Hey Ferdi I simply got a program called R.I.P.VINYL and it works like magic with no hassles good luck
chris mcguire Mannum South Australia
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Hey Ferdi I simply got a program called R.I.P.VINYL and it works like magic with no hassles good luck
chris mcguire Mannum South Australia
You're looking at a long project. I've been copying my vinyl since 1998 and I still have a long way to go. In many cases, I have to agree that you should just buy the CD version, but I also know there's a lot that has never been released on digital and never will be. Another concern is that digital recording has an absolute upper recording limit, while analog systems, vinyl and tape are more arbitrary. I find a lot of commercial CDs with recorded levels that rise to the maximum and stay there for the duration of the selection. Real music does not do this and you see a lot less of it in analog sources. It is not the fault of the medium, but rather the fault of the music industry and the consuming public. All too often, louder sells. You can record analog loud and still accomodate transients above the average level. Distortion may rise and it may be more difficult for your cartridge to track, but it will be there. If you record digitally at the maximum, peaks have no place to go and have to be limited or clipped. If you find the limiting that has become so common with CDs annoying, it'll be worth the work to convert your vinyl, assuming the original tapes were done well.
One thing which is mandatory is a good level meter. Some soundcard drivers include very competent meters and a lot of recording programs also do. A nice cheapie is ''Ripvinyl'' which is shareware and sells for around $8. It's a bare-bones recording program but includes adequate metering. I find it's feature to split an lp into tracks to be useless since if you set the sensitivity high enough that it works, it tends to cut out too soon and even cut quiet sections within tracks. Plan to do that manually. Audacity does that very well and is free. I also recommend keeping everything in WAV format until you're satisfied with editing and denoising. I would still keep the wav files even if my final product was mp3 or ogg.
As an aside, I'm sure it's legal to do this as long as you keep the originals. You can't legally sell them or give them away and keep the copies. Throwing them out is a gray area, but probably legal.
I have been doing this for some time now and I use Magix. It is reasonably priced and will handle all of the recording, remastering and CD burning in a single package. I have an old stereo system and i take the line out straight into the line in of my soundcard (if you don't have line out, use record out). I have vynils dating back to the sixties and, have generally produced a reasonable quality CD
Keith
Dear Barry
Amazing to find an advice letter coming from someone living in Norh Canton, Ohio. I was born there but have lived in France since 1962 although I visit North Canton every year.
I have already been transferring vinyls and tapes but have 3 questions following your very concise article:
What do you mean by clipping?
I understand from you it is better to descratch the recordings in WAV form. Is it necessary to convert these files to MP3 or can they be burned in WAV (since it seems the quality is better)?
I have Creative, Roxio and Pinnacle software, but still can't figure out how to make it so I can skip tracks after burning. I have to listen to the entire recording to get to a particular song.
I would be grateful if someone could advise me regarding these three items.
Merci!
Clipping is where the volume is set so high that the system cannot reproduce/capture the entire waveform. It results in severe distortion and should be avoided at all cost. The cause is a volume control set to high or a signal level grossly too high for the input used (such as feeding a line-level signal into a microphone jack .... but that is a grossly extreme example). Most recording software has "level indicators" of some type (sometimes called "VU Meters) (VU = volume unit), sometimes calibrated in db or "decibels". These often have a "red area" which is where clipping is occuring. It's easier to explain this with waveform drawings but I can't do that here. However, the bottom line is that it produces severe distortion (which cannot later be removed no matter what you do) and it's to be avoided at all cost.
Not only is it not necessary to convert a wave file to an MP3 file for burning, but the quality is better if you don't .... wave is better than MP3 and in fact all burning is actually done from a wave file (when you burn from an MP3 file, the MP3 file is actually converted to a temporary wave file by the burning program, but this conversion is transparent and you don't see it).
