Tranferring vinyl to digital - the utter beginner's thread

Actually I would never call myself "a mastering engineer", I just take what is on the record and try to present it the way it sounds off the record, transients and all. If you were offended by my statement of my years of experience not much I can do about it now but the hope was that the info might afford me some credibility since my username here is no longer pbthal.

 

You should state what works for you, and the steps rather than telling us what does not work for us.

You are just as cranky as pbthal, and people skills never was his strong suite was it. (Joke)

Like I said, I watch the file whiz by with an eagle eye for those dreaded solid blocks of red, or excessive declicking where there should be none. That is how I know the score. It takes concentration is all.

Did you do the CCR "Gold" album from CD-4 quad LP? That was one of my faves if it was a pbthal drop. I wish it was a high-res capture, but anyway it's very fine, and a rare album. I have a bakers dozen drops of yours. Great stuff, not always rated the best. But some very nice titles, thx.

 

Nice work, particularly on Too Many People.

 

Have you worked with the click repair in Izotope RX? If so, how does it compare to Clickrepair?

 

Check it out, man. It's starting to sound like it's your way or the highway. This thread is about members contributing their ideas and anecdotes of transferring vinyl to digital. There is no one right way to do it. I live by the "whatever it takes" philosophy. I do whatever it takes to achieve the desired result I want. The results you desire may not be what I desire. So what if someone used auto declicking or NR, just as long as the results sound good. There are no rules to this. It's supposed to be fun , not a pissing contest!

Now, can we continue this thread?

 

Even when I run declicking over a whole song or album, I still go through it to catch each tiny little tick I hear. I will spend as much as a day trying to decide if a transient is being hurt. I go through each second of each song in the spectral mode.

But, I still maintain that a better NR program/plug-in will allow better results.

 

I'm not offended; I'm amused. No worries...I promise. I go for the same things you go for and I get them rather simply. I just find the "audiophile platitudes" being expressed rather odd and, above all, largely inaccurate.

Ed

 

Jeez, My original statement was basically automatic declicking does not produce as good a result as manual declicking". I also said "I" and I repeat "I" would not run any NR routine unattended across an entire song or album. I also suggested a routine of 20 in automatic mode if you wanted to go that route and THEN I posted a semi automatic routine with details on how to set it up including screenshots. There is a group of people who seem to be hung up on some perceived "diss" that is not there. Just because my suggestions do not align with what you personally may do does not mean you are wrong or I am right but I have provided several valid suggestions whether you like them or not.

 

My people skills? Well it certainly does not seem like you have learned any lessons from my past mistakes in that department...pot meet kettle (joke)

You do what works for you, I made alternative suggestions for people, several of them.

Would have been great to have a hires CCR quad, too bad I got rid of the raw file...oh wait...another horrible suggestion was made by me earlier to keep your raw files, how mean of me to suggest that

 

There are times when I have a record so clean that it literally needs nothing done to it. Just record it to digital, dither, and archive. But, 99% of what I transfer is used vinyl found in used record stores, or hard to find records that are given to me by people to transfer for them. In those cases, there is n o such thing as finding a cleaner copy. That's fine if it's Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours", but not a Joe Farrell album.

It's cool to contribute your methods, but it seems like you are trying to tell everybody they are wrong for using processing. I use auto-declicking and manual declicking...whatever gets the job done with the least amount of damage, or n o damage at all.

That said, I find that the poster who just say they just record to a standalone unit and are done are the least helpful.

 

Processing, while being somewhat beneficial in most cases is a destructive technique. I suggested to preserve a backup in a natural state and work off that. One can always load the backup and tweak it to bits to make better sounding copies.

Because some things cannot be undone. So save a backup before you process the recording.

 

My steps:

1 Clean the record. VPI HW 16.5 RCM. I use different fluids depending on the condition. Must just get the AI one step. If the record needs deeper cleaning, then it's the 3 step.
2. Transfer is done one side per wav file via Tascam DA3000 at 24/96
3. Import to PC for editing and click removal if needed. I don't remove every single click. Just ones that are obtrusive such as loud clicks during quieter passages.
4. Split into tracks, save to FLAC, and tag the files with Foobar's discog's tagging plug-in.

 

I listened to the CCR Gold album from the quad LP yesterday. Did a needle drop of it at 9624. It's a weird album the way it is mastered.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/listening-to-on-vinyl-part-295.602236/page-216#post-15262731

 

'Why Fantasy Records did this I don't know. The songs are difinitely a different mix with Proud Mary and Bad Moon Rising being in a wider stereo"

I would not complain about it myself, and rather bask in the glory of a rarity.

 

I would accept the complement, and simply state a thank you when someone likes something or anything about your work.

