Total Recorder

I've written before about Total Recorder. Great product, even a dufus like me can muddle through.
Well, that was one of the casualties of my recent crash. But not to worry, just download a fresh copy, spend an hour rummaging through my electic filing system to come up with the "product key" and I'm cool.
Unfortunately, they released a new version in October so although it's new and improved my "key" isn't valid.
I emailed them, telling them my story and giving them my old "product key", hoping I could download the previous version even though it wasn't showing on their front page.
NOTICE~~I did not whine. I swear on my mothers eyes, I didn't.~~ :headshake
They responded with the "product key" to the new version and their blessing.
Realistically, despite it's audio prowess, it's an inexpensive product, but the gesture tells me these are good people to do business with. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I've been thinking lately about converting many of my old vinyl records to MP3s so I can play 'em easier. Can this Total Recorder do that? I guess I'm looking for something that will record from the line in (microphone?) jack and will let me split up each album side into several different tracks for each song. Must also convert them to MP3.

Cheap is good.

I'm also a Total Recorder fan. I bought it at least 3 versions back and they've never charged me for subsequent updates.

Glatt, try it out. I've done that before with a couple old things for Mrs. Dallas and they came out OK and I just have the basic Total Recorder. (Auto track splitting is dependent on having a certain amount of silence between tracks, but you can do it manually too.) However, they have an audio restore plugin that is intended to deal with problems like this. I don't know if it's worthwhile or not, but you can download a demo.

Sounds promising. I think I'll check it out. At that price, it's not much of a risk either.

I recommend it wholeheartedly. Yes, it could be used to digitize your vinyl, provided that you have a way to plug the turntable into the computer (those big old records won't hardly fit in that little DVD drive).

While we're on that track, do those of us who have digitized vinyl recommend preamping the turntable output before it goes to the computer?

I plan to use my amp as a pre-amp. The output to the tape deck should work well. I hope.

I even have an RCA to 1/8 inch minijack cable already. Cool huh? I hope my microphone line in jack on my PC is in stereo. I think it is, but we'll see.

Some older turntables require a special kind of pre-amp, a "phono pre-amp" which pre-amps the signal coming from the needle. Older receivers and more expensive receivers have this circuit built in.

glatt wrote:

I plan to use my amp as a pre-amp. The output to the tape deck should work well. I hope.

That's the way I did it, and it worked fine.

The real test will be to see if my turntable and old amp still work. I haven't used them in about a decade. The turntable had a new stylus then, so it should still sound pretty good. The drive belt might be a little stiff, but other than that, I'm not sure what might have deteriorated over time while it was sitting in the corner.

IIRC, it grabs the signals before the sound card messes with them.
Ran the turntable into the phono jacks on an old Sony Str AV-760 then hooked the tape out, where the signal comes out to a tape deck, to the PC's audio in jacks. Worked great.

CAUTION ~ Don't set this up in the middle of your damn desk so you can't do anything else until it's broken down. :o

Total Recorder drops an imitation soundcard driver in place of the actual driver (this is selectable, BTW, as TR's driver can cause some audio lag in video games, I've noticed) which captures all sound sent to the soundcard, and then routes it where you want it, basically. The advantage to this over just sticking cables in your soundcard output is that you skip the analogue conversion and can record an actual digital streaming signal...or so I gather.

Any of you ever try Audacity? I came across it when I was reading good reviews on Total Recorder. Audacity is open source freeware and claims to be able to record WAV files, split them into tracks, and make mp3s out of them. It doesn't do the neat trick of capturing streaming audio that Total Recorder does, but $0 versus $36 is a pretty big difference. Anyone try it?

$36? You need the Pro version? :confused:

glatt wrote:

Any of you ever try Audacity?

I tried it once, but couldn't get it to work correctly on my Mac. I went back to Audio Hijack (Rogue Amoeba, $16) for capture of streaming sources and Amadeus (Hairersoft, $36) for encoding/manipulation.
I used Amadeus to rip my grandmother's entire cassette tape collection (~50 tapes) to MP3 and cds. It was all Hindi or Telugu music that is no longer published. Most of it was older than I am...

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

$36? You need the Pro version? :confused:

Maybe I read the description of the two wrong, but my understanding is that you need the pro version to break up the tracks. If I wanted one long 25 minute track for each album side, the regular $12 version would be just fine.

What are the more distinctive advantages of Total Recorder? Both basic and professional versions - what are the key features that 'make' this product so unique?

glatt wrote:

Maybe I read the description of the two wrong, but my understanding is that you need the pro version to break up the tracks. If I wanted one long 25 minute track for each album side, the regular $12 version would be just fine.

I used the basic version to break up the tracks on live band rehersal cassettes. The Pro version might make it easier, though. :confused:

TW, if you go to their site, in the upper left hand corner is a Site Map link. Click on that and the second link on the site map is for the "Total Recorder Feature Chart - This chart provides a quick reference showing the features that are available in each version." It also shows the available options.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

This chart provides a quick reference showing the features that are available in each version." It also shows the available options.

