Transferring music from a 78 record player to my PC

[tom_the_LD]

Hello, hope you are all well.

 

My grandad has got a load of 78 records which he wants on CD. I said dad and I (although I think dad has backed out now!:D ) will do it for him. So he went and bought a 78 record player for £5. He bought it round and I looked at it and analysed it. My analysis has concluded there are no outputs, although I EXPECTED there to be some RCA :o Taking the panel off inside, you can see where there are 2 wires joining the cone shaped speaker.

 

PLAN:-

 

Where the 2 wires are soldered to the speaker (they are soldered at opposite ends), solder another wire off of each of those (only 10cm), go into a junction box (the little white things with four screws). Then get some balanced mic cable, cut off the screen, then take the hot and cold from the junction box to an RCA connector (probably right RCA to hot and left RCA to cold). Then take an output from the mixer into my computer.

 

Is there any other way of doing it!?

 

I hope you all know what I mean :P

 

 

Cheers

 

Tom

[dave_m]

hang on, why two rca's? A record player outputs to stereo IIRC. Got any pictures?

[p.k.roberts]

Hi Tom,

 

the first thing to say is please be very, very careful poking around in the old record player. I assume, as it has a speaker, then it probably has a valve amplifier as well. These use very high and potentially fatal voltages and older equipment was often not built to the same safety standards as modern kit, so if you are in any way uncertain you can recognise where these are and deal safely with this type of equipment, don't go messing around in there.

 

If you can only access the speaker connections safely, then I would suggest the following. Make yourself up a cable with a mono 1/4" jack plug one end and two small croc clips the other. Clip the croc clips onto the speaker tags and plug the jack plug into a 'transformer type' DI, this will electrically isolate the record player from your mixer and computer and will give you an appropriate connector to plug into them (probably via an XLR). To record, you'll probably need to keep the record player volume fairly low and put the attenuation switch on the DI box to 'on' (might be marked as, say 20dB), but a bit of experimentation should give you a usable level.

 

Of course, your recordings will have a bit of the 'character' of the valve amplifier, but in the application you describe I don't think that that will matter too much.

 

Enjoy the 78s but please, please heed the safety warnings.

[Jivemaster]

Alternatively look for the wire coming from the pick-up arm and cartridge, its going to be mono, and likely to be piezo so a high impedance input device is needed, so you will need a DI box. There should be plenty of "character" in the signal, but there are lots of clean-up programmes available.

 

Before you do much of pay much, look at the online music sources, sometimes it is easier to download than to **** around with low grade discs.

 

A91AY from Maplin may offer ideas too!

[tom_the_LD]

On the subject of DI. I have just spoken to someone else, and they said that as the speaker isn't very powerful (50 watts max), then voltage shouldn't be too much of an issue. They suggested just plugging it into the mixer, starting with the volume on the record player at 0 and slowly work up as it is likely to distort before damaging anything.

[PoppaDom]

On the subject of DI. I have just spoken to someone else, and they said that as the speaker isn't very powerful (50 watts max), then voltage shouldn't be too much of an issue. They suggested just plugging it into the mixer, starting with the volume on the record player at 0 and slowly work up as it is likely to distort before damaging anything.

 

Don't do that! There are many many reasons not to do this as I am sure others here may well go into more detail (I haven't the time at present)

Silly idea!

 

Poppadom

[tom_the_LD]

Don't do that! There are many many reasons not to do this as I am sure others here may well go into more detail (I haven't the time at present)

Silly idea!

 

Anyone care to expand on this? I love to learn new things :D

[JimWebber]

Now I'm not a noise boy, and I only have a vague idea what a DI box does - Am I right in that (Amongst other things) it electrically isolates the input from the output?

 

If so, please do use one! In a lot of old equipment (And let's be honest here you don't get much older then a 78rpm record player) The power supplies were often arranged without an isolating transformer, just a bridge rectifier, and resistors used to drop any voltages... This means that the So called zero volt (ground) line is actually floating at 120V dc. (Think of the potential divider effect of the bridge network) This could cause no end of problems...

 

In fact, as long as you know what you are doing, I would measure the voltages on the loudspeaker terminals with respect to a good mains earth, not just the chassis!

 

This always used to be a problem with old TV sets as well.

 

Finally - as others have said, If you are in any (repeat) ANY doubt please don't do anything!

 

EDIT - I'm not even sure thinking about it now, that a DI box would make anything any safer - I wouldn't like to say... Please ask an electronics expert!

 

Jim

 

EDIT -- Is this what you were referring to PoppaDom?

