LP Recorder 10.1.1

There was a time when music came on vinyl LPs and audio cassettes. But those times are long gone. Nowadays music comes in digital format. You can download music off the internet, buy music from iTunes, put music on your mobile phone and listen to it on the go. The days of the old vinyl LPs and digital cassettes are pretty much gone.

But what if you still have some LPs or cassettes around the house and you would like to transfer the music from those cassettes onto your computer. If that is the case, you need to do what I always do – turn to software and see if there is an application out there that can lend a helping hand.

The CFB Software-developed application LP Recorder can prove to be useful in this situation. This application, as its name so adequately points out, has been specifically designed to digitally record LPs. Here is what you can expect to get from LP Recorder, from a functionality point of view:

- The interface is very simple and incredibly easy to use.
- To start a recording you need only connect the tape or line output from your stereo to the line input of your soundcard, select the recording input, enter a filename and press the record button.
- You can record sound from any other device that you can connect to your soundcard's line-in input. LP Recorder is not limited to recording from vinyl LPs and audio cassettes.
- Your vinyl LP or audio cassette will be recorded as a large WAV file.
- You can pause the recording, flip the LP, then continue.

LP Recorder is meant to be used with other CFB Software-developed applications. Here is what I am talking about. LP Recorder transforms the contents of an LP to a large WAV file. With LP Ripper you can split that large WAV file into smaller bits – basically split the large WAV file will ALL the tracks into smaller WAV files, each file is a track. With WAV Joiner you can put these smaller WAV files in the order you want, and join them back into a large WAV file. With LP Burner you can burn the WAV files produced with LP Recorder onto a CD.

From the LP Recorder interface you can press a button and LP Ripper will launch. From the LP Ripper interface you can press a button and LP Burner will launch. One question comes to mind: wouldn’t it have been easier on the user if the functionality provided by these applications would have been rolled into just one application?

Before you go get LP Recorder and put it to the test, take a look at these technical details:
Download – the download weighs in at 1.5MB, which means it will complete in very little time (even if you are on a lousy internet connection).
Installation – at the time of writing this, LP Recorder provides support for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit editions).
Limitations – the trial version will record for only 4 minutes.

Pros

• Lightweight download size
• Simple, easy to use interface
• Records from any device that can be connected to the soundcard's line-in input
• Auto start and auto stop
• You can pause the recording, flip the LP, then continue
• Append to an existing recording
• Works with Windows 7

Cons

• Free to try (4-minute recording trial)

About CFB Software
Established back in 1997 and headquartered in Australia, CFB Software is a privately owned company that comes up with various Windows applications. The company specializes on three types of applications:

• Digital recording of LPs and tapes
• Sports scheduling
• ARM Microcontroller software development

Additional details about CFB Software and its products are available here.

LP Recorder has been reviewed by George Norman on 13 Sep 2010. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated LP Recorder 3 out of 5 stars, naming it Very Good