I'm not sure that I understand the part of your question about skipping tracks. You may be recording an entire side of a vinyl LP (or of a tape cassette) as a single file. If that's the case, to fix it, you have to record each song separately. The process is straightforward, but, as I indicated, it can become quite time consuming.
I think the easiest way to do this is to get a simple 3.5mm patch cord and depending on the outputs on your receiver an RCA adapter. Then run the cord in to your built in sound card (line in). I use Audacity to record and edit my music (in case I get some of another song) and it has tons of features for the money--free! You probably won't get the best quality, but this is probably the easiest and cheapest way. As for burning CD's, iTunes is great for doing that and you can edit ID3 tags at export in Audacity.
I've often wondered about the legal position (copyright etc) of converting old vinyl to CD. Even if you have purchased the original vinyl do you have the right to copy it?
Assuming you have that right, what's the difference between converting it yourself and downloading an already converted copy from one of the many file-sharing websites. And if you download from one of the 'free' filesharing sites what does that do to the legality?
By the way I endorse the recdommendation of MusicMatch Jukebox, which I've used for several years and find both excellent and very easy to use.
If you own an original copy of the CD or vinyl, then it's not "downloading". And the prevailing legal opinion is that if you own the CD, tape or vinyl, then conversion of the song FOR YOUR OWN PRIVATE NON-COMMERCIAL USE is completely legal. This comes under the "fair use" doctrine of the copyright laws. Note that you cannot distribute the converted copy to other people (or, God forbid, put it on the web). It remains legal only as long as it's for your own, private, non-commercial use.
The other part of your question, however, gets into a much more murky area. Suppose someone (whose actions are clearly NOT legal) posts a digital copy of a song on the web. Is downloading it legal? [There is an argument that the person who posts it is doing something illegal, but that the person who downloads it is not.] Or is it legal for one person (who has bought the CD) to download it, but illegal for a person who hasn't bought the CD to download it. That's all more of a "gray area" of legal and moral choices. There are things we can't do (physically not possible, perhaps because of DRM), and then there are things that we can do that may still be illegal, immoral or unethical. In this area, each of us has to make our own determinations of what is right and what is wrong.
In Canada at least, I'm pretty sure that hosting and distributing files which are in breach of copyright laws is illegal.
Downloading these files is not.
Strange.
In the late '90's I used to try to burn LP's (I have 2-3k of them), but, after doing a few, found I just didn't have the time. Then, ''back in the day'' using Napster. I used to download the songs of LP's I owned. Converted and burned the mp3's as cda files, compiling the LP's. It was lots faster. I don't know why it is illegal if you own one type of media to copy to another. We've done it before with reel-to-reel, 8 tracks, cassettes (I'm showing my age).
One thing that is imperative in recording LP's is a good needle/cartridge (I have a few spares), or all the LP's will sound bad (muddy).
Some good answers here, but some of the technicalities described may seem daunting to the uninitiated.
I have acheived very good results just by connecting the out socket of a proprietry tape player (could as esaily be a turntable +amplifier), and recording as .wav files into Musicmatch Jukebox. Then simply burn the resulting files to a CD using Jukebox. The CD's play very satisfactorily on my decent Technics hi-fi system.
The only issues I worry about are playing around with the volume output of the tape player to get the right level (just a bit if trial and error), and the fact that you have to manually start and ene recording of every individual track, which is time consuming. I did no further adjustments or enhancing of the tracks.
Unless the enquirer is a hi-fi buff or connoisseur, it might be worth trying this simple method first to see how the results turn out before expending further money or time.
When using a connction from stereo to sound card you must use a ground loop isolator. I think it has to do with an unbalanced to a balanced line.I use it for all my external input recordings. Wooks great, no more hum.