But yes, saving the original files especially when they are high res is a good idea, thanks for that suggestion. But the quad cannot be decoded from a high-res file or any file for that matter. CD-4 quad requires that the original LP be played back for decoding unfortunately (no files, not even 24/192).

I did a ton of needle drops long before CR was on the scene. I have CD-Rs of these albums. So when I ripped them all to FLAC for the sever, and for torrent shares, I ran them through one pass of CR in reverse. Encoded to FLAC and thought I was finished with them. Later I learned that an additional pass in opposite direction would catch some things that first pass did not. So I am revisiting some of these drops I already worked on. The CD-Rs are all saved on spindles as well. I would love to dump them, but cannot find it in my heart to do that.

The 24/96 captures are not saved in their raw captures, because CR is the only thing I use on them, and like I said - I sit like a hawk watching every repaired tick, and I do not accept any solid blocks of red, and massive corrections if and when I know the LP does not have massive ticks that need correction. Everything gets saved in 24/96 in this day and age.

I am all working in 24/96kHz now except for some Warner Brother Loss Leaders sets I have been working on. They are 16/44 because the songs are all assembled from copied tapes, and they never will sound that spectacular.

 

All of my work I do always leaves the original there in a folder. None my my processing overwrites the original.

 

I preserve the original until I am satisfied with my results. I preserve the processed, but unconverted and dithered version in case I ever want to use a different SRC or dither one day. That's just how I roll.

Processing is destructive, but with the right software and skill, one can minimize it to where it's negligible.

My results come out sounding just like the the vinyl source, but pristine. I don't just run software, I slave over the file(s) sometimes for days until I get it spotless. And if I hear a click, I go back to the original hi-rez files and fix it, and insert the fix into the album. I use my eyes and ears. I run through every second of sound. That's declicking.

When it comes to NR, I find the best compromise that preserves the bass the best way possible because with NR, it is actually the bass that suffers first. Is it solid, full, light, mushy, bloated, weak? Will the music at this point mask the surface noise? Can I cut the noise reduction with this transient? Is that noise or music? Is that a click or an anomaly? Yeah, I go through all of that for every song. I pay close attention to fades, every last drop. If I go to headphones, I will listen L+R. Then I will reverse them and listen R+L because the left and right ears don't hear exactly the same. I play the files with the spectral mode so I can see everything. I zoom out, zoom in, play forward, backward...i'm obsessed. I often use four different manual methods for manually declicking. I remove every single click! I listen for rises in the midrange and exaggeration of the collapse of the soundstage when using NR. I'm listening for all of that, and more.

I once told a story here about how I spent more than six months declicking one 45 manually! It was the only copy I had ever seen, it was beaten up, and I wanted it clean! I used some unorthodox methods for another 45. Again, it's a rare 45. The last time I did it I nailed it. And, I spend weeks obsessing over the NR. I like the results.

So, I don't need (no you, specifically) people telling me that using NR/declicking is wrong. I've been doing this for almost two decades and have used dozens of declickers and a lot of NR programs and plugins. i've done literally thousands of records, so I think I know what i'm doing. I'm not afraid of using EQ where I see fit. I also use limiters.

 

I think thats beyond the scope of this thread. No one is saying processing is bad. For the "utter beginner" I think its good advice to preserve a backup to work from before getting into processing the tracks.

 

i say processing is bad.

 

ok, because i'm too lazy. What works for me:

-good analog set up
-clean records
-nice ADC
-some noise shaping
-record directly to Sony CDR at 16/44
-no post-processing of any kind

They sound good, actually like records. For me, nothing else is needed...

 

I like doing needledrops of titles that never got a CA release. I used to comb thrift stores religiously looking for anything good, rare, and in nice condition. So I have plenty of albums to work from. I have a large format scanner for album covers are well.

It's a lot of fun to do these and have the results come out so well. ClickRepair is the only process I use on tracks. No EQ, or other things after capture. No normalizing or levels changed even.

 

Only the beginners can say whether it's beyond the scope of this thread. But, my response was mainly to the purists in this thread.

 

What sounds like "records"?

 

Honest question - not trying to be difficult. Why do you use a digital recording device to record your LP, only to import into the PC? Can you not just record into your PC via some recording program?

Ed

 

You're going to some amazing lengths in the cleaning, you must be an extremely patient person.

I archive my cleaned (declicking & any other repairs) file as a 32/192 wave file on a Blu Ray disc, without any further processing.

Then I also use EQ, a curve & parametric, usually to cut and/or compensate for my cart's bump of the highs.

I use multi band compression, almost always on bottom end and I limit (very slightly more a normalisation process). Remember that most records needed backing off on low frequencies for cutting.