Newbie questions re: creating system for digitizing vinyl

[Forehaven]

Funny/sad looking thru this thread where P Vinyl was $29 in 'o6. Now it's $299, yowsa, that's some inflation! lol

[StephenJK]

Funny/sad looking thru this thread where P Vinyl was $29 in 'o6. Now it's $299, yowsa, that's some inflation! lol

 

And for us PC guys, we couldn't understand why anyone would develop a software program aimed at less than 10% of the computer market. It seemed like more of a fashion statement than anything else. But you know, a few solid reviews in the right places means a lot to folks who would like some helpful advice.

[StephenJK]

Thank you guys for your input.

 

The thing is I just have about 30-40 LPs I'd like to digitize so I don't really want to invest in this. I bought a Audio-Technica AT-LP60-USB last year but ended up returning it because no matter what I tried the recording level was always way too low and the results were barely okay. Now, reading a bit more about it lately, looks like the USB output was to blame. I maybe should have gone straight to my pc sound card instead. Cheap for cheap, the included ADC in the Audio-Technica is probably as good/bad as my pc sound card anyway.

 

I did digitized about 10 LPs then and apart for the recording level problem, I though the process was rather straight and somewhat easy even though Audacity has indeed a learning curve (as any other programs I suppose). Again, the results we're okay but just so. I guess for 150$ you got what you pay for. It is what It is...

 

I often download 12" inches from www.burningtheground.net and his 24/96 rips are always truly great! Then again, his process is much more thorough and his equipment, while basic, is up to the notch.

 

Bottom line, you're right, the more time and money you spent, the results can be really great. But since I am a lazy and cheap bastard...

 

Thanks again guys!

 

C'est bien simple. You send me the LP's at your cost. I record them and send them to you in the digital format of your choice. I keep the LP's. Je demeure bien proche, a North Bay, Ontario.

[Audio_ELF]

C'est bien simple. You send me the LP's at your cost. I record them and send them to you in the digital format of your choice. I keep the LP's. Je demeure bien proche, a North Bay, Ontario.

That would be promoting copyright theft.

[StephenJK]

That would be promoting copyright theft.

 

Thanks. Thanks for being you.

[StephenJK]

I guess it's time to move on. Thanks.

[dummy]

C'est bien simple. You send me the LP's at your cost. I record them and send them to you in the digital format of your choice. I keep the LP's. Je demeure bien proche, a North Bay, Ontario.

 

Merci beaucoup Monsieur pour la belle offre que je suppose gratuite (?!?) provenant de le générosité de votre coeur...

 

The thing is I like to keep my LPs just in case in 10 years some new technology comes out with a new way of ripping/digitizing records that is easy and definitive.

 

Or If I fell off and hit my head and decide to become a hard core reborn vinyl lover, buy a killer turntable, ditch JRemote and work my legs between sides A and B....

 

You never know!

 

Thanks again Monsieur

[Rock Bottom]

There may be many many subjective reasons to ADC your albums, I (and I'm versed in both analog and digital fyi) can think of few if any objective sound quality reasons. A suggestion that in general an ADC'd LP produces better than redbook digital file would be false IMO. I'll give you that it is possible, I don't want to argue that point, but I've heard my share of "branded" 3rd party ADC'd LPs using reference gear (files easily found on share sites) and none of them compare in sound quality with a good digital release, and objectively we must compare good to good. The home ADCs sound flat and lifeless (to me) which strikes me as irony...not qualities I associate with analog.

[Jabs1542]

There may be many many subjective reasons to ADC your albums, I (and I'm versed in both analog and digital fyi) can think of few if any objective sound quality reasons. A suggestion that in general an ADC'd LP produces better than redbook digital file would be false IMO. I'll give you that it is possible, I don't want to argue that point, but I've heard my share of "branded" 3rd party ADC'd LPs using reference gear (files easily found on share sites) and none of them compare in sound quality with a good digital release, and objectively we must compare good to good. The home ADCs sound flat and lifeless (to me) which strikes me as irony...not qualities I associate with analog.

