You will need a turntable, or similar stereo / record player that has RCA-type outputs or a headphone jack. A patch cable can be purchased that will connect via the RCA-type outputs/headphones to your computer via the soundcard. A soundcard with a Line-In input is best, but the microphone input can also be used. Finally, you will need software that can copy the music to a compatible file format, usually .wav and filter the clicks, pop, hiss and rumble from the vinyl record. And then, you will need a software codex to encode the .wav file to .mp3 or other format. Clear as mud? Copying software is available thru Coyote Electronics and their Groove Mechanic application, http://www.coyotes.bc.ca/ Encoding can be done with LAME: http://www.mp3-converter.com/encoders/lame_encoder.htm

You need to record the music from the record using an audio card with a two-channel, line level input and a phono preamplifier. The phono preamp must match the cartridge type that is installed on the tonearm: moving magnet (MM) or moving coil (MC). You connect the cartridge outputs to the phono preamp inputs. The line level outputs of the preamp are then connected to the line level inputs of an audio card. You will need to record the songs individually or, alternately, you can record the entire record in a single block, cutting it into individual songs using an audio editor. I use a very good audio file editor called 'Audacity', available from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ . It is free and is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. There are a few products that can be used for recording and that provide signal processing to allow you to remove surface noise. I have a copy of Clean, which was designed specifically for this process, but I don't know if it is still available. It was restricted to recording in the 16 bit, 44.1 kHz CD format. More bits and higher sampling rates improve the quality during the editing process, even if the final product is downsampled to 16/44.1. Most of the audio software that does this sort of signal processing is fairly expensive. The functions that are used to clean up the surface noise are just part of a much larger package. The selection of a phono preamp is fraught with a bewildering variety of products at prices ranging from $25 to $25,000. One of the cheaper, reasonable quality phono preamps is the NAD PP-2. Other, comparable products are available from Creek, Goldring, Marchand Electronics, Music Hall, Pro-Ject, Rega, Rotel, and Thorens. All of these companies market a phono preamp for under about US$250. If you are using a MC cartridge, it is important to ensure that the phono preamp is appropriate for your cartridge. The outputs of different models of MC cartridges vary a great deal and some MC preamps lack sufficient amplification. MM cartridges normally output between 2 and 6 mV, while MC cartridges may output anything from about 5 uV to 5 mV. You may have a sound card with line level inputs already installed in your computer. The audio card that drives your speakers may also provide suitable inputs. Most of the SoundBlaster cards or integrated Analog Devices chipsets (SoundMax) have inputs. However, be careful of the quality of these interfaces - many are not as good as their specifications suggest. They are, after all, fairly cheap consumer commodities. A semi-pro or pro-audio card works much better. You probably won't find one at your local computer store, but you can find them them on-line or at a music store. I use an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 and find it works quite well for the price (http://www.m-audio.com/). There are many other audio companies making suitable products. Once the songs has been saved in wav-format files, you can create an audio CD from them.