[tom_the_LD]

I feel I should point out now (forgot to mention at the beginning). The record player is american. It plugs into some american socket which goes into a '50 Volt Auto transformer'. Does this make a difference such as DEFINATELY use a DI.

 

If it makes matters worse, would it be a good idea to just stick a GOOD condensor mic in front of the speaker - although I am aware the quality would be cr@p.

[Ben Langfeld]

You could do that. To be honest, you're not going to get excellent quality however you do it. I think that in this instance, and given the safety concerns and the complexity, it's probably best to just go with KISS. Personally, I'd go with Jivemaster's suggestion and just try and find the tracks in a digital format. Quick, simple and probably of a higher quality than you'll be able to achieve.

[JimWebber]

I feel I should point out now (forgot to mention at the beginning). The record player is american. It plugs into some american socket which goes into a '50 Volt Auto transformer'. Does this make a difference such as DEFINATELY use a DI.

 

If it makes matters worse, would it be a good idea to just stick a GOOD condensor mic in front of the speaker - although I am aware the quality would be cr@p.

 

Okay, I am worried now! You have done the right thing there Tom by asking on the board!

 

An auto transformer definitely does not isolate equipment from the mains voltage, and it sounds more and more likely that the internal power supplies in the record player are unusual.

 

In this case I wouldn't risk connecting it electrically IN ANY WAY to an external device...

 

Yep the option of using a microphone by the speaker is probably the way ahead... It may not be the best quality, but it sure beats frying your mixer (or yourself)

 

I see you are at school. Have you got a sound-proof studio you could use? with a decent mic, and careful positioning, you may even get a reasonable result.

 

The alternative is to buy another turntable, preferably part of a domestic separates system that has been designed to be connected to external devices.

 

To cut a long story short, I personally would not make ANY external connections to your current record player.

[p.k.roberts]

Tom,

 

it's sounding a bit more dodgy now, so I'll also revise my original advice and suggest you don't mess with the internals of the record player at all.

[Ynot]

My advice?

After reading all that has gone thus far, I'd say you're probably going the hard route.

 

Apologies to your dad, but I'd recommend ditching the 78 player he spent a whole fiver on, and look around for a more modern deck that already has the correct output sockets on. Best bet are indeed RCA phono's.

 

Here's one on Ebay - £29.99. In fact there are several on the seller's site.

Or maybe this one at £24.99 (doesn't say it has outputs, but you can always ask).

 

I reckon this would be a far better way of approaching the problem - get the right tool for the job. :D

[paulears]

We are making a lot of noise about this, and now it's come down to "don't do it" and slap a mic on to the speaker!!

 

If you want a poor, weak sound, then go ahead - but it will also pick up the mechanical noise from the turntable, and playing 78's makes a fair amount of stylus noise.

 

Older equipment did sometimes have higher than usual voltage on the speaker terminals, but a quick check with a meter will show the presence of any non-audio AC. Now - the record player is not likely to have much more than 2 or 3 watts output if it's oldish - and sticking this into the average line input doesn't cause any major hassle apart from remembering to keep the levels down a bit - I did this all the time in the seventies. If you really are unsure, then stick it into a DI box, and as has been said, dial in a bit of attenuation and away you go. After all, you plug your I-pod into a line input and level wise, this isn't miles away from a small speaker driven from a weakish amp.

 

 

The secret is safety first - check with a meter. while you are at this, see if either of the two wires going to the speaker is at the chassis potential. if the meter indicates one of the conductors is physically connected to chassis, then this is the one that goes to the ground of the mixer. You might find neither of them is - in this case just make sure that you don't connect the grounds of both devices together. I'd guess that a record player of this age won't be earthed anyway, probably having a two wire mains lead. So once you are happy no nasty voltages exist, experiment a little. I'd suggest the mic idea is a last resort. When I was a teenager, I didn't have any DI boxes anyway - don't remember any being available then outside of the broadcast areas - so connecting a Dansette record player to a Grundig TK47 tape recorder was just a case of twisting a couple of wires together - I didn't even know how to solder in those days. Twisted connections with a barrier strip/choco block if I had one, were the name of the game.

 

 

Give it a go and see what happens - worse case is hum - assuming you did the safety stuff first.

[bruce]

I'd go along with Ynot - try to find a turntable that does 78 which has phono outs. They're not that uncommon - I'm sure I've got one out in the garage...

 

It may need a little eqing, but it'd be the easiest way.

 

Ask around - I'm sure someone will have one you can borrow.