 

I think what you are missing is that many of us are recording vinyl treasures that will never be released digitally. I myself value my time too much to record an album that's available at the local used CD shop for $1 - $3. However, it is nice to be able to play back my vinyl recordings in my car or on my portable rig.

[dtc]

There may be many many subjective reasons to ADC your albums, I (and I'm versed in both analog and digital fyi) can think of few if any objective sound quality reasons. A suggestion that in general an ADC'd LP produces better than redbook digital file would be false IMO. I'll give you that it is possible, I don't want to argue that point, but I've heard my share of "branded" 3rd party ADC'd LPs using reference gear (files easily found on share sites) and none of them compare in sound quality with a good digital release, and objectively we must compare good to good. The home ADCs sound flat and lifeless (to me) which strikes me as irony...not qualities I associate with analog.

 

That's one of the things that makes this hobby fun. People have different hearing, different tastes and different systems. There is no one correct answer to this question. Just go to any listening session. Some people will be very excited by a demo system and others will walk out unimpressed. In my system, I usually like the sound of vinyl better than CD and I am not alone. And, on my system, the digitized vinyl sounds very much like the vinyl, and, after cleanup, often better, than the vinyl. So, for me, I will continue to digitize vinyl.

 

No need to argue, just recognize that different people have different experiences.

[StephenJK]

Merci beaucoup Monsieur pour la belle offre que je suppose gratuite (?!?) provenant de le générosité de votre coeur...

 

The thing is I like to keep my LPs just in case in 10 years some new technology comes out with a new way of ripping/digitizing records that is easy and definitive.

 

Or If I fell off and hit my head and decide to become a hard core reborn vinyl lover, buy a killer turntable, ditch JRemote and work my legs between sides A and B....

 

You never know!

 

Thanks again Monsieur

 

De rien. Si vous changez d'avis laissez-moi savoir.

[StephenJK]

There may be many many subjective reasons to ADC your albums, I (and I'm versed in both analog and digital fyi) can think of few if any objective sound quality reasons. A suggestion that in general an ADC'd LP produces better than redbook digital file would be false IMO. I'll give you that it is possible, I don't want to argue that point, but I've heard my share of "branded" 3rd party ADC'd LPs using reference gear (files easily found on share sites) and none of them compare in sound quality with a good digital release, and objectively we must compare good to good. The home ADCs sound flat and lifeless (to me) which strikes me as irony...not qualities I associate with analog.

 

In my experience, I've found that after having transcribed close to 1,000 LP titles that:

 

1. Naturally, a good turntable is critical, along with a great cartridge with everything properly setup. Frankly, I don't fault anyone for getting rid of their turntable. I doubt that many were ever properly setup and it takes a lot of hardware, skill, experience and patience to do so.

 

2. Obviously, the digital copy can only sound as good as the original recording. A lousy record makes for a poor digital copy. But, I did find with my father's 10" jazz LP's from the 40's and 50's that the sound was greatly improved after having run them through a crackle filter.

 

3. It's a lot of work, no matter how you look at it. Between cleaning the records, playing the album to record it, doing any file conversion, cover art and track information lookup (or manual entry), running any filters and then saving in the desired file format you don't do this except as a serious hobbyist.

 

I got started some time ago. I had a focus on digital music after having ripped about 700 CD's. I was using my turntable very much and was getting lazy about it. I had ordered a "special" Japanese version of Tommy Bolin's debut album on CD - Teaser. It supposedly had a great sound, much better than the original release.

 

I was playing it at home and mentioned to my wife that we also had the recording on LP, an original 1975 pressing on the Nemperor label. I had a great CD player at the time, a Bryston CDP-1. I think the turntable was a VPI Classic I with a Dynavector DV20X2H.

 

There was no comparison! With those two titles the LP was significantly and obviously superior in every way except for convenience and portability. I had been in danger of buying CD's that I already owned on LP. That stopped, and I started looking into a way of recording at the highest possible resolution.

 

That led to the Korg MR-2000S digital recorder that I've been using ever since. It's no longer manufactured, but was suitable for professional use as a final two track mixdown machine for the files you planned on sending to the CD plant for pressing.

