SOLVED Recording LP's with Garageband

[deanattaway]

I recently inherited a large LP collection from my Dad's estate. There are probably 400 albums. They take up a lot of room in storage and I would like to record them before getting rid of them. I want to try to record them onto my MacBook Pro running Mohave 10.14.4 using my IONTT USB 10 turntable and then store the music on an iPod or something similar. I'm a novice so I'm not sure how to use GarageBand and this morning when I tried connecting things, I only recorded sound in the room, not from the turntable. Can someone help me with this project?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

You have the right idea, but you need to choose the USB input of the IONTT for recording in GarageBand when creating the file/track.

-Create a New Project > Empty Project
-Select Audio > Record using a microphone or line input
-Change My instrument is connected with: and change to the IONTT USB instead of Built-in Input
-Check the box next to I want to hear my instruments as I play and record (you will be able to monitor the turntable input through your speakers/headphones
-Change the I want hear sound from: to Built-in Output for your MacBook Pro, or Headphones if you plug some into the headphone port

Then, when you record, it should be the input from the turntable and not the built-in microphone.

Let us know if that works for you,

C

 

[deanattaway]

Hello and welcome.

You have the right idea, but you need to choose the USB input of the IONTT for recording in GarageBand when creating the file/track.

-Create a New Project > Empty Project
-Select Audio > Record using a microphone or line input
-Change My instrument is connected with: and change to the IONTT USB instead of Built-in Input
-Check the box next to I want to hear my instruments as I play and record (you will be able to monitor the turntable input through your speakers/headphones
-Change the I want hear sound from: to Built-in Output for your MacBook Pro, or Headphones if you plug some into the headphone port

Then, when you record, it should be the input from the turntable and not the built-in microphone.

Let us know if that works for you,

C

Thanks so much. That worked fine. I now have my first album recorded. However, now I can't figure out how to use the editor. The recording has clicks that I would like to eliminate and a significant noise when the needle first touches the record. How do I delete the section with the needle drop and the clicks?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Excellent!

The pops and clicks can be pretty tricky to remove. It's best to do with a professional plugin, which can cost hundreds of dollars. There is another audio application called Audacity, that has some pop & click removal filters. You could use it to record with instead of GarageBand. Here is their documentation: Tutorial - Click and pop removal techniques.

GarageBand Help - will show you how to edit the recordings

However, you'll never remove all the pops & clicks without sacrificing audio quality. In all actuality, the recordings you are making will be the same as playing the records directly, so it is probably best to invest in a record cleaning solution, and then record. That way, you are starting with a better/cleaner source, and can leave the recordings as they are.

Hope that helps,

C

 

[37Shannon]

I do pretty much the same thing. There is a setting on the Garageband Menu bar under Edit called "Split Regions at Play Head". You can drag the playhead to just before the recording begins within the region, and click this setting. This divides the region into two "subregions", and the subregion on the right will be highlighted. Move your mouse into the left subregion and click on it, highlighting that subregion. Then, go back to the Edit menu and click on "Delete and Move". This will delete the unwanted left subregion and slide the right subregion back over to time 0, creating a new single region.

You can use a similar process to remove pops and clicks, because you can use "Split Regions at Play Head" to create multiple subregions. I've done it on a few of my recordings, but it is very tedious, and there seems to be a limit on how small a segment you can delete. Delete too much and you mess up the timing of the music.