@happyme it's possibly worth buying a USB turntable recorder, you can find cheap ones from around $60 but the Stylus's are probably terrible. Even the mid range ones (Sony, Audio Technica) probably still won't sound anywhere near as good as playing them on a really good deck.
So if you can borrow an expensive turntable for an afternoon or if you have a much higher quality older turntable then you can get USB converters for around $60 that plug in https://goo.gl/bXcjGh
Although if I were trying to rig something up myself I probably wouldn't play into a computer directly via USB at all and I'd play instead into something like a Zoom 4HN then transfer the file in through a card reader. What I've found with microphones through USB is that there are a lot of latency and mis-timing issues if you try to capture at 48 Hz (DAT quality) rather than 44.1 HZ (CD Quality) and you need to capture Vinyl at 48 Hz at the minimum.
44.1 Hz (CD Quality) clips the frequencies that extend beyond our range of hearing. There are a lot of articles on on the web saying that the human ear can only hear up to 20hz and therefore trying to capture Vinyl at 48 Hz or higher to capture the the full range of harmonics that our ear can't hear actually leads to worse sound. If you come across these type of articles beware because that simply isn't true. An engineer will always request the highest possible source file; for good reason.
Harmonics at ranges you can't hear still resonate into the music at the ranges you can hear, so if you clip them by using 44.1 Hz you lose the quality that Vinyl has that makes it Vinyl. This is all kind-of subjective though because the only true way to hear Vinyl as Vinyl is to play it on analogue gear (valve amps etc.)
The real issue on why Vinyl can sound bad when you capture it to digital is more to do with your computer's sound-card. At lot of cards people use are video / graphics cards with a stated audio rating of 96 Hz. But most of these cards in fact can't capture the extended range of frequencies because they have a non-linear (digital) response to high frequencies (i.e not analogue). If you have a high end dedicated audio card with XLR's or optical audio feeds then no problem, but most people don't have that type of interfacing unless they have built a hardcore home Audio studio.
DAT is 48 Hz and a DAT player is still much better than a Zoom H24 Pro but the issue is that if you play into a DAT player you still have to get the Audio into your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) somehow.
So most real world situations will end up with you finding some kind of solution where you have to play it in via USB. I would avoid playing in via USB.
Therefore the next best option is the 4HN pro or something like a Marantz PMD 661 solid state recorder because you can hire them for about $20-45 a day and then you can load your audio from that capture device onto a camera card and bring it in as Data thereby avoiding a lot of the latency and audio card problems involved in bringing Audio in directly via USB capture.
Recording Vinyl is fine at 48 Hz (DAT capture captures all the frequency harmonics) and you don't need to go to 96 Hz, although higher quality is alway better, but 44.1 Hz will definitely clip the extended frequencies off.
There is another simpler option which is to find a good quality studio near you that has it all set up and just get them to do it for a rate. It would probably be cheaper.
Once you have your audio in the computer that's where the joy part begins. Check these audio packages out, they are a lot of fun!
WOW!!! Thanks for all the technical information! That's all great stuff to know (and your explanations were super easy to understand), however, is it really worth it for me to spend that kind of time and money to make a digital copy of 2 tunes? I was originally thinking of submitting my records to a consignment (physical store) and allowing them to sell the records for me and take a cut. No shipping costs either! The other way would be to make a crappy digital copy so people can hear the genre of music and if they like it, order the vinyl and pay the shipping cost. I wouldn't expect more than a handful of people on Steemit would be interested, so sales would be limited. I posted up some jewelry that can be bought with SBD and have yet to see even 1 inquiry, never mind a sale.
Hi @happyme I'm glad it was helpful!
I don't think its about paying some money to transcribe two tunes, or even about any number of tunes. It's more important to think about projecting what you are setting out to achieve as an artist into a compelling story you can tell well and connect your fans to.
If you can get twenty people to a gig and it's really special and intimate for them they'll be queue-ing up to buy a physical CD if you have one and you'll shift more than in a record store. (and keep those profits even if small). But that takes time and a number of steps, whereas you can start on Steemit straight away with a blog about your journey and people are hungry to see that. All that takes is some time to sit down and really think out your story you want to tell and engage people with.
Artists make next to nothing from sales until they connect with the right fans. The thing about Steemit is you are in the right place. Everyone here is real and is connecting for real.
People who become interested in you enough to become genuine fans are there because they are interested in your journey and your story above anything else. You'd probably make more money (and definitely would get followers) by making an endearing set of you-tube films about trying to get your vinyl transcribed than you would in sales at the beginning.
Everyone has a story. You just have to commit to it and things will start and that will be the source of where your future sales will come. The beginning of your story, the Origin story, is actually proven scientifically to be the most compelling. That's why a lot of artists have traditionally re-invented themselves every year as a new persona. People absolutely love and connect with your origin story so you could start with that.
I'm sorry to have given you the wrong impression. I am not an artist. I am the producer. The artist sold approximately 200 singles off stage, but never really pushed the sales, so I'm left with the bulk of records. No CD's were ever made, just the vinyl records.