I have been a bedroom dj for some time and being the wrong side of 30 need some help with how to record my vinyl mixes to cd/mp3. I have a G5 and need to know the best way to connect my turntables (direct from mixer or through separate amp?) and then how to record my mix (which program?). What is the easiest and quickest way to do this? Sorry if this is an obvious question but untill recently I was recording my mixes to cassette tape. Please help.

i was in a very similar position, except with a g4

prolly the best set up for you is to have your turntables going into your dj mixer, your dj mixer into an amp/pre-amp, and your amp into your g5... you will need a sound card of some sort to make the connection between your amp & g5..

as far as software:

garageband (you should already own this w/ ilife)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ free, supposedly works very well but i've had troubles with it recognizing my soundcard, perhaps someone can help me with this??

.d.

Cheers Don. My decks are already connected to my mixer and mixer connected to a separate amp, but i'm still not sure how to connect my amp to the G5 via a soundcard. I'm very new to technology and to be very honest not sure what a soundcard is (I assumed a G5 would have one built in). Sorry if i'm sounding like a real thicket, but I really don't know.

don't apologize, we all have to start somewhere...

there are generally 3 ways to get sound into your computer:
1. built in sound input (i.e. microhone jack)
2. pci card (to be installed into your computer... see below...)
http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/PCI/MiaM...aMIDI/index.php
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audi...e2496-main.html
3. usb/firewire interface (like a pci card, but is external from your mac, and plugs into your usb or firewire drive)..

i would recommend #2 since they are generally cheaper than a firewire, but rumour has it that apple is coming out with a firewire drive in the new year for around $150 USD... but for now, you can use the imic... this is cheaper and should do the trick for now...

once you get your sound 'into' your mac, use garageband, audacity, or (i think) final vinyl to record... final vinyl i believes comes with the imic or is free for download...

garageband has an 'export to itunes' option... this means that once your done recording, you click it and your set gets trasfered to itunes, from there you can link it to your ipod or burn a cd...

i'll try to help with anything else you need...
d.

greetings.

i would say the best deal for the money is to get a delta 44. you can get them for around 145 us dollars.

it has decent converters, and you will have 4 ins and 4 outs.

happy recording,
editbrain