How to record a turntable into Audacity
To record a turntable into Audacity 4, connect it to your computer — directly by USB, or through a phono preamp and an audio interface if it has no USB output — then open Audio setup in the toolbar, choose the turntable under Recording device, watch the meter next to the track while the loudest passage plays, and press Record before dropping the needle.
The software side takes five minutes. The hardware side is where people get stuck, and it comes down to one question: what does your turntable actually output? Answer that first and the rest follows.
Tested on Audacity 4.0.1 on macOS Sequoia; the screenshots are from that install. Where Audacity 3 differs, the older path is noted in one line.
Record vinyl with Audacity
Which setup do you have?
- USB turntable: plug it in. Nothing else needed.
- Turntable with a built-in phono preamp: line out → audio interface → USB.
- Turntable with no preamp: you need a phono preamp first. This is not optional.
Step 1 — Work out which of the three setups you have
The wrong assumption here produces a recording that is quiet, thin and tinny, the most common complaint from people digitizing vinyl.
A USB turntable has a USB socket on the back and handles conversion internally. Connect it to your computer and it appears as an audio input device. Nothing else to buy.
A turntable with a built-in phono preamp has RCA outputs and usually a small switch marked PHONO/LINE. Set to LINE, it outputs a normal line-level signal you can feed into any audio interface, which connects to your computer by USB.
A turntable with no preamp outputs a phono-level signal, and that needs a phono preamp before anything else in the chain.
If you are unsure, look for that PHONO/LINE switch, or check the manual for “built-in preamp”.
Why a phono preamp matters
A record cartridge produces a very small signal — far below line level. It is also not a flat copy of the music. When records are cut, the bass is reduced and the treble is boosted according to a standard called the RIAA curve. This is deliberate: less bass means narrower grooves, so more music fits on a side, and boosted treble means surface noise is reduced when the curve is undone on playback.
A phono preamp does two jobs: it amplifies the tiny signal up to line level, and it applies the inverse RIAA curve, putting the bass back and taming the treble.
Skip it and you get a recording that is far too quiet, with almost no bass and a harsh, thin top end. The cartridge and the cable are fine; the signal has not been decoded yet.
Step 2 — Wire it up
With the turntable powered off:
- Connect the left and right phono leads from the turntable to your preamp or interface, matching red to red and white to white.
- Connect the ground wire if your turntable has one, a thin wire with a spade connector that goes to the ground terminal on the preamp or amplifier. Skipping it is the usual cause of a persistent hum.
- Connect the preamp or interface to the computer with its USB cable.
- Power the turntable on.
Step 3 — Set Audacity up
Audacity 4 is free, for Windows, macOS and Linux, and installs from the Apps section of MuseHub or from audacityteam.org. Everything in this step uses built-in controls.
Choose the recording device. Click Audio setup in the toolbar and pick your turntable or USB audio device under Recording device. If it is not listed, click Rescan audio devices in the same menu — a device plugged in after Audacity started often needs it. Setting the same device as the default input in your system sound settings stops the laptop microphone from taking over between sessions. On Audacity 3, the same list is under Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Audio Settings.
Set the recording channels to stereo. Records are stereo, and mono folds the two channels into one. Recording channels sits in the same Audio setup menu. It offers 2 (Stereo) only for a stereo-capable input, such as a USB turntable or a two-channel audio interface; a laptop’s built-in microphone offers just 1 (Mono).
Choose a sample rate. Open Audacity ▸ Preferences on macOS or Edit ▸ Preferences on Windows, go to Audio settings and set Default sample rate before you record. 48000 Hz is a good default; if you are producing files for CD, 44100 Hz matches that format. Either is fine; consistency across your library matters more than the number. Default sample format, in the same section, is 32-bit float, the most precise option; leave it. Both apply to new tracks only; an existing track’s ⋯ menu ▸ Format changes its format.
Check your levels before committing. Play the loudest passage you can find and watch the meter next to the track — Audacity 4 meters each track as it records. Keep the peaks below about −6 dB. Clipping cannot be repaired later, and vinyl has nothing like the level consistency of a modern master, so leave room. If the meter reaches the top, click the microphone button in the toolbar and lower the recording level there, or turn down the gain on your preamp or interface. Audacity’s own recording guide puts a spoken voice at −18 to −12 dB, which is a fair place for the quiet passages of a record to sit.
For a microphone, where monitoring and latency matter more, see how to record audio in Audacity.
Step 4 — Record the side
Press the red Record button (or R for Record ▸ Record on current track), then start the record playing. Let it run.
Keep away from the turntable. Turntables are especially sensitive to vibration: footfalls, a knocked desk, a slammed door all travel up through the plinth into the cartridge and onto your recording. Start the take and step back.
Record the whole side in one pass. Do not try to start and stop between tracks; you will split them later, far more accurately, by looking at the waveform.
For side two, stop, flip the record, put the playhead at the end of side one and choose Record ▸ Record on new track. Side two lands on its own track underneath, so nothing overlaps and both sides stay in one project until you have processed them.
Let the recording run a few seconds into the run-out groove before you stop. Extra silence is easy to trim; a fade cut short cannot be recovered.
Step 5 — Clean it up
Vinyl has two distinct kinds of noise and they need different tools.
Clicks and pops are isolated, one-off events from dust and scratches. Noise reduction will not touch them — it works from a profile of constant noise. Select the whole recording and open Effect ▸ Noise removal and repair ▸ Click removal. The defaults (Threshold 200, Max spike width 20) are a sensible start. A lower threshold or a wider spike width catches more clicks but starts softening drum hits and plucked notes, so test on the busiest passage first.