 

I find that any LP I have recorded and eventually saved as a 24/96 FLAC file sounds either the same as the LP (meaning with soundstage, depth, instrument placement, resolution of subtle supporting sounds etc.) or in some cases not better, but certainly quieter as the use of a crackle filter was able to do some cleanup on the LP.

 

It is important to add that all of my LP's would be Goldmine graded at EX or better, as far as the vinyl is concerned. If I buy a used LP and it has a scratch on it, unless it's something really special or a rare find it gets snapped in half and thrown away.

 

My main goal was, and continues to be recording all of my LP's to digital format so that they are easily portable and so they can be added to my digital music library.

[bluesman]

I think what you are missing is that many of us are recording vinyl treasures that will never be released digitally.

Although I used to believe that, I've been amazed at the sheer volume of such treasures now available in digital form of some kind. For example, I have several of my grandparents' original 78s of Stokowski & the Philadelphia Orchestra from the early 1920s that turn out to be available on CD from Music & Arts - so there's simply no reason for me to rip them. Similarly, I found all of my father's Nat King Cole records (of which I have several multi-disc 78 albums form the early 1940s) on CD - and Spotify has the complete Capitol recordings on line.

 

It is nice to be able to play back my vinyl recordings in my car or on my portable rig.

yes it is - but again, there are many digital options for 95+% of recorded music.

[StephenJK]

Although I used to believe that, I've been amazed at the sheer volume of such treasures now available in digital form of some kind. For example, I have several of my grandparents' original 78s of Stokowski & the Philadelphia Orchestra from the early 1920s that turn out to be available on CD from Music & Arts - so there's simply no reason for me to rip them. Similarly, I found all of my father's Nat King Cole records (of which I have several multi-disc 78 albums form the early 1940s) on CD - and Spotify has the complete Capitol recordings on line.

 

 

yes it is - but again, there are many digital options for 95+% of recorded music.

 

Bluesman, all great points. In my case the answer was that I own over 1,500 LP titles and didn't want to have to buy them again. Investing in a decent digital recorder was the only additional cost, the turntable setup I already had.

[dummy]

I think what you are missing is that many of us are recording vinyl treasures that will never be released digitally. I myself value my time too much to record an album that's available at the local used CD shop for $1 - $3.

 

+8

[bluesman]

Bluesman, all great points. In my case the answer was that I own over 1,500 LP titles and didn't want to have to buy them again. Investing in a decent digital recorder was the only additional cost, the turntable setup I already had.

 

I own about 2,000 records and want neither to buy them again nor to rip them. I'd have to rank them by my desire to listen to them soon, as I wouldn't be able to hear a rip of the last one for at least 3 years at an average rip rate of 3 a day 5 days a week. After doing the first few, I decided to indulge my love of vinyl when the mood strikes me and just enjoy the music the rest of the time. Most of the digital versions of most of mine are available at no cost on basic streaming services like Spotify, and you can get rid of the commercials for a few dollars a month. I already have Amazon Prime, and the discovery that music and video come with it made my day!

 

Maybe when I retire fully I'll want to rip all my records. But it'll have to wait until I learn to play the pedal steel guitar, a task I abandoned the first time I tried because I still sounded like a student on it after 3 years of practicing an hour+ daily. I've been a professional guitarist and pianist for over 50 years (in AFM local 77 for 30 of them), but I simply could not make a simple single neck with 3 pedals and 4 levers sound like it should. So that's #1 on my bucket list, with LP ripping well below it. And the really good news is that an excellent basic pedal steel guitar costs less than an upgrade for any of my audio equipment (or my espresso machine).

 

David

[dummy]

 

3. It's a lot of work, no matter how you look at it. Between cleaning the records, playing the album to record it, doing any file conversion, cover art and track information lookup (or manual entry), running any filters and then saving in the desired file format you don't do this except as a serious hobbyist.

 

 

 

Even though It is a tedious process, isn't there a part of you that likes doing it? I didn't when I tried it because I didn't had the proper equipment nor the knowledge to do a great job so I though It sucked.

