Conversion of vinyl to digital

[thhell]

I’m looking to start converting my vinyls to a digital format. Does anybody here have any experience with this and knowledge to share?

I’ve found this Clicky but I’m also considering using a pre-amp with my existing equipment. Any recommendations for software will be much appreciated

[Maisey]

I think we've all been in this situation, see the trash bin!

[Pat]

The most user friendly software I've found is Groove Mechanic.
Details here .
If you have a phono input on your stereo, you can get yourself a decent Hi Fi turntable for the money your taking about.Try google for Project turntables.

There's no black art to it,it's as easy as making a compilation tape.

PM me if you get stuck.

[thhell]

Thanks a million, I'll check it out

[stefan moermans]

The most user friendly software I've found is Groove Mechanic.
Details here .
If you have a phono input on your stereo, you can get yourself a decent Hi Fi turntable for the money your taking about.Try google for Project turntables.

There's no black art to it,it's as easy as making a compilation tape.

PM me if you get stuck.

still have a turntable and some good quality vinyl of sistyers, cure, siouxsie, DAF, fad gadget etc. Play them once in a while and it's still something else having to turn your record every 15 to 20 minutes

[Izzy HaveMercy]

You can record in whatever soft you like, be it Cool Edit Pro, Soundforge or Cubase SX. The only thing you need is a fairly decent soundcard and a decent hifi-stereo rack (with a turntable, of course ). Just connect an output from the stereo to the line-in of the soundcard.

I have one of those posh Philips racks that have a 2 RCA video OUT as well, and I just plug it in on the INPUT of my soundcard.

But you can connect by means of headphones OUT -- line IN as well (a 6.3 male jack cable to a 3.5 jack cable). Beware of your volume levels then, because headphone OUT tends to have a loud signal.

IZ.

[markfiend]

If your hi-fi rack includes a CD recorder, you can do it that way too.

[Quiff Boy]

so no one uses any audio software for sound processing, post-capture? you all just burn the source wav to an audio cd? no eq'ing, or scratch/hiss/click removals etc?

i'm curious because i'm toying with hooking my turntable (technics 1210) up through the pre-amp in my mixing desk, and then into my pc soundcard (m-audio audiophile 2496)

i was probably going to use soundforge to actually record the input signal, and then export each song as a wav, but i didnt know if there was any effects or filters people recommended in order to optimise the sound

would you be best recording the whole side of an album/12" and normalising it first, and then chopping it up into its individual songs?

[Izzy HaveMercy]

so no one uses any audio software for sound processing, post-capture? you all just burn the source wav to an audio cd? no eq'ing, or scratch/hiss/click removals etc?

I do But normally it is not mentioned

i'm curious because i'm toying with hooking my turntable (technics 1210) up through the pre-amp in my mixing desk, and then into my pc soundcard (m-audio audiophile 2496)

i was probably going to use soundforge to actually record the input signal, and then export each song as a wav, but i didnt know if there was any effects or filters people recommended in order to optimise the sound

Of course, it depends on the state of your record. I use Waves X-cracke, X-hum and x-whatever to get rid of the crackles. That's in Steinberg Cubase I'm talking. There are some stand-alone decracklers out there, with various results...

would you be best recording the whole side of an album/12" and normalising it first, and then chopping it up into its individual songs?

Even better, just record the whole record, both sides, then normalize, then chop it up if you want to. Don't overdo the normalisation, a -8 to -6 dB is ok. Most of the time I do some EQ'ing as well, as a lot of records tend to be kinda hissy (too much hi, too less low end).

Then I use WaveLab with a mastering tool which is basically a limiter and a very slight compressor.

IZ.

[Quiff Boy]

so no one uses any audio software for sound processing, post-capture? you all just burn the source wav to an audio cd? no eq'ing, or scratch/hiss/click removals etc?

