Ripping vinyl using the new rekordbox

Recordbox (DJ?) might very well let you rip vinyl … but … you’d need a controller that is DVS capable so it can forward the sound from your phone inputs to your computer/software. The XDJ-RX does not support DVS if I am not mistaken. It will just let you play external sources like line in/phono in through the mixer part, but not through the software. This has to do with the capabilities of the built-in sound card, or rather the lack of certain capabilities.

Unless someone else has more info, my take on it is that you don’t have the right gear to make it work.

Thanks for your input, Maxy. Imho, it’s not all that confusing.

The OP said he has Technics turntables (most likely 1200s) which have only phono out. To get the sound from those into a computer and into your software, you need a mixer/sound card/controller that can transfer phono-in to USB-out, in general this means DVS capability in the hardware (not talking about the software) as DVS needs exactly that, phono-in sound into your DJ software through a USB connection.

The XDJ-RX does not have that option, nor do the Technics have USB. So these pieces of hardware used in combination or apart will not let you rip vinyl (to the best of my knowledge, but I love to be proven wrong).

Clearly he can get a new turntable WITH USB (like the Pioneers you mentioned and some other brands), in which case he needs nothing but his laptop with software and the turntable. He can also get a DJ sound card with phono input(s) and hook up his current Technics and then his computer. Finally he can go out and buy a DVS-capable controller instead of his XDJ-RX (like the MC8000, the SX2 and quite a few other, higher-end ones).

All these options require other gear than what he currently has. His question was not “what do I need to buy to make this work”, the question was “how do I configure what I currently own to take advantage of the option of ripping vinyl in RekordBox (DJ)”. The answer remains (until shown differently) that with his current gear this is not possible.

The lead I don’t know, not sure about the quality of the phone preamp used and the quality of the sound card it uses. If you want to go this route, I’d invest in a good sound card that you can use in a club setup as well. It will fully integrate your turntables into your setup and open the door for DVS use as well.

As far as I know the DJM600 has no built-in sound card, so that’s no use to you either.

Quite frankly, you should (imho) only rip the really special vinyls. It’s a ton of work to do an entire collection (unlike ripping CDs you can’t speed up the process) and the results can vary. While it sounds easy, play/record/done, more often than not you need to do some post-processing to get the wanted result. If your collection is huge, be prepared to spend many months digitizing it.

There are often ways to obtain digital copies of the tracks you own on vinyl. Getting your hands on those would make more sense to me.

This is fully personal, but unless you can record in WAV, I would not use it to record things. If you start with an MP3 rip, things will only go downhill from there if you need to do post-production on the recordings and then make them into MP3s for use in your collection.

But if the XDJ-RX can record whatever comes out of the master channel, it should work. Be sure to have channel gain set correctly (0dB seriously rules) and all your EQs set to neutral. In that case I guess it would be technically possible.