Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

I've been working on old Christmas albums lately... mostly thrift store finds. Since I really don't want to spend a lot of time going over each track manually removing clicks/pops that click repair missed I started doing a double pass through click repair... first pass I set on 25 and reverse, then I run the files through again at 10 but no reverse.
When I first thought of doing a second pass at a lower level, I left reverse checked and noticed that no additional clicks/pops were being detected, but when I unchecked reverse, I found it to be detecting more clicks/pops.
Any thoughts? Is this a bad practice? Just being lazy with beat up albums that I will only listen to for a few weeks out of the year.

 

This is more or less my approach as well. Where things differ from a professional environment compared to a hobby is there aren't other people around to tweak gear to its optimum performance. For example, necessity has made me much better at installing and aligning phono cartridges than I ever thought I'd be. I used to be the "just take it to someone who knows what they're doing" guy.

The most expensive part of the "learning experience" (so far) was bending the cantilever on a week old Dynavector 10x5.

 

Does anyone adjust the EQ of their needledrops to compensate for their cartridge's frequency response?

 

No. I am happy with freq response. I'd get another cartridge before I would do EQ.

Once is a while a rare tape needs something of a boost, but not records.

 

This does make sense. I think I would do that first pass in reverse in a milder setting maybe 18 or 19 in an attempt to go as low as possible but still do the same clean up. Some times of music lend themselves to a lower setting.

I'm now considering doing clickrepair to drops I did many years ago before I used that software. Rip the CDRs back to wav and CR them. I had done a quick hand removal of any ticks that were obvious at the time. But a few of my drops are favorite listening. They deserve a pass of mild CR.

 

Yes I have an AT-OC9ML/ii cartridge and it is bright so I roll off the highs using Izotopes ozone 5. I resently bought RX4 basic and will have some questions. I see this is the best place for them.

 

I agree, your phono pre/cart should be doing a good job of it, But on those occasions where the recording is bright (Outfield-Bangin' or The Shamen's Phorward) a little help is needed i was actually going to try using my Maverick Tube dac as a buffer on those lp's, it has analog pass through for the tube

 

Yes. I use a low output moving coil cart that lifts the top end a bit. I recorded a pink noise track from a test record and came up with an EQ curve that restores the correct frequency response. On records that have the highs rolled off, I might skip the EQ. But on "hot treble" records, it's a must.

 

I once did captures of all of my carts using my CBS test record and created EQ profiles, but only used them a few times.

Lately I've been in the practice of swapping cartridges to compensate for the LP's EQ.

 

I'm thinking the ultimate needledropping table would have multiple tonearms for just this reason.

 

I just keep a row of pre-mounted headshells near my SP-15. It took a bit of doing, but I've managed to match the carts/shells to the point where re-balancing VTF/VTA isn't necessary.

 

I agree and “to each his own” My thing is to remove all added needle noise and in my case subsonic noise possibly cause by my tone arm. I also have been as of late processing to the “extreme” the silence in-between the tracks. I get noise levels in the -80s and the sound transfer from music/ floor noise to near silence is very smooth.

 

Interesting thread here about the benefits of using an external hard drive to record to: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=297205

 

Just to keep the thread going, I'll offer a new (for me) workflow that makes delivering multiple sample rates and bit depths much easier. Below is a screenshot of a project in RX4. It has already been declicked and trimmed and has had track markers assigned (which I had to do in Audition). So the last steps are EQ, gain to taste, resample/dither, then export tracks as wave files (all in RX4). It's super easy to make whatever flavor of hirez or Redbook or anything in between.

 

I also just started using RX4 gloomrider. I am reworking my process to do everything in RX. The way RX4 save to a RXdoc file by default and to use programs like Clickrepair I have to export to a wave file is a little added work so I am attempting to use declick at a very low setting “single band level 1” and see if it works as well as Click repair at level 2.

 

I have to. Otherwise, my AT 150mlx, with the standard loading, is too bright. I have created a perfect inverse curve with a parametric EQ. That solution until I can get a different cart where that won't be necessary.

On very dull recordings, I may skip the compensatory EQ.

 

My de-click approach is different than most. I use RX4's declicker, but manually. After the record has been cleaned, there may still be some clicks. Really bad ones get the wood glue treatment.

But after seeing what bulk declick does to the waveform in spectrograph view ("thins" the most percussive aspects of the music), I moved to the manual mode. Even faint clicks are easy to see in spectrograph view. It might take 1-2 hours per LP, depending on how bad it is. I've probably had one or two that took 4 hours.

In RX4, select audio a little bigger than the click, <CMD>-2, listen for next click, rinse and repeat.

 

With RX4 using a usb drive for the temp folder location caused many issues.
Apparently the bandwidth of the usb cable slowed it down to much. So now I record and process to a internal sata drive.