Ah yes, 50hz AC hum (or 60Hz, depending which country you're in), the bane of every audio engineer the world over. As postho says, it is to do with using balanced vs unbalanced - on a balanced XLR connection, for example, by its very nature the circuitry is designed to eliminate ground loops and extraneous noise from the signal path. However with any unbalanced connection, you can (and will) get extraneous noise, be it from motors in devices, AC hum, or even (if you have a dodgy 'dry' wire in any part of your circuit) shortwave radio! One of the cheap phono preamps I have can pick up Chinese and Canadian shortwave radio in the evening just as the sun goes down...
So yeah, ground loops are where your equipment is earthed to more than one earth, so you end up with multiple paths to ground. Pain in the **** to get rid of, the easiest way to do it is to isolate the frequencies before they enter your system, otherwise you have to perform some fairly complex signal processing to fully eliminate this constant from your signal. It's annoying enough in countries where earth pins are used on plugs, but in countries like the US where it's most commonly two-pin, it's even more annoying and hard to get rid of! I know someone who ended up putting all their audio equipment onto a separate circuit fed by a separate transformer from the mains, and then hammered a big copper spike into their back lawn, attached a cable to that and hooked up all the earths to it - solved the problem wonderfully, but that's a bit of a hasslesome way to solve the problem.
If you're feeling deft with a soldering iron, you can make one yourself (an understanding of electronics comes in handy here) or you can just go buy one from your local electronics store... Maplin here in the uk has simple GLIs available for
I read your post yesterday, and went down to our local Radio Shack (Tandy) here, and bought their ground loop isolator, for $16.99 (U.S.). I asked the salemans, Will this really work, or is it a bunch of snake oil?">>LOL.
Well, I put it between my PCs audio out jack and my home theatre's speakers receiver/amp. It works beautifully!!!! I could finally listen to my Car Guys at www.cartalk.com radio program, over the better speakers, not those tinny built in HP monitors, without any H_U_M_!
Thanks lot for tha info.!!
P.S. I should have known better, having been an Electronic Technician in the U.S. Navy from 67-71>>LOL.
Great answer by Barry! I've been doing this for a long time and Barry's answer is right on target.
Here are a couple of points I feel would help folks doing this time-consuming "labor of love" process:
1. Don't forget to get an adapter cable to go between your RCA line out jacks and the mini stereo line-in jack found on most sound cards. Absolutely avoid using a speaker output from your amplifier/receiver. This output is much too strong and may damage your sound board/card.
2. I like to record entire album "sides" in one session rather than baby-sitting track-by-track (song by song). The recording software I use (Feurio!) allows setting of a record time after which the recording automatically stops. I set this to be slightly longer than the calculated/listed time for a record "side". Afterwards I use a track editor with a graphical display (also found in Feurio) to split the long recording into individual tracks. This editor also allows naming of artist and title for each track at the same time.
3. My experience with software that purports to remove pops, hisses and clicks has been poor. If your record or tape is in such bad shape as to have lots of these artifacts then follow Barry's advice and just buy something cleaner. You'll likely be disappointed in clean-up software and it is slow to run.
4. Finally, before you agree to do this for all your friends you should try a few for yourself. By the time you spend all the time required to record, edit and burn you'll have over an hour--usually much more--invested in each album.
Thanks again Barry for such a great answer.
Al
I think I've tried every way there is to convert my vinyl collection to digital but I've now given up the "straight to PC" route. I now play the album from the expensive hi-fi turntable I have (Linn) stright into a Pioneer CD recorder, using a CD-RW disc. I then take CD-RW and copy it to my PC using Nero software. For those albums that need it, I then clean up each track using the light click setting on Adobe Audition, which is usually enough. For the albums I have done so far I now have an almost perfect digital copy, that doesn't have any of the clicks and pops associated with vinyl.
The trouble is, that it is time consuming. If you want individual tracks, because the signal is analogue, rather than recording a complete side you have to stop the CD recorder after each track and start again for the next track. However it usually takes about an hour to record a 45 minute LP onto CD-RW. Of course if you don't need to clean up an album, recording straight on to CD-R will give you a CD copy which is exactly the same as your LP.
