a question about digitizing stuff from vinyl

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so my friend has lent me his entire record collection for a year, it's quite huge and full of great and rare stuff and I want to dump a whole bunch of it onto my computer before he gets back.

whaddya think is the best software (and technique, if there is one) for doing this? presently I'm using a mac (powerbook with a line in) and I have Peak DV at my disposal. will this program do the job? do i need peak pro? do i need something completely different?

any tips, hints, tricks and stuff would be greatly appreciated.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 16 November 2003 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Elvis Telecom to thread!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 16 November 2003 23:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i dunno about the software, sorry.

However a simple idea that i never thought of until shown is that if you zoom in and in and in on a pop or scratch and magnify the fucker you can successfully cut out that tiny weeny bit of a second of the recording that they take up, and its not noticable at all when you listen.

― gaz (gaz), Sunday, 16 November 2003 23:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Depending on how much you want to invest in the project, you might want to consider getting a recording-quality soundcard. Ideally it would be a soundcard that has the A/D converters outside of the computer itself, because the inside of a computer is generally a noisy place, electromagnetically speaking. Unfortunately, it will set you back a few bones. But I would invest in that first before shelling out for a fancy recording software.

― o. nate (onate), Sunday, 16 November 2003 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Kill your friend and keep his rekkids 4evah.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Sunday, 16 November 2003 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

if anyone wants to talk about digitizing stuff from tape, that'd be cool too.

― etc, Monday, 17 November 2003 00:02 (twenty-one years ago)

i use Cool Edit Pro for my recording and editing, for both vinyl and tapes. i have a Soundblaster (can't remember the exact model) which does the job perfectly (quality is excellent and there's no machine noise on the line input).

noise reduction: i take a sample of the media where there's no music (e.g. from the run-in groove of the record) and remove about 30% of the resulting noise from the entire recording. i've been nothing less than completely happy with doing it this way.

if you're planning on removing pops and clicks, again less is more when using the automated methods. too much and you *will* be taking out bits of vocal, acoustic guitars, trumpets, percussion, and so on. i do a very light automated removal of the clicks and then painstakingly remove every single remaining one by hand. i am insane, by the way.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been using Soundsoap for removing noise from video footage and it's quite nice.

Don't think I can afford to get a new sound card (and I don't even know if that's possible with a PB)!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

It's possible - there are external soundcards that use USB and FireWire connections that are compatible with laptops. But if you're happy with the sound quality you're getting with the existing soundcard, then it's probably not worth the cost of getting a new one.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago)

you probably don't need to replace your soundcard, unless it's a total piece of crap.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago)

remove about 30% of the resulting noise from the entire recording

D'oh! It never occurred to me that removing less than 100% would improve the outcome. I've always been disappointed with the results because I just got rid of all noise.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah. it took a bit of trial and error for me to get to that point. i originally used about 50% but that made the recordings sound a bit dulled.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago)

total idiot question - what's more important, a good computer or a good stereo/turntable/tapedeck/etc?

― etc, Monday, 17 November 2003 00:50 (twenty-one years ago)

good stereo. the source is always the most crucial point

― the surface noise (electricsound), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

The computer end is probably less important. As long as it can handle the software being used, it can do the job.

Your stereo setup plays a bigger role in determining the outcome.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Monday, 17 November 2003 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Cool Edit seconded! Also, you might want to have a look at Depopper.

― Jez (Jez), Monday, 17 November 2003 09:26 (twenty-one years ago)

It helps to have some software to either normalize or compress or re-EQ the dump from vinyl to hard disk. Also, if you have a wave editor, you can digitally edit out the more obvious pops and clicks. It takes practice, but once you know how, it's a great skill :) (if you have an "auto snap to zero" feature on your wave editor, this is where it can come in handy)

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 17 November 2003 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

to etc... Both. It depends. For better sound quality of the final thing, better turntable, needle, mixer, stereo is better. For not having to wait for your computer to page memory all the time, better computer. Choose wisely.