 

But, I have this strange enjoyment scanning my booklets and creating pdf's out of it. It is a multi steps process and also quite tedious but somehow it is soothing and relaxing for me... I quite like doing It even though It may be the most boring thing ever to do!

[Rock Bottom]

I own about 2,000 records and want neither to buy them again nor to rip them. I'd have to rank them by my desire to listen to them soon, as I wouldn't be able to hear a rip of the last one for at least 3 years at an average rip rate of 3 a day 5 days a week.

Indeed

Excellent comment

[Audio_ELF]

I own about 2,000 records and want neither to buy them again nor to rip them. I'd have to rank them by my desire to listen to them soon, as I wouldn't be able to hear a rip of the last one for at least 3 years at an average rip rate of 3 a day 5 days a week. After doing the first few, I decided to indulge my love of vinyl when the mood strikes me and just enjoy the music the rest of the time.

One option ... though more hit and miss ... is that you set the recorder up as part of your main rig. Then when the mood takes you to listen to a vinyl recording, you make a transcription of it.

 

As I commented above, one option is that you can follow is simply doing a transcription without any subsequent processing (excepting cutting into tracks). This works well if your vinyl is in good condition and scrupulously clean.

[StephenJK]

Even though It is a tedious process, isn't there a part of you that likes doing it? I didn't when I tried it because I didn't had the proper equipment nor the knowledge to do a great job so I though It sucked.

 

But, I have this strange enjoyment scanning my booklets and creating pdf's out of it. It is a multi steps process and also quite tedious but somehow it is soothing and relaxing for me... I quite like doing It even though It may be the most boring thing ever to do!

 

Oh, I don't mind the effort, it's all towards having my LP's in a portable digital format. I just wanted to make sure that anyone contemplating doing this would know what they were getting into.

 

I thoroughly enjoy being able to sit at the supper table enjoying a glass of red wine and being able to select from any of the CD's or LP's stored on my music server. I don't even have to get up, I can use my iPad as a remote control and adjust the volume as well.

[bluesman]

One option ... though more hit and miss ... is that you set the recorder up as part of your main rig.

It is, Eloise - my phono stage is a Parasound with USB output, my entire system sits together, and my server is always running. But I assume I'm typical in listening most often to only one side of an LP or to the particular tracks I crave at the moment. It's rare that I have the time and desire to listen to an entire album uninterrupted and without distraction. I tried letting it play to the run-out groove while doing something else, but that resulted in long stretches of "phhht...phhht...phhht...phhht..." that had to be deleted from the files before getting down to track separation, tagging etc.

 

Maybe when I'm fully retired and have mastered the pedal steel guitar, I'll be happy to listen to (and rip) albums, symphonies, and operas in toto at a sitting. But it's not going to happen any time soon (especially if my progress on pedal steel last time I tried is any indication.....)

 

 

David

[Forehaven]

what software did you use David?

[bluesman]

what software did you use David?

I've been using Audacity since it first came onto the scene, which has to be more than 10 years ago because I remember setting it up on a white box machine I'd just built for audio running Win2k and updating Audacity with each new version. I've had multiple recording programs because one comes with most ADCs made for live music recording, and I've gone through many of those (e.g. Midiman, TEAC). So I've played with Ableton, Cubase and the other names as well as many open source recorders. I never took vinyl ripping seriously because the common belief was that music hardware wasn't good enough for audiophiles. But when I tried a serious rip with my TEAC 1800, I discovered that it was a very fine ADC and an equally fine DAC, with nothing to be ashamed about in comparison with contemporary devices aimed at audiophiles and anywhere close to the price.

 

Audacity's now pretty easy to use for ripping vinyl, and I simply don't understand or agree with those who criticize the program for the sound quality of the files they create. The software's excellent, in my opinion, and the wavs it makes sound excellent to me through my systems. I convert them all to FLACs, which also sound great to me.

 

You can split the tracks by visual inspection of the waveform and get it right 99% of the time. Titling tracks is easy, as are normalization and saving the files ready to tag, index and play. The only minor problem I've run into is when trying to tag a rip as though it were the commercial CD. Many of the "official" track lengths on the albums aren't exactly the same as those on commercial CD versions of the same recordings. The disparity can be even greater if you separate the ripped tracks by eyeballing the waveform and/or using audible silence as a guide.

