Step one
Download and install GoldWave. Connect an output on your stereo (such as Tape Out) to your sound card's line input, using the RCA-to-miniheadphone cable. Do not bypass your preamplifier and connect your record player directly to your sound card. Your stereo has a phono preamp that boosts the low-level signal from the phonograph up to line level. You PC's sound card is designed for a line-level signal, not a phono-level signal.

Step two
In GoldWave, press F11 or select Control Properties from the Options drop-down menu. Select the Volume tab, and choose Line as the recording source. You may also need to place a check beside Stereo Mix, depending on your sound card. Then hit OK.

Step three
Click the New button at the top left of the main GoldWave window. Leave the Channels setting as stereo and the Sampling Rate at 44,100Hz. (You can also hit the CD button to reset the program to those values.) In the Length drop-down menu, select the playing time of that side of the record. If you don't know, enter 26:00.000 in the menu, since that's pretty much the maximum possible length for an LP.

Step four
After the Initializing New Sound bar makes it all the way across to the right, press Play on your phonograph, with the needle in the middle of a song that has reasonably loud volume. Right-click the Record button in GoldWave's Device Controls window and select Monitor Input. Watch the levels of the VU meter (by default, it's near the top of the control window, and its bars run horizontal). If you see either of the two boxes to the right of the meter turn red, your levels are too high. If your stereo has a gain adjustment, turn that down until the levels are almost in the red. If you don't have gain control on your stereo, click Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices. On the Volume tab, click Advanced. There you'll see your sound card's line-in volume control, which you can use to adjust the input level of the sound. Basically, you want the loudest parts of the song to be almost to the red. If the meter goes too high, you'll end up with ugly digital distortion in your recording.

Step five
Now that you have the levels set, hit Record. Start playing the record from the beginning again, while GoldWave is recording. After the record has played all the way through, press Stop in GoldWave's Device Controls window and on your record player. Save the file (File > Save) as whatever you want (in this tutorial, we'll call the filename xx). Click anywhere in GoldWave's main window, then press Ctrl+A to select the entire WAV file. To normalize the audio, select Effects > Volume > Maximize. When GoldWave is finished scanning for the maximum volume, enter 0.99 in the New Maximum field and press OK.

Step six
To remove any pops or clicks go to Effect > Filters > Pop/Click. Select Passive from the drop-down menu, and click the play button to preview the effect. If that's not enough, change the preset to Default or Aggressive, and preview that. When you have the setting you like, click OK.

Step seven
To remove hiss, go to Effects > Filters > Noise Reduction. Select Hiss Removal from the drop-down menu and click OK. Save the resulting file as xx_normalized_pop_hiss. Listen to this file by pressing the spacebar. If it sounds fine, continue to step eight; if not, go to Edit > Undo, and try dragging the yellow line to different levels at different points in the song, repeating the process until you get something that you're happy with. Since different songs and hiss levels require different approaches, we can't specify one setting that will solve all problems--experimentation is the only way. Just keep in mind that the left side of the Noise Reduction graph represents very low frequencies, and the right represents very high frequencies. The height of the yellow line specifies how much volume will be removed at that frequency. For instance, if you have a very high-pitched hiss, you want the yellow line to be higher on the right side.

Step eight
To chop the long piece of audio into tracks, listen to it by pressing the spacebar. When you find a spot where one song ends and another begins, right-click that point and select Set End Point. This will select all of the audio up to that spot. Select Edit > Cut, then Edit > Paste New. Save each file as its song title. When you're finished, close GoldWave, remembering which folder you saved the songs to.

Note: Repeat steps three to eight for the other side of the LP.