Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Vocalpoint, May 11, 2011.

  1. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Actually that's a great idea Grant thanks, the cd itself can be had dirt cheap, good solution!
     
  2. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I was just about to write the same thing: these levels don't necessarily have to be written in stone as they are often the mastering guy or gal's intent, not the artist.

    One aspect I don't see mentioned is how some records, especially longer ones, seem to have the levels drop as they get closer to the center. This seemed to be especially popular with some 80's albums I've encountered. In such a case, I use a program with a volume envelope to remove the downward slant to the right. RX4 Advanced has a really nice new feature for this called Clip Gain but Audition and other DAWs have similar approaches.

    As for level differences among songs, I always aim for listening then balancing the level of the vocals and instruments so that they sound like the same band playing in the same room with the same instruments.

    Two other tweaks I've been meaning to mention here for awhile are removing obstrusive cases of AC hum (60Hz in North America, 50Hz in Europe, although some LPs have both depending on where they were recorded, mixed, or mastered). It can be tricky to remove hum without mangling the bass notes with filter ringing, but sometimes the results can be great and really give a lot more clarity to the sound of a recording.

    Also, I always try to fix tape drop-outs. For example, there's a really obvious one in a crash cymbal about 2/3 of the way through the Stones' Wild Horses that always bugs me, so I fix it with some RX Spectral Repair.
     
    The FRiNgE, Grant and gloomrider like this.
  3. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Also. in the 70s and early 80s, it was sometimes requested that the cutting engineer boost the first song, or a minute or so of the first song on each side in the attempt to grab a radio programmer's attention. One can clearly see this when the album is recorded into an editor. I also correct this.

    So, there are some good reasons to normalize.

    Take the song "I've Got The Music In Me" by The Kiki Dee Band. Engineer Gus Dudgeon during the period of 1974-1975 liked to use severe riding gain for impact. The problem is, the songs starts out unnaturally soft, along with the vocal, then it gets louder, like some kid turning up the volume knob. What I did was make the level of her vocal consistent throughout the song so it sounds realistic. Of course, the music itself was also boosted, so I reduced the peaks ion the intro. But, it now sounds like it was played.
     
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  4. samn

    samn New Member

    Tqvm
    Tqvm Steve. I did apologise repeatedly for not being knowledgeable on this. However, since then I learnt the hard way and my perspective on this has been clearer now especially on item 5. It so happens my Fono Mini MM can be used to digitised analogue via Audacity software.
     
  5. gloomrider

    gloomrider Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA, USA
    Thanks for this. I just assumed it was incompetence :cool:

    Below is a screen grab from this LP (from 1980). The volume boost is only on side 1. Looks can be deceiving. If I were to boost the rest of track #1 to match the RMS level of the first 90 seconds, the overall RMS level would be way louder than the rest of the LP.


    [​IMG]
     
  6. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    To a person who already may have a negative opinion of digital, or not inclined to use digital playback, may look at all this needledropping as a silly endeavor.
     
  7. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Exactly. What I would do is take a reading of the rest of the songs, note the average levels, then take that first song, fix the volume ride on the first minute of it, reduce it to match the rest of the song, then make the whole song fit the rest of the album.

    Now, I imagine most people here wouldn't do this next thing, but after I corrected that initial problem, I would then boost the entire album by about 2db in unison with a limiter.
     
    gloomrider likes this.
  8. gloomrider

    gloomrider Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA, USA
    Yes, I do use very light peak limiting as well. 2 to 3 dB max boost. My current favorite plugin is Voxengo Elephant.
     
    Grant likes this.
  9. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    Here's a different kind of "needledrop"
     
  10. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I tend to archive a non-limited 88k FLAC "master" which I then use to make MP3s for my car and phone. I normally use DBPoweramp for this with a chain that includes a target level based on EBU R128 (sort of a newer version of replaygain) followed by a limiter to catch any peaks. I actually use a fairly high level that corresponds to an RG track value of -6 to -7 with an average DR of about 8-9 (those values will no doubt risk cardiac arrest among some of the more purist folks on here ;-). This is simply because my car doesn't support Replaygain and I don't like getting my ears toasted when I switch back to radio or CD sources from files on my USB stick or through Bluetooth. I've found that this actually sounds transparent enough for my listening habits and if I want to hear the unlimited versions, I play them at home where I can actually enjoy the benefits of the tiny bit of extra dynamic range. In fact, I'm actually surprised at how little is sacrificed this way. Loudness can be achieved with much less mangling then is done to a lot of modern mixes.
     
    Grant likes this.
  11. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Had a hard time not focusing on that disgusting platter, was that a pube I saw :laugh:
    Edit-Oops it's a felt mat, I can watch now
     
    o0OBillO0o and Grant like this.
  12. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I was working on a needledrop earlier this evening and thought it was a good example of the gradual volume drop towards the center I described recently. It was a typical 80's Canadian pressing of Hall and Oates' Big Bam Boom.