I do But normally it is not mentioned

i'm curious because i'm toying with hooking my turntable (technics 1210) up through the pre-amp in my mixing desk, and then into my pc soundcard (m-audio audiophile 2496)

i was probably going to use soundforge to actually record the input signal, and then export each song as a wav, but i didnt know if there was any effects or filters people recommended in order to optimise the sound

Of course, it depends on the state of your record. I use Waves X-cracke, X-hum and x-whatever to get rid of the crackles. That's in Steinberg Cubase I'm talking. There are some stand-alone decracklers out there, with various results...

would you be best recording the whole side of an album/12" and normalising it first, and then chopping it up into its individual songs?

Even better, just record the whole record, both sides, then normalize, then chop it up if you want to. Don't overdo the normalisation, a -8 to -6 dB is ok. Most of the time I do some EQ'ing as well, as a lot of records tend to be kinda hissy (too much hi, too less low end).

Then I use WaveLab with a mastering tool which is basically a limiter and a very slight compressor.

IZ.

perfick. i'll look into it

thanks

[Pat]

The reason I mentioned Groove Mechanic is because you can record,de crackle,de hiss etc and split tracks very easily.You don't have to mess about with settings or really know what you are doing.i.e good results with little or no knowledge.
I started with that and then moved on to Soundforge using the same plug-ins as Izzy but if I'd started with Soundforge I would have been overwhelmed with the options available.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

The reason I mentioned Groove Mechanic is because you can record,de crackle,de hiss etc and split tracks very easily.You don't have to mess about with settings or really know what you are doing.i.e good results with little or no knowledge.
I started with that and then moved on to Soundforge using the same plug-ins as Izzy but if I'd started with Soundforge I would have been overwhelmed with the options available.

Something I often forget

What I use everyday can be absolute Chinese to others. I remember a friend of mine seeing me at work in Steinberg Nuendo and after half an hour he just said "I'll stick to Cool Edit Pro, thank you verra much!"

IZ.

[mh]

I generally use GoldWave to do the recording, as one really cool feature is that you don't need to worry about recording levels at all. You can reset them to the native wave file maximum any time you want, even if they've gone above. It also has a good Max/Match feature for channel balancing.

I record at 88200 Hz/32 bit these days, then use a homemade tool to sample the resulting wave down to CD "quality". Some slight compression is nice, as my TT has such a high dynamic range that the result is normally way way too quiet most of the time for walkman use (which is what I mainly do this for).

I've also found a 40 Hz Highpass (or is it lowpass? always get them mixed up) filter to be extremely effective for cutting out subsonic stuff.

[James Blast]

I've only gone down the cassette > HD > slight clean-up > CD route but I guess it's more or less the same. I use two very basic programs (Mac 'natch) Spin Doctor 2 and Sound Studio and I whole heartedly agree with Pat, get used to a simple one first then go for something with more bells and whistles.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

I've also found a 40 Hz Highpass (or is it lowpass? always get them mixed up) filter to be extremely effective for cutting out subsonic stuff.

40 Hz is rather low pass I always put it up a bit higher, at about 100 Hz, especially for tape humming...

IZ.

[thhell]

Oh my, it is a big world out there. Lots of things to try out. Looking forward to the weekend

[DOZMEISTER]

I have a Phillips CD recorder set up in my Hi-fi rack, i can run vinyl, cassette, vhs, etc onto disc. never had any trouble. The discs themselves are more expensive than computer discs though.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Oh my, it is a big world out there. Lots of things to try out. Looking forward to the weekend

Take it one step ata time, as suggested...

Don't let yourself be put off by the tech talk here

(most of us are just pretending to be in the know anyway hehe )

IZ.

[markfiend]

I have a Phillips CD recorder set up in my Hi-fi rack, i can run vinyl, cassette, vhs, etc onto disc. never had any trouble. The discs themselves are more expensive than computer discs though.

Quite usefully, my DVD recorder will record CD-audio onto computer CD-Rs. Unfortunately it never recognises them as any longer than the standard 74 minutes but that's no big deal.

