Help with digtizing analog vinyl albums

[david4602]

My wife has asked me to try to import a couple of her childhood Christmas albums into iTunes (so we can burn CDs). I have reasonably computer and audio savvy, but I can't seem to get a foothold to figure out how to approach this. I have read all posts here twice. I so far have not been able to record any audio on my computer..so first issue is not quality but just basic input.

Here is my background. I have an old turntable (with red and white RCA outputs). I don't have a pre-amp, but do have newer receiver with most all ouputs. For software, I have Garageband, Roxio Toast 5 (for OS 9), and Audacity. None of these have decent enough "help" functions, although I have read each several times.

I think my core issue might be wires, but not sure. I have tons of wires, including

1) DAC100 Analog to Digital Video adapter, which works well with videos..but I can't find manual to help see if it can work with audio
2) "Y adapter". One side has female RCAs of Y, R, and W. Other side has Yellow (video) and Black (audio) plug. This seems to plug into the computer OK. (I think this should work as well as imic)

Can someone point me to a good detailed instruction of how to get this to work? This should not be that hard.

Thanks!! David

[mwilks54]

I just recorded some old tapes I had. Cassette deck is connected to a receiver. I plugged a guitar cable (1/4 inch end) into the headphone jack of the receiver. The other end has an 1/8" adaptor that I plugged into the audio-in port of the mac (intel core duo mini). I recorded songs using GarageBand. Before importing a song into iTunes, export the song from GarageBand. That way, your song will be considerably smaller than if you just send it to iTunes.
Hope this helps, somewhat.

[z1p]

You run intoa problem if your receiver doesn't have a phono input, then the levels on the lines out of the phono are too low. You can increase the volume on the receiver, but that is where you end up with severe quality problems.