What software do you use/recommend and what do you find are the pros and cons? I have the most recent Audacity installed, but it looks like the learning curve is a bit steep. I also have CD Spin Doctor, but it seems to not want to record from my Ion USB turntable via USB. It sees it and plays the audio through my speakers, but the record controls are grayed out.

I think Papa was doing this. Maybe you get get his attention?

You went to your Sound preferences and chose the USB input I'm sure, but that shouldn't matter, if it plays through your speakers spin Doctor Should work.

What version of Spin Doctor? Does the Record button work for anything?

Checking the Roxio forums it seems CD Spin Doctor in Lion is hit or miss, their Spin Doctor in Toast 11 seems better but some have had issues.

Someone there mentioned Bias Sound Saver works well with Lion. They have a trial that has some limitations, not sure what they are.

Ion has a free utility, EZ Audio Converter, that is simple and straightforward. It exports to iTunes with little to no file type control.

Yes, I selected USB codec as the input source. It plays through Spin Doctor just fine, but recording is simply a no go. Spin Doctor does seem to be able to record from my iSight, though. I'm using the version that ships with Toast 10 (v 6.1.2). If necessary, I could spend the time to learn Audacity, but I have limited time to do that with the need to convert 2 LPs that my wife wants done for her sister's birthday in March.

QT X also can record from the turntable, but there are no editing options such as splitting into tracks. It's either all or nothing.

EZ Audio Converter exports to iTunes as a WAV file. Not acceptable.

Can CD Spin Doctor record anything else, in other words is the record button only grayed out with the turntable?

I wonder if the trial of Sound Saver would work, have you looked to see if the limitations would affect what you want to do? If it works it would solve your current deadline anyway.

There is an option.. you can use Garage Band, but it's a bit convoluted.

http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/Tutorials/TransferringLPs.html

Amadeus is pretty good, all round.

It's unacceptable due to the resulting file size. I'm running with limited HD space until I can afford a larger drive.