I read that reference chart. But I did not understand what this software product does better than other software. For example, is a reference to LP recordings. Why is Total Recall better? I read the features chart but did not appreciate advantages that this package offers. Sometimes those advantages are subtle. Does this software offer subtle and yet significantly superior abilities? Apparently I have overlooked something that makes this package better than free software that comes with PCs.

Mine came with Music match and Roxio. Both will record digital music that's on the PC and rip from disc but I don't see any other way to get it on the PC with either of them. Oh wait, yes, Musicmatch lets you subscribe to their online suppy service. But capturing LPs or streaming audio needs something else.

When I first wanted to do this I read a ton of different discussions at various forums/sites and mostly couldn't understand what or why they were doing the things they discussed. Like I said in the first post, I'm a dufus when it comes to this stuff, so I need something simple. Someone that knows more about how to manipulate their PC may be able to do it. :confused:

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

I used the basic version to break up the tracks on live band rehersal cassettes. The Pro version might make it easier, though. :confused:

TW, if you go to their site, in the upper left hand corner is a Site Map link. Click on that and the second link on the site map is for the "Total Recorder Feature Chart - This chart provides a quick reference showing the features that are available in each version." It also shows the available options.

Thanks for the info. I downloaded the trial version of the basic software. I haven't had too much time to play with it. One problem I'm having with both it and the full free version of Audacity is that I am only getting Mono sound, from the left channel. :headshake I don't understand what is going on. I need to eliminate a few variables.

Either a) my kids messed up the stylus on my turntable which was sitting within reach of their mitts for a few years, or b) my amp is messed up. The balance knob doesn't seem to work right, so this might be the real culprit. I could hook up our other amp from the living room, but that would be a MAJOR project to pull it out of the cabinet and disconnect all the cables. or c) the Dell Dimension 8400 I have uses a cheap mono line in instead of stereo. Can't find any info on this in the documentation that came with the PC.

So I need to do some testing to figure out what's going on. The good news is that I've used both the Total Recorder trial version and Audacity to capture a bunch of mono test tracks. Total Recorder is easier to use without reading the instructions.

glatt wrote:

Maybe I read the description of the two wrong, but my understanding is that you need the pro version to break up the tracks. If I wanted one long 25 minute track for each album side, the regular $12 version would be just fine.

With Total Recorder, it is in fact very easy to record an album side at once, set Start and End points within the recording and save the selections as individual tracks.

tw wrote:

Apparently I have overlooked something that makes this package better than free software that comes with PCs.

The user interface of TR is a hell of a lot more useful than that of Windows's Sound Recorder, if that's to what you are referring. In addition, TR's sales pitch is as follows:

Total Recorder is a unique solution for recording streaming audio. Most recording programs, rely on the sound card to feedback what has been played. For these solutions, your sound card must have "Stereo Mix" or "What You Hear" recording sources. Instead of relying on the sound card, Total Recorder captures the sound stream directly from Windows, before the audio goes to the sound card. This unique approach eliminates multiple conversions that occur with other types of solutions. The Total Recorder solution also eliminates the need for a "what-you-hear" type sound card.
...
Total Recorder uses a virtual sound driver to capture the sound output from other programs like Real Audio and Windows Media Player. By installing the driver, and setting it as the default, different sound reproducing programs send their output stream to Total Recorder's driver and not to the driver of a real device. Total Recorder then passes the information to the sound card driver.

This makes it _quite_ easy to rip sound clips from just about anything else that plays audio on a computer (or that can be fed into a microphone jack) and save them in the format of your choice. The program _is_ the analog hole in a nutshell with a decent interface.

Would I pay $79.95 for it? Probably not. That's why I'm glad that it's $11.95 for a standalone version with free updates; for twelve bucks, it's a worthwhile upgrade.

glatt wrote:

One problem I'm having ... is that I am only getting Mono sound, from the left channel. ...

Either a) my kids messed up the stylus on my turntable which was sitting within reach of their mitts for a few years, or b) my amp is messed up. The balance knob doesn't seem to work right, so this might be the real culprit. I could hook up our other amp from the living room, but that would be a MAJOR project to pull it out of the cabinet and disconnect all the cables. or c) the Dell Dimension 8400 I have uses a cheap mono line in instead of stereo. Can't find any info on this in the documentation that came with the PC.

OK, in case anyone cares, I figured out how to get my system to work. There was some crazy submenu somewhere that I had to find and select "Stereo" instead of "mono." I was poking around so many places, I'm still not sure how I did it, but at least I know that it exists, and I could probably find it again, given enough time.

I just finished converting my first vinyl album to a CD. I'm VERY pleased with the results. I chose to use Audacity instead of Total Recorder because Audacity is free. FREE! Open source too. I like that. With Audacity, I was able to record the vinyl from the stereo line-in jack on my PC. I was also able to easily find the breaks between songs, select each entire song, and save each selection (song) as a WAV file to be burned onto a CD. There may be an easier way to split the tracks up with Audacity, but this works well enough. My first test album was recorded a little too quietly, so I did waste one CD blank during the learning process. The second audio CD I burned was perfect.