Once I find out how to split tracks with Adobe, I won't have to record the tracks individually onto CD-RW, but that is step I haven't worked out yet.
Recording an entire side (of a vinyl record or Cassette tape) can save a lot of time, but there are some potential drawbacks:
1. Automatic software for "splitting" the side into individual songs often makes mistakes.
2. Splitting a side manually takes significant effort (although probably no more, and perhaps not as much, as it would take to record each song separately).
3. There can be really large, significant differences in the level (volume) of individual songs. From a quality perspective, this is a potentially large issue. You can end up "clipping" on one song, and not using the entire dynamic range of the sound card on another song. The worst case I've ever seen of this is on the followup soundtrack CD from the movie "Titanic", where the song "Nearer My God to Thee" has a PEAK level (instantaneous peak for the entire song) of less than 20% (this is on a CD, so it's already digital). The sound engineer for that album should be shot, but if you record an entire side (of a vinyl record or cassette tape) instead of individual songs, you can [probably will] end up doing the same thing. It all comes back to the tradeoffs that you have to make between the quality of the conversion and the time required. As I noted (and as others have also said), doing a good quality job can be really time consuming. Do a couple of albums (or even a couple of songs) and 99-cents per song will seem like a real bargain. This process is really only justifiable for old songs that are not available on CD or by download.
"Total Recorder" has the tool for splitting the tracks while recording. You can adjust the program to do a very good job. Roxio and others do also, but I have tried them all and find Total Recorder to be the most efficient. The flexibility of the splitting tool is much better in Total Recorder.
Using a splitting tool while recording takes away the tedious job of babysitting the vinyl.
i do this all the time,and it's a snap,
all you need is a audio compact disc recorder from philps, (cdr880)
at the time it cost me about $400.00,
that was about three years ago.
just record your music from vinyl or tapes to a blank
cd, and add them to your music files in your computer,
it's that easy. art reis
As is the case with video DVD recorders as well, consumer level "set top box" recorders will do the job, but they don't give you the level of quality or editing and control that you get by doing this on a PC.
But I think you miss another point, which is that the output of such a process (on your audio CD recorder) is a CD. When, if fact, today, that's not what most people want. What most people want, in the end, is an MP3 file or a WMA file (without DRM) on their computer. Because while people used to listen to CDs, today the more common listening device is an MP3 player, not a CD player.
My only objection to the methods suggested is if you've recorded a complete lp side why chop it up. It was meant to played as a set sequence of tracks . The lp side coresponds to most listerners span of attention -so its the perfect format . Random play individual tracks and you end up with a mess . Random play lp-sides and you get the perfect listerning envioronment. Feel free to find out more on my page at :
http://members.lycos.co.uk/steveislip/mp3-lp-side.html
I'm going to disagree with some of the main answer's points. You see, I am a professional soundman, and have been doing pro-audio for about 30 years. I have also have a 3000+ item vinyl collection, many of which were one-off and direct-to-disk recordings. I also just recently inherited my grandmother's old 78rpm collection (vinyls, waxes, and even a couple of Edison cylinders). So I too am looking at many hours digitizing my collection.
As has been said, you want to make sure your source equipment is impecable. Its all about the turntable, the cartidge & stylus, the phono preamp, the digitizer, and the editing software.
