider's licensing agreement carefully before you proceed.

Record breakers
Regardless of our enthusiasm for this subject, you may only really appreciate the beauty and flexibility of digital audio once you've converted a few records or cassettes yourself.

When you play that old LP in the car or kitchen CD player for the first time; when you copy MP3s to a portable music player and discover that you can take your music with you everywhere; and when you make your first custom compilation of tracks you really love and free yourself from the shackles of flipping vinyl and fast-forwarding tapes, you too will be a convert to the digital age.

Music is there to be enjoyed, and digital music is easier to enjoy in so many ways. It really is as simple as that.