― donut bitch (donut), Monday, 17 November 2003 09:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I use Cool Edit 2000 and Sound Forge 4.0 on a PC, running the audio through an Echo Darla20 card. I don't tend to use the CE2k noise reduction technique suggested by ES above, except on tapes, but I'm all for redrawing tiny sections of the waveform in SF to eliminate particularly nasty clicks and pops.

I generally record at 32/44.1, with plenty of headroom (the Darla has a noisefloor of around -85dB, which is way below the vinyl noise anyway), and normalise or soft-limit across the entire side of vinyl after I've removed any spurious spikes.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 17 November 2003 10:28 (twenty-one years ago)

well peak has a noise-reduction plug-in I use, also a "normalize" function that pumps up the levels to the loudest point short of distortion... is this kinda what you meant?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 17 November 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I use Peak 3 on a Mac. The cool thing is I can import outside EQ/Noise Reduction plugins into Peak and use them within the program to clean up my vinyl transfers. I usually just use EQ to cut and boost a little. I don't recommend normalizing everything you import off vinyl. Just make sure the level coming into the computer is as high as possible from the beginning , without allowing it to clip. Normalizing will just make everything sound LOUD but at the expense of losing the dynamics in the music you're importing. It's more of a tradeoff than you'd expect. Good Luck!

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 17 November 2003 18:50 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks! what plug-ins do you use? do you have any particular opinions on soundsoap?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 17 November 2003 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Normalizing will just make everything sound LOUD but at the expense of losing the dynamics in the music you're importing

That isn't true actually. Normalising at 100% will simply raise the level of all samples to the point where the highest levelled sample is just below the level of clipping - so it will have no compression effect.

― David (David), Monday, 17 November 2003 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

David - You're right. Shame on me. Thinking of Limiting. Though I still avoid normalizing in most cases. I'm into just having levels come in hot and leaving them that way.

Slutsky - Don't know much about Soundsoap. I use TC EQ's in Peak, mainly. I like 'em.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 17 November 2003 19:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm into just having levels come in hot and leaving them that way

Yes. Good to preserve the original dynamics of the sound rather than a heavy-handed 'remastering' job. If you're running tracks through any eq and/or noise reduction/de-clicking processes I would also recommend recording the original file at 24 or 32 bit. This will reduce calculation error and avoid any subtle degradation of the sound. When processing is complete you should then downsample to 16 bit for burning to CD (although I also generally keep a 32 bit copy of the original .wav files in case I want to go back and do further processing).

― David (David), Monday, 17 November 2003 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm into just having levels come in hot and leaving them that way.
...
Yes. Good to preserve the original dynamics of the sound rather than a heavy-handed 'remastering' job.

This is fair enough, but I prefer to err on the cautious side with input levels (loss of resolution if you're peaking a few dB shy of fullscale = nothing to worry about if yr running at 24bit with a good, quiet card), so that I don't end up having to unpick clipping events induced by pops and clicks.

Of late, I've had no flippin' choice when it comes to input level as I've misplaced my inline attenuator and vinyl comes in as hot as you like (combination of Ortofon MC25FL and high-gain NVA phono amp = too hot for many analogue input stages).

Has anyone got a...er...(cough) favourite flavour of dither/noise-shaping when going back to 16bit for CD burning?

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 17 November 2003 19:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Following some reading on the Cool Edit (now Adobe 'Audition') forums and this web page - http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.htm - I use the Cool Edit 44.1 khz pattern (although I notice the Lukin page gives a good rating to the Waves L1 Ultramaximizer 'Ultra' preset so I might try that).

― David (David), Monday, 17 November 2003 19:42 (twenty-one years ago)

wow, people, thanks for all the information! even if i only understand just under half of it! this will be a good reference resource thread in the future for moi-même

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 17 November 2003 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I have been a happy user of Pyro for a year now, digitizing my 400+ records little by little. You can do the same with tapes. It's an easy program with a lot of useful tools, and the learning curve is just right. It's not what I'd consider a professional level program, but it does produce excellent results quickly, easily and it's about $30. Happy digitizing!