 

Even a few seconds' disparity can make it difficult for MusicBrainz Picard to assemble the tracks into a taggable album package, but this has been no more than a minor annoyance (it usually leaves out 1 or 2 but gets the rest). If I really have a problem with this, I use Mp3Tag to manually add the missing data. Of course, I haven't ripped more than 5 or 6 records after an initial run of 2, because the work isn't worth it to me. But I did do a few with Audacity to learn how to use the above features, and it works fine.

 

BTW, the timing problem affects CD rips too, which is how I arrived at my solution. Even different issues of the same program can have track lengths that differ by a few seconds.

[dtc]

 

You can split the tracks by visual inspection of the waveform and get it right 99% of the time. Titling tracks is easy, as are normalization and saving the files ready to tag, index and play. The only minor problem I've run into is when trying to tag a rip as though it were the commercial CD. Many of the "official" track lengths on the albums aren't exactly the same as those on commercial CD versions of the same recordings. The disparity can be even greater if you separate the ripped tracks by eyeballing the waveform and/or using audible silence as a guide.

 

Even a few seconds' disparity can make it difficult for MusicBrainz Picard to assemble the tracks into a taggable album package, but this has been no more than a minor annoyance (it usually leaves out 1 or 2 but gets the rest). ...

 

BTW, the timing problem affects CD rips too, which is how I arrived at my solution. Even different issues of the same program can have track lengths that differ by a few seconds.

 

Vinyl Studio is, imo, a better solution for splitting tracks and tagging. I sound like a salesman, but it really works well.

 

VS connects to several databases, but Discogs is the best for vinyl. It is a free database and has over 18M vinyls in it. There are, of course, duplicates, but, at least for me, it contains almost all the albums I am looking for. And, since the entries are for the vinyl, you do not get the different orders, different tracks and different timings associated with CD databases.

 

Lookup is integrated into the program. You specify the artist and album name and VS looks up the album. You often get more than one hit - different releases, different lables, different years, etc. You just choose the one you want. It then imports the track names and timings into the program. As you say, you then have to manually move the track breaks around, if for no other reason than because of the lead in and silence between tracks. But that is an easy task - you just drag the visual tack marker to the right place, while listening. Once you have established the end of a track by listening, you can easily move a marker to the beginning of the next tack, removing the silence from the track.

 

Due to the nature of the Discogs API, VS does not always find the album or there are too many responses. In that case, you can just go to Discogs with your browser and search there to find the album. You can then simply copy the release number or the catalog number and paste that into the VS lookup and it will pull in the data. I actually end up doing this a lot.

 

For albums that are not in the database, VS has an option to search for silence for track breaks. It works pretty well, but is clearly a last resort. Alternatively, you can just type in the track timings if you have them.

 

VS will automatically fill in the album, artist, track name and track length tags. You can also add composer, conductor and genre, plus comment tags. VS also copies the cover art from Discogs and stores in the output file for each track.

 

 

End of commercial ...

 

 

Yesterday I was digitizing You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' by the Righteous Brothers - a number one hit in 1965 that also was a huge hit in the movie Top Gun twenty years latter. It is about 3:45 long, which was too long for the DJs of the time. They wanted everything to be 3 minutes or less. So the releases purposely listed a shorter time on it (3:30), hoping the DJs would never notice. Of course, once it became a hit, they did not care.

 

Interestingly, the best I can tell, this album was never released on CD. The single is out there on various CDs, but not the whole original album. So, a number one hit album that never made it to CD.

[Audio_ELF]

It is, Eloise - my phono stage is a Parasound with USB output, my entire system sits together, and my server is always running. But I assume I'm typical in listening most often to only one side of an LP or to the particular tracks I crave at the moment. It's rare that I have the time and desire to listen to an entire album uninterrupted and without distraction.

I guess if you're not typically listening to whole albums my idea goes out the window... Different methods of listening for each of us: I very rarely listen to individual tracks, almost always a whole album.