You want the best turntable you can afford, and -- I can't emphasize this enough! -- you want to best cartidge you can afford for the type of material. There are different cartidges for different kinds of recordings: I use a special cartidge designed to track old 78's without harming them (today's common harder and smaller styli will gouge and ruin your 78's forever), I use a different special cartidge to track direct-to-disk recordings whose grooves are deeper and more defined (and would shatter most styli), and of course a good broadcast-quality cartidge for modern vinyl (1960's and up). My turntable is a heavy broadcast type, but the common dance club turntable will work as well. You want a turntable that is stable and has no resonances, and you prefer one that has pitch control, since older recording studios did not use exactly the same RPMs to cut their masters -- some are slower and some are faster, even in the same lable. (There are websites with RPMs for most of the registered studio's from the 1920's through the 1970's) An important turntable feature I prefer is a clutch-start that allows you to cue up the beginning of a track, and consitantly start up to speed in 1/4 turn or 1/8 turn (that's why a DJ table works well). Just make sure that you couple that with a cartidge designed for cueing! Most cartidges are not designed to track backwards, and will shatter the stylus if you try. You want a tone-arm for the turntable that you can adjust the tracking force. Some disks require you to track heavier than others in order to pickup all of the groove's nuances. The force required is usually a function of the cartidge and stylus as well, so read the fine print in their packaging: they'll have a table of the force required for the era and age and material of the disk. And don't cheat yourself on styli either. Buy the styli recommended by the cartidge manufacturer, and buy more than one -- I guarrantee that you will wear them out. A worn stylus is like using a sewing needle on your record -- it will ruin it forever, and you'll not get a quality playback.
Now for the input to my computer: I use a USB mixer to provide the input to my computer. This is because the digitizer in the USB mixer is of much higher quality than most builtin sound boards, and the mixer has a builtin phono preamp. Another advantage is that I can use it to record things besides old records; it also has a microphone preamp, a line input adjustable for home stereo equipment through pro-audio equipment, and a guitar/bass input. I have also used it for converting old 8mm and 16mm movies to capture their soundtack for the projector; the microphone input comes in handy when you have old family movies or slides and you want to record commentary from older relatives while they're still alive.
Whether you buy an external USB digitizer, or a nice quality internal sound board, make sure you get one with a phono preamp with true RIAA equalization (the preemphasis/postemphasis that was mentioned). See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization>. In otherwords, use a phono preamp where you can bypass the built-in RIAA EQ; this becomes important if you are digitizing recordings older than 1954 in the US and up to 1966 in Europe; and use digital filters instead. Some external digitizers come with device drivers that have several digital filters you can use while capturing the phono output.
Note that you can also apply digital filtering after-the-fact by using good editing software, like Audacity, that has digital filtering available. You can search the web for the right EQ curves to set your digital filter to depending on the studio and date that the disk was made; you bypass the RIAA EQ and apply the right studio filter. These are the same digital filters that FBI forensics folks and kareoke people use to emphasize some instruments over others, to make vocals standout more or disappear, and to clean up any pops, hiss's and scratches that come through. And these filters can be used create psuedo-stereo and psuedo-surround-sound by picking off certain instruments and moving them around in ''aural space'', and adding echo and reverb effects.
OK, so I spent a little more money to digitize my collection right. But it wasn't that much more money. You can get good to great external USB mixers for about the price of a good sound board (under $100) that come with device drivers and digital filters. The one I picked up even works for PC's running MacOS 10 for Intel and for Linux -- so you're not limited to MS Windows. Sure the turntable is expensive -- about $350 with a good tonearm. The mixer/digitizer usually comes with recording software, but I usually use the free Audacity program to do my recordings, since it is also my choice for waveform editing software. Audacity is powerful, but yes complex and hard to use. Those of you with Nero software might stick with that, though you'll loose many of the digital filters that come with Audacity or can be added to Audacity.
For those on a budget, I know of a vendor that has a complete outfit for $219 -- see this link: <http://www.dak.com/reviews/2020story.cfm> (turntable, cartidge, preamp/mixer & computer input, recording software, post-filtering software). It is good quality, and designed just for this task. The individual parts are available too.
In response to your inquiry about converting vinyl records , CNET had some great recommendations for hardware lik the USB turntable device. I personally have not tried converting records to CDs; only tapes.