    Here's the before:
    [​IMG]
    and after using the new clip gain feature in RX 4 Advanced:
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2014
    c-eling, gloomrider, quicksrt and 2 others like this.
  13. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Very strange how each song starts louder than it ends.

    Most mastering guys know about side levels near the end of a side and will boost the song's level just slightly to avoid much of a drop. Artists and producers will often place the quietest tunes at side ends to avoid the issue completely.
     
  14. jamesc

    jamesc Senior Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    Wow, crazy! I had no idea they were doing this or the first minute boost that Grant was talking about. Looks like RX4 fixed it nicely though.
     
    Grant likes this.
  15. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    They can also put songs mixed with fewer highs, or less dynamic range. But, when I started using a line-tracking type stylus, that problem largely went away.
     
  16. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    I thought I'd follow up on the Hall & Oates waveform I posted above. Although I'd initially talked about using the RX4 Clip Gain to shape the levels, I was in for a surprise when I zoomed in a bit on the waveform (I redid the needledrop after discovering my stylus had slowly gone out of alignment over the past year and a re-alignment a couple of days ago made a noticeable difference, but that's a story for another time :)).

    It's as if there are two categories of peaks, more sparse ones that seem to follow the percussion, and denser ones that follow the overall recording. The denser peaks are fairly level and vary closely with the flow of the song. However, the sparser peaks seem to start out louder then diminish as the songs progress. It's almost as if someone be it mastering or mix engineer has applied compression to those peaks as the songs progress.

    Here are the first three songs on side one of Big Bam Boom with the RX4 Declip display turned on to show roughly where the denser peaks line up:
    [​IMG]

    The entire album is like this and some others I've looked at are similar!
     
  17. gloomrider

    gloomrider Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA, USA
    Best.
    Thread.
    Ever!
     
  18. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    No. 5) is very interesting.

    Any where there is a regression or statistical analysis to what certain cartridges do to the recording? With digital rips,you can get the hard data to validate some of these subjective opinions. I see a cartridge sample library out there to help try before you buy.
     
  19. Dr Tone

    Dr Tone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    I've moved to a Devialet 200 amplifier after a long audition and so happens to have bidirectional USB for recording needle drops.

    The built in phono preamp is very configurable and sounds absolutely fantastic. My HTPC is connected to the Devialet and I've installed Presonus Studio One on it and just RDP in when I want to capture a record that is playing. One thing I found is that my cartridge is a little hotter than spec I had to set the Devialet to 3mV instead of 2.5mV as specified by the manufacturer. Studio One was showing a major amount of digital clipping on my hottest EP.

    You can dial in the phono preamp to get the perfect signal to DAW and keep the signal to noise ratio down, it's wonderful! The results sound exact to what you heard through your speakers when recording, as the phono stage and the whole amp is digital.
     
    o0OBillO0o likes this.
  20. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Devialet 200 just moved to my want list!
     
  21. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Is anyone else having issues with RX4?


    I get a slue of errors. Every time I open it says my focusrite audio drivers are being used by another application. I close it and reopen it and it works fine. I started recording my needle drops and every time I record a file when I stop recording the program crashes and I reopen it and recover the file.


    I am trying to master a set I recorded last night and the Ozone 5.0 plug-in does not raise the levels like it should it didn’t change at all. I tested it on a small section and it worked? I rebooted the computer and it looks like it is going to work this time. These files are on a USB drive and that may be an issue. I know it does not like usb drives for its temp drive.
     
  22. Dr Tone

    Dr Tone Forum Resident

    Location:
    Calgary, AB
    Mine has been fine, but I don't use it to capture drops or to do anything anything other than cleaning. I'm using asio drivers as well.
     
  23. o0OBillO0o

    o0OBillO0o Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Who has some youtube links to full needle drop processes? This awesome, but too short. ;-)
     
  24. I've just posted this question at the "post your needledrops" thread, and I've wanted to post it here as well just trying to get more views: What do you currently do with a record that has a fair amount of background noise? I'm not talking about clicks and pops, but just a constant, noticeable background noise (hiss) during quiet parts of the record. I'm asking because, aside from the click / pop removing tool I use, I used to use a noise reduction tool as well. Very effective and, in general terms, gave me satisfactory results, except on fadeouts and very quiet music sections. The noise reduction filter gives, in those cases, a not so pleasant quality to the sound. That's why I stopped using noise reduction and only remove clicks and pops from my recordings. What's your current approach for noisy records, putting aside pops and clicks? Thank you for your input!
     
  25. skriefal

    skriefal Senior Member

    Location:
    SLC, Utah
    Either leave the noise, or replace the LP with a better copy if one is available. This assumes, of course, that a wet cleaning doesn't reduce the noise to satisfactory levels.
     
    Hail Vinyl! likes this.

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