― Davlo (Davlo), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 15:14 (twenty-one years ago)

i do a very light automated removal of the clicks and then painstakingly remove every single remaining one by hand. i am insane, by the way.

ESOJ, either your actual job title is "declicker of vinyl, forever", or you've got *way* too much time on your hands. I've half a mind to keep you busy be shipping over a bunch of ancient 7"s so you can get busy with the fizzy for me...

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 16:44 (twenty-one years ago)

i have run my 4track into the microphone (or audio in) jack via l/8jack & i use Dart software. took me about 5minutes to learn.

― kephm, Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Elvis Telecom to thread!
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), November 16th, 2003.

Is Chris like the ultimate DIY audiophile or something? What with his homemade shelving system n all...

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

this is a tremendous thread.

― dan (dan), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago)

ESOJ, either your actual job title is "declicker of vinyl, forever", or you've got *way* too much time on your hands.

possibly the former, unfortunately not the latter. i think i've managed to only finish about 50 or 60 songs in the last 6 months.

― the surface noise (electricsound), Tuesday, 18 November 2003 22:01 (twenty-one years ago)

can you or someone elaborate on this remove 30% of the noise deal. i think i get the concept - it's making me think of how the sound guy on the set in 'living in oblivion' needs to record 'room tone'. so that it will get subtracted from the actual audio. (?)

but i don't yet get how you're actually doing this. so ok now you have your song and you have your vinyl noise. what now?

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 03:44 (twenty-one years ago)

1) locate the non-music section at the start of your recording (or at the end).

2) select a small portion of this section. i normally select about 0.5 - 1 sec. you can either directly sample this section using your noise removal utility OR put it through a heavy clicks and pops removal filter first (which is what i do, much better results)

3) once you have a sample of the noise, set your noise removal filter to take away 30% of the noise

4) go back to your waveform and select the whole thing

5) set your noise removal filter to go

6) wahey

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

there's a couple of subtle things that can be tweaked but it's probably not going to make a massive difference unless yr anal

― the surface noise (electricsound), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 04:04 (twenty-one years ago)

ok so it's the 'noise removal filter' that's confusing me. is this some kind of feature or plug-in for cooledit?

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 06:19 (twenty-one years ago)

well, i found this feature in nero wave editor, so i'm assuming it's part of your audio software. no choice there as to amount though

so you buy/get a plugin such as soundsoap to use with your recording program?

― ron (ron), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 06:42 (twenty-one years ago)

ok so it's the 'noise removal filter' that's confusing me. is this some kind of feature or plug-in for cooledit?

Yes. It's part of Cool Edit itself.

― David (David), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 10:04 (twenty-one years ago)

OT but still cool.

http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 14:06 (twenty-one years ago)

appears that if i wanted to do this (noise reduction) in sonar, i'd need to aquire a dx plugin for this purpose. i will continue to be too lazy to record lps onto the computer ;-)

― ron (ron), Thursday, 20 November 2003 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

dohh!

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 20 November 2003 02:19 (twenty-one years ago)

plus you're taking care of business over there, who needs me recording em anyway

― ron (ron), Thursday, 20 November 2003 03:32 (twenty-one years ago)

you know what this reminds me of though is one time when my old band was recording, and we wanted to use this vocal sample from a gangstarr track. but we had no acapella version and the original track was clashing badly with our musics. BUT i had an instrumental, so i fucked around with overlaying the normal sample over a sample of the instrumental, except with the phase reversed. it actually kind of worked. not totally isolating the vocals, but greatly reducing the backing music

― ron (ron), Thursday, 20 November 2003 03:36 (twenty-one years ago)

also is that right about the "room tone" in the movies? so do they have to have some special device to reduce the noise on their soundtrack, or how do they do it?

― ron (ron), Thursday, 20 November 2003 03:37 (twenty-one years ago)

they may have special expensive noise redux machines

― the surface noise (electricsound), Thursday, 20 November 2003 03:40 (twenty-one years ago)

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