But I do have a recommendation for an excellent, incredibly simple SOFTWARE to help you with the audio capture: Microsoft Plus! Digital Media Edition..why? Aside from being easy and making great recordings, it only costs $20 USD and comes with some other useful features like a jukebox, alarm clock and an entertaining little program called "Plus Dancer". For $20 you can't go wrong.
-Brad
You do not need a computer to perform this operation. But at minimum, you will need a turntable, cassette player, CD recorder with analog input jack and stereo receiver (or pre-amp) with phono and tape (or line or aux in) input jacks and at least one line output jack. Simply connect CD analog input via stereo audio cable to receiver (or pre-amp) line output, queue your source and set CD recorder to record pause, synchronize and start recording.
I have only done about 1,000 so I'm no pro, bu I have found a cheep and easy way of doing this, though I do agree with the "main" answer, I'd like to give more detailes, my sound card is a sound blaster ( started with live, now 7.1 card) I use a simple mixer( raido shack) for the most older stuff) that goes into tape input of reciever, I got a cord from raido shack that has RCA on one side 1/4" on the other, hook it from the tape out to line in, I then use "creative recorder" to capture, and "audio cleaning Lab" for editing, leaving it in wave format, then use either media player, nero, or roxio to burn it. I can control the peak volume from the mixer,recorder and audio cleaning lab. roxio and nero is going for around $80, the RCA cord is around $5-10+, audio cleaning lab is around $60+ ( cost depends on where you buy it) as word of wisdome, for best signal to noise recordings, dont use max or just under cliping, distortion is too easy to make later during editing, you wouldnt want that any way,,, but some where in the 3/4 of full volume should work fine, audio cleaning lab will tell you if your volume is too low, loud, or optimal... versions 10 and 11 have some great features, also, I personaly make a copy of recordings into another file, this way, if by chance you majorly mess up you still have the first one to re copy, then the 3rd file for finished work to burn,, one can have great enjoyment of a project like this, taking your time is the best way, it takes me around 1 hour just in editing per cd.. the better the vynal is the less editing, tapes are very easy,, its a fun project and can be easy once you get a hold of it, but it all depends on your listening pref. and time. have fun with it!
While there is no doubt that Barry and other CNET contributors to this subject have a vast amount of expertise, I must point out that a large body of record collectors are summarily left out when the word 'vinyl' is used exclusively to describe phonograph records. I am referring to the ''shellac'' 78-rpm records. For the first 50 + years of the record industry, shellac (or bakelite) was almost always the material from which these records were made. After World War 2, plastic compounds including vinyl, became available for consumer products, including records. The later 78rpms were made of 'unbreakable vinyl'. When 45s and 33s (33 1/3 rpm albums are as a rule referred to as 'vinyl') were introduced in the late 1940s, all records became 'vinyl'. So, let's give it up for all the 'old fogies' who love the old 78s and include the word 'shellac' along with vinyl when discussing audio restoration of 'records'!
I haven't drilled through each and every response, so this may have already been covered. When amassing a digital music library, an important step in the process is to "tag" your tracks so they'll be more usefull. This refers to unseen text space at the end of an mp3 file that stores information about that file: Artist, song title, album etc. For more information about tags here's the Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3
When tagged properly, your collection becomes much more acessable in a jukebox program such as itunes, musicmatch or Windows Media Player. You can search your tracks, regroup them into playlists and generally keep things organized.
When I took up the challenge of digitizing my vinyl and cassette collection, here's the strategy I used; I would record a side at a time of the original material using one of the many great techniques already descibed in this forum. You can set up an album or tape and let it record unattended for the most part, and do a "save as" in .WAV format until you're ready to split and tag. This way I could spend a weekend doing nothing but acumulating album sides, saving them in a pre-determined folder until ready to process. When I had some more time, I would come back to these files to split them into individual tracks and add the tagging information. I personally used software called Goldwave to split the tracks. It's a great visual tool where you can "see" the silence between tracks. After saving each individual track in .Mp3 format I would then open them in a program called "Tag and Rename". (There are many good tagging software solutions offered out there.) Tag and Rename has a function where it finds the album information and auto tags each track , even including album art. I then export them to my main music collection which is stored on an external HD.