 

I do that as well. I am in a constant state of rethinking my work flow so anything I say here is up for revision in a few days or hours as it may go. Using Click repair at level 2 was much easier and at the time I thought sounded better than a 4 hour manual declick Project.

 

I did that too, made EQ profiles from CBS test records. But it bugged me a little having to use EQ like that instead of already having a completely neutral cartridge. So I've tweaked the cartridge loading at the preamp until the response is ridiculously flat. I use that as my reference and usually don't need to do any EQ'ing. If an LP really needs it, I'll increase or decrease the loading (my preamp has sockets to make it easy) to either brighten things up a bit or provide some extra warmth, respectively. Sometimes I'll swap in the Shure to handle the oddball LP that has passages even the AT160ML can't track.

 

I've used various EQ profiles over the years because honestly I've yet to find a cartridge that's truly flat, at least in my budget.

Besides, there are a variety of things in the chain that can cause non-flat EQ results, be it loading, the phono stage, tonearm resonances, cartridge mechanical resonance, sound card, etc. For instance in my system, I've always found that no matter what the cartridge, my left channel rises about 2-3dB in the treble range compared to the right channel. It may be an issue with my sound card setup. I might be able to change this, but I just compensate with EQ. I recently discovered that loading mt ATOC9MLII at 20 ohms instead of 100 nicely tamed the treble rise that's part of the cartridge's nature. My phono stage is fixed at 100 ohms, but I used loading plugs the same way folks do for MM cartridge except that I put 25ohm resisters in parallel with the 100phm phono stage to get the 20ohm loading. I also notice that the AT has a bit of a hole in the lower treble region when I compare pink noise from test records to generated pink noise curves, so I boost with a low Q value allowed me to get a nice flat response out of the cartridge.

Could I have changed the cartridge, yes, but why? I paid over $300 for it and I've got a mortgage, etc., so I make it due. Besides, the two AT cartridges I've owned, both of which were too bright without compensation track a gazillion times better than the three Ortofon cartridges I've owned, including the hallowed 2M Black, which always disappointed me.

So to each his or her own. Nothing wrong with some EQ.

 

The AT150MLX I have is also an amazing tracker, but I've read nothing but great things about the Ortofon Black. I'm surprised to read that the tracking ability isn't on par with the AT's.

 

It was nowhere nearly as good a tracker on my system (Pro-Ject Xpression II). I keep reading people online describing the 2M Black as having "silky highs" but I never experienced that. It was always slightly harsh with an edge as those who heard me needledrop samples on here can attest. I tried every alignment approach known to man and could never dial it in. Strong sibilant sounds never sounded clean. Part of the problem seemed to be that the distance between the stylus tip and the mounting screws made it impossible to achieve a Baerwald alignment on my Pro-Ject 8.6cc arm. It was the same with the 2M Bronze. It initially sounded good overall but sibilants always sounded grainy. Both the AT150MLX and now especially the OC9, sail right through those rough spots with a very natural sibilant sound. It's important to dial in their alignment, but once you do, they're great.

 

I have taken this shortcut, not recommended by the purist, but in some instances had better results than just a straight transfer. A cartridge change is the recommended adjustment, and I agree to that. For example The Shure M-91 ED is a demure cartridge with some emphasis in the mid bass region, with a very sweet top end. Certain recordings sound superb on this cartridge. If I am doing a needle drop for an Allman brothers album, let's say, which tend to be warmish sounding, the Shure M-91 ED may result in a muted sound, obviously dull and unexciting. Without any other cartridge available, the cartridge response can be "uptilted" by decreasing the bass slightly, and increase the treble, turn over freq in the ranges of 400 Hz and 2.5 kHz respectively. (This results in a nearly linear EQ adjustment, and only 2dB goes a long way) The graphic equalizer can also be utilized for linear EQ adjustment. Linear EQ adjustment does not alter the timbre nor tonal balance of a recording, nor does it introduce any additional harmonic distortion.

Since the linear uptilt/ downtilt does not alter the character of the recording, I feel this adjustment is fair and easily reversible without any added harmonic distortion. I hesitate to add/subtract EQ in localized areas since this does alter the timbre and balance of the recording as intended by the engineer. EQ is generally applied after the source, but always a good idea to note the copy has been altered in some way, and what source it was copied from... including stamper number of the vinyl record or digital disc.

 

Yes, some good EQ can really do the trick sometimes. It doesn't hurt that digital EQ has really improved over the years. For me, because I listen to a lot of records straight from the vinyl just as often as from needledrops, I'd rather have accurate playback right from the start. It has taken a lot of experimentation to get to that point. I swear I sometimes think I like fiddling around with the equipment almost as much as playing the music.