In fact, it was better than the source vinyl. There was one spot on the album with a bad scratch. No skipping, but a very loud pop repeated for about 10-15 seconds. I used Audacity's "silence selection" feature to delete each pop. It was pretty freaking cool. I'd never used any sound editing software before, but I was able to zoom in on the music "wave" until I was only looking at a hundreth of a second or so. Then I selected the portion of the music where the pop signal was shooting off the chart, and I replaced it with a hundredth of a second or so of silence. During playback, you can't hear the silence, because it goes by too fast, but the pop is gone. Very cool.

I've only used Audacity for a few hours so far, but I love it. Total Recorder may be better than Audacity. I honestly don't know. I don't know, because it costs money, so I never bothered to find out.

xoxoxoBruce, I'd like to thank you for answering all my questions and for starting this thread. I found Audacity when I was reading reviews for Total Recorder, and I never heard of Total Recorder until you started this thread. It couldn't have come at a better time, since I'd just begun to think seriously about converting all my vinyl.

This has happened before. :lol:
Every time we discuss converting LPs to disc someone gets inspired. After all, probably 3/4 of the adult population has some LPs they'd like to convert but never get around to it because they are intimidated or don't want to spend the time to learn how. .
I wonder how many lurkers have been motivated by one of these threads?

When I decided to try it, I picked out some very old, very obscure albums that I really liked. Things that would "never" be found on disc. Well, it got me Googling for more info on the groups and what do I discover but some of these albums are available, usually from Germany or Japan.
Of course they are just a mouse & creditcard away but they usually cost twice what Total Recorder does....each. Then again, that scratch was removed by a pro.

I guess I'm a dyed in the wool, do-it-youselfer.

Who still owns a turntable. That's the important factor.

I haven't had a turntable since sometime in the mid-1980s, but I won't get rid of the vinyl. Just in case.

I downloaded Audacity.
Freakin' coolness!
I was able to transfer some old vinyl to my HD.
And I emailed a track to a buddy of mine.
He damn near shit.
It's a track that was never released on CD or tape.
Thanks, glatt.

xoxoxoBruce wrote:

But capturing LPs or streaming audio needs something else.

Capturing streaming audio is a function I had assumed would be standard and available. And yet either I have not found it or capturing streaming audio must be in those better software products. What products capture streaming audio?

Depends on the stream.

Total Recorder will capture whatever is playing, streaming or not. Breaking it up into logically-named segments is left as an exercise for the reader for the Standard ($11.95) edition, and may be more intuitive in the Professional edition.

I use StationRipper when capturing music from ShoutCast streams; it breaks streams up into their components, saves them where you specify, and has a free edition with reasonable features.

Audacity is very nice, but I haven't really dug into it yet to explore all that it can do.

I use SoundForge for all my audio needs but it is an investment ($80 when I bought it several years ago). The only problem is that there are a limited # of WAV-to-MP3 conversions allowed before you have to register the MP3 encoder. I was not aware of that when I bought it. Grrrrrrrrrr.

But I found a bunch of free encoders on the web to fill that gap.

I bought SF so long ago I can't remember when it was but its as useful today as it ever was. If there's anything it can't do (other than the MP3 encoding), I haven't found it yet.

Total Recorder captures streaming audio, and that is why I bought it. It also lets you schedule recording sessions on an unattended machine, so if you know of a streaming program that is running on a schedule, you can set it, forget it and still get it.

Those are the two primary features that inspired me to spend the $12.00 it.

Audacity is SoundForge's penalty for being too expensive for too long.

Elspode wrote:

It also lets you schedule recording sessions on an unattended machine, ...

One of those " subtle and yet significantly superior abilities" that was not apparent to me when I read their "Total Recorder Feature Chart". However, in cyberspace, even real time BBC broadcasts have a delay. Is the timer function useful? Can the timer also be used to 'turn on an audio stream' at a particular time?

I resurrected this old thread just to point out that woot.com is having a nice deal today and today only on USB turntables. It's $49.99 plus $5 shipping and handling.


If you have a stack of old vinyl LPs kicking around and you want to get them into digital format, I doubt you will have a better opportunity than this sale at woot. [shill] Order now. [/shill]

Download Audacity for free [reviewed a few posts above], and you can make mp3s or CDs with that turntable.

This turntable looks kind of cheap, but it should do the job.

How does one put videotape onto CDs? My brother put all our home movies on VHS, by taping the screen running dad's old 8mm projector...now I want those on CD or something.

You can take the vcr and connect it to a video capture device like the Pinnacle Dazzle. That device will have software that will let you use your dvd burner in your PC to make dvds of your video tapes.

I have the Dazzle and am not terribly impressed with it. It's a pain to use the software. Scrolling through the video capture devices sold by Amazon (linked above) there don't seem to be any with more than 3 stars.

I don't have a rock solid answer to this question. Nothing I would recommend.

Actually, this and this get decent reviews on newegg. But some people had problems with the software on both.

I have the ADS one. It's always worked well for me. The capture software is fine. The video editing software is rudimentary, but usable. You're probably going to want something else in that department. (I just used Nero 6 myself, which is arguably rudimentary + 1.)