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Hooking a turntable to a laptop in order to record

I have a dual 1212 turntable. Is it even possible to connect this to a laptop for vinyl --> mp3 purposes?

Can i use the cable that has the red/white RCA plugs on one end and the headphone plug on the other end to play it into the headphone jack on the laptop? or does it need to go through a preamp first
Basically Im very confused and would appreciate some clarifications.
whoanelly
casey33
260 posts
 
The headphone jack is the output of the laptop.You need to go from the turntable into a phono pre-amp,out of the pre-amp into a sound card (to reduce noise floor) and then into laptop audio input.
lloydc's avatar
lloydc
753 posts
 
The simple answer to your question is, "No." Even after putting the signal through a phono preamp, you need to do an analogue to digital (a/d) conversion; computers only record in digital. There are a few phono pre's intended for archiving vinyl that will do it (they have built-in a/d converters.)
peter_s
1,348 posts
 
Lloyd. I think you are mistaken. Many computers have
mic inputs and the do the AD conversion internally. I can't say how well. Better to use an external USB AD converter.
lloydc's avatar
lloydc
753 posts
 
Ok, I did not realize a/d converters were common; wouldn't think they would be very good, given the cost constraints. Will check into that further. A "mic" input is usually not usable as a "line" input, is it?
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