One of the great benefits of vinyl conversion is that you can build up a sizeable collection of music very inexpensivly. I still hit the used record shops and pick up obscure or unusual LP's for as little as 99 cents. Library sales, yard sales or even a friend or relative who will give up a collection to a good home are excellent sources for original material.
This was very good concerning the audio records and tapes, but what about doing the same with VHS? Or is that a different subject for a different time?
I'm presuming you are talking about converting the video and audio of a VHS tape, in which case it would be a different subject for a different time. However, if you simply want to, say, pull the songs off a favorite old movie or concert recording, the procedures are very much the same as have been discussed. I currently have a Denon DP-DJ151 turntable with a built-in preamp and digital output that I use for vinyl (it will even do 78s), a Magnavox hi-fi stereo VHS HQ that I use to take audio from VHS tapes, a Technics RS-B905 stereo for audio cassettes, and a regular microphone for live recordings--all plugged to a Niles AXP-1 auxiliary input selector, which, in turn, is connected to an Onkyo SE-U55 USB digital audio processor, which connects to a USB port on my computer. I have a Mac, so I use Peak to record and edit the audio, and Jam to sequence it.
I have been doing this for seven years, and I say "Amen!" to the suggestion that, if you can find an existing digital version, use it instead of transfering the audio from analog. Of course, I have literally thousands of CDs, so I have most things. I am of the opinion that, if you own a vinyl copy, having a digital copy--from any source--is within your rights.
Having said that, there are a few cases where I have discovered that the CD version is audibly inferior to the vinyl. I suspect in these cases that the original tapes could not be located and, therefore, the old vinyl was closer to the original than the CD was.
I have also digitized some very old recordings going back to the turn of the century (no, not the 21st, the one before that!) and found that unless you have a very good noise-reduction system and are skilled, you will do more harm than good. After a period of adjustment, you will not be bothered by the crackling in the background. It's part of the charm of that era--one that has been artificially reproduced in many modern recordings (Christina Aguilera, Nelly, etc.) for effect. Usually, loud, brief "pops" can simply be sliced out with some trial and error. If you do this well, only musicians will notice.
If you want just audio from VHS tapes, then this is the right forum. If you want to transfer video + audio digitally, well, that is probably best for a different forum.
Nonetheless, my answer would pertain to both forums.
I have not (yet) tried to make audio digital recordings from analog video tapes, but I can imagine that there would be a good reason (for example, concert recordings from TV broadcasts that have not been marketed).
My approach would be the following (there may be alternatives):
1) Transfer the VHS tape to DVD. I output my VHS VCR to my Toshiba DVD recorder and make a DVD-R recording. I do not want to take the space here to explain the details, since that would involve a different forum. Copy protection a problem? Not for me. See, I have this, um, little "box" between the VCR and the DVD recorder, which cost me $300 USD a few years ago, that defeats Macrovision. I won't explain here how to get it, but a little internet search will find it for you.
2) I would then put the finalized DVD-R into my computer's DVD drive for playback.
3) I would use an audio recording software program to convert the audio from the DVD in the computer to either MP3 or CD-quality tracks to burn to a CD-R disc. I use Total Recorder from High Criteria
http://www.highcriteria.com/
This will save to MP3 or CD-quality file format anything that comes through the computer's sound system. I have already copied audio from commercial DVD's with no problem in this way. Then, I could either (1)save the audio tracks as MP3 files for playback with my computer's iTunes software or play back on my iPod (I have a PC, not an Apple; this works); or (2) burn a CD with CD-quality sound.
I consider the above part of the "fair use" clause of digital recordings--it's my recording, I am converting for personal use on stereo or my portable MP3 player, I am not marketing my recordings or mass producing them.