[limur]

Has anyone got any hints for seperating a .wav or .mp3 file into individual tracks? I'm OK with LPs because there is a gap , but live stuff is a nightmare I'm having a real stuggle trying to locate the end of a track.

I'm trying to use Audacity, which seems quite good.

[markfiend]

One hint: If you're planning to put the WAVs back onto a CD-R, you want the tracks to be a multiple of 588 samples (1/75 second) long, otherwie you might end up with sector boundary errors on your finished CD.

I use Sound Studio on the Mac, and I generally do tracksplitting on live stuff by setting the grid spacing to 0.04 seconds (1/25, which is obviously a multiple of 1/75) and turning "snap to grid" on.

It seems to be easiest to find track divisions by visual inspection of the wave-form; find a bit that looks quieter and it's probably between songs! Then zooming in and listening to the section to select the best place to put your track marker by ear. 1/25 of a second is way too short to make too much difference to where you want tracks to start and end.

Then, once you have the obvious tracks marked, you can work out which you've missed (if any) and find them by elimination.

Although having said this, if I've recorded something with the intention of weeding it, I generally don't bother splitting it to tracks, because there always seems to be someone who manages to fück up and introduce 2-second gaps between the tracks. Not that it seems to happen as much these days, but still.

[limur]

One hint: If you're planning to put the WAVs back onto a CD-R, you want the tracks to be a multiple of 588 samples (1/75 second) long, otherwie you might end up with sector boundary errors on your finished CD.

I have had these...and wondered why Thank you. I shall have to go and do some reading I think as the phrase...

tracks to be a multiple of 588 samples (1/75 second) long

...means nothing to me at the moment

I use Sound Studio on the Mac, and I generally do tracksplitting on live stuff by setting the grid spacing to 0.04 seconds (1/25, which is obviously a multiple of 1/74) and turning "snap to grid" on.

Audacity has this "snap to grid" but it didn't seem to do anything

It seems to be easiest to find track divisions by visual inspection of the wave-form; find a bit that looks quieter and it's probably between songs! Then zooming in and listening to the section to select the best place to put your track marker by ear. 1/25 of a second is way too short to make too much difference to where you want tracks to start and end.

Have you a recomendation of how far to zoom in? With the crowd noise it doesn't really seem to make much difference to the wave-form even at high zoom levels.

Then, once you have the obvious tracks marked, you can work out which you've missed (if any) and find them by elimination.

Provided you know the track listing...

Although having said this, if I've recorded something with the intention of weeding it, I generally don't bother splitting it to tracks, because there always seems to be someone who manages to fück up and introduce 2-second gaps between the tracks. Not that it seems to happen as much these days, but still.

Doesn't that mean that the seek function on the CD will fail to find the start of each track though?

Thanks very much

[markfiend]

Have you a recomendation of how far to zoom in? With the crowd noise it doesn't really seem to make much difference to the wave-form even at high zoom levels.

Ah. Well in that case, I guess you just have to listen to the whole thing. Sisters gigs tend to have fairly recognisable "quiet bits" between songs...

Then, once you have the obvious tracks marked, you can work out which you've missed (if any) and find them by elimination.

Provided you know the track listing...

There is that, yes...

Although having said this, if I've recorded something with the intention of weeding it, I generally don't bother splitting it to tracks, because there always seems to be someone who manages to fück up and introduce 2-second gaps between the tracks. Not that it seems to happen as much these days, but still.

Doesn't that mean that the seek function on the CD will fail to find the start of each track though?

It does, yes. It's a trade-off between convenience in listening and convenience in mastering.

Thanks very much

No problem

[limur]

Ah. Well in that case, I guess you just have to listen to the whole thing.

I thought you were going to say that

Thanks once again

[James Blast]

grid spacing to 0.04 seconds (1/25, which is obviously a multiple of 1/74)

oh yes, obviously...