For a single loud pop the effect misses, zoom in until you see it, select a tiny stretch around it and use Repair in the same submenu. Repair takes up to 128 samples, about 3 ms at 44.1 kHz; a longer selection stops with “The Repair effect is intended to be used on very short sections of damaged audio (up to 128 samples). Zoom in and select a tiny fraction of a second to repair.” If a hot passage clipped despite the level check, Clip fix in the same submenu rebuilds lightly flattened peaks; it cannot rescue heavy clipping.
Surface noise and hiss is the steady background rustle underneath everything. This is what Noise reduction is for. Select a few seconds of the run-in or run-out groove — noise with no music — and choose Effect ▸ Noise removal and repair ▸ Noise reduction, then click Get noise profile. Select the whole recording, open the effect again and apply it. The defaults (6 dB reduction, sensitivity 6, 6 bands of smoothing) are deliberately mild. The Noise only output option plays what would be removed, the quickest way to hear whether music is going with it.
Be conservative. Pushing noise reduction hard on a record produces a hollow, watery sound that is worse than the hiss you started with. Our guide to noise reduction in Audacity covers the sliders and the artifacts in detail.
The AI option is for spoken-word records only. The free OpenVINO AI Tools plugin has an AI noise suppressor trained on speech; on sustained notes and cymbals it is unpredictable, and it runs only in Audacity 3. For a music rip, the built-in Noise reduction is the better tool.
Tone and level come last, and they belong in the Realtime effects panel (press E) rather than in the Effect menu, because you can keep adjusting them while you listen. Muse Group’s free MuseFX collection covers the EQ and the gentle compression a vinyl transfer usually wants; how to use effects and plugins in Audacity shows the panel and the install.
Step 6 — Split it into tracks
You now have one long recording of a side and want individual songs. The method is the same in every version of Audacity: zoom out so the whole side is visible, place a label at each track start, name each label with the song title, then export one file per label. The gaps between songs show as flat stretches in the waveform, and Analyze ▸ Label sounds can place the labels for you on a well-recorded side.
If Label sounds, or any built-in effect, answers “Effect not found” on a Mac, the fix is in the FAQ below.
In Audacity 4.0.1 and later, File ▸ Export audio with Type set to Labeled regions as separate audio files writes one file per label; in Audacity 3 it is File ▸ Export Audio… with Export Range set to Multiple Files, split on Labels. The full walkthrough is in how to split a recording into tracks in Audacity.
Which format to export
| Format | Use it for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| WAV | The archive copy you keep | Large files, universal support |
| FLAC | Archive with smaller files | Lossless, slightly less universal |
| MP3 | Phone and car listening | Lossy, small, plays everywhere |
To export the whole side as one file, choose File ▸ Export audio (Ctrl+Shift+E / ⌘⇧E); if Audacity first asks where to save, choose Export to computer. Set Type to Full project audio, pick the format and click Export. WAV, FLAC, MP3, OGG, Opus and WavPack are built in; M4A joins the Format list once FFmpeg is installed. On Audacity 3 the same command is File ▸ Export Audio….
Tag the file while you are there. Edit metadata at the bottom of the dialog opens the Metadata editor (also under Edit ▸ Metadata editor), with Track title, Artist name, Album title, Track number, Year and Comments. Add tag covers anything else, such as Genre, and Save template and Load template carry the album details over to the next side.
The sensible approach: export a lossless copy once — WAV or FLAC — as your archive, and make MP3s from that whenever you need them. A lossy file is a poor master for future copies.
Setups compared
| Your setup | What you need to add | Typical result |
|---|---|---|
| USB turntable | Nothing | Convenient; conversion quality varies by unit |
| Turntable with built-in preamp | An audio interface | Good, and you can upgrade the interface later |
| Turntable, no preamp | A phono preamp, then an interface | Best quality ceiling, most components |
| Turntable straight into a line input | — | Quiet, thin, no bass. Don’t |
Audio in the screenshots: the test side is four royalty-free tracks from audio.com.
FAQ
Do I need a phono preamp? Only if your turntable has neither a USB output nor a built-in preamp. If your recording is very quiet and has no bass, this is your problem.
Why is my recording so quiet? Almost always a phono-level signal going into a line input. Add a preamp, or switch your turntable to LINE if it has the option.
Why does it hum? Usually a missing or loose ground wire. Connect the turntable’s ground lead to the ground terminal on your preamp or amplifier.
Can Audacity remove crackle and pops? Yes, with Click removal under Effect ▸ Noise removal and repair — it targets short spikes. Noise reduction targets constant noise, so use it only for steady surface hiss.
Why does Audacity say “Effect not found” on my Mac?
Audacity is reading a plugin list left by an earlier Audacity 4 test version, as the Audacity team explains in GitHub issue #12373. To fix it, quit Audacity, delete known_audio_plugins.json from ~/Library/Application Support/audacity/Audacity4/, reopen it and click Validate when it offers to check your plugins. Help ▸ Revert to factory settings fixes it too, but also resets your preferences, workspaces and shortcuts.
Is Audacity free for this? Yes. Audacity 4 is free and open source, and everything in this guide uses built-in effects; the MuseFX plugins are free too.
Next steps
Once the transfer is in, how to split a recording into tracks in Audacity turns each side into named files, and how to use effects and plugins in Audacity covers a realtime cleanup chain of EQ, gentle compression and a limiter.
For the cleanup stage in depth, including which noises are and are not fixable, see noise reduction in Audacity. If your records are spoken word rather than music, AI audio editing in Audacity covers the free AI suppressor that suits speech; it still needs Audacity 3.
Comparing tools before you commit? The best free audio editing software puts Audacity beside the alternatives.
Get Audacity and its free plugins in one place — download MuseHub free.
