Tranferring vinyl to digital - the utter beginner's thread

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by tvstrategies, Mar 19, 2016.

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  1. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    So many look at noise as the enemy. It's not. This is why nonsense like CEDAR exists. I'm sure you'd agree that it's frequency degradation that's the enemy. I, too, would love to read an expansion of what you've said.

    Ed
     
  2. marcob1963

    marcob1963 Forum Resident

    Agreed, this is somewhat of a fallacy. However, you do need good software, even for declicking (Clickrepair as a minimum).
     
    Grant likes this.
  3. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    It's not a fallacy at all. Room noise is very delicate and can be removed by overly-aggressive noise removal.

    Ed
     
    Grant likes this.
  4. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    And going 24/96kHz digital from vinyl is that last bit of resolution that can push the quality up and to the top if you know what you are doing.
     
  5. Grant

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

    Obviously, you need the tools to do proper extraneous noise reduction (notice I did not say removal), but the one thing you need above all is the skill. You can't just select a setting and go, you have to create a profile and tweak it until you get the exact results you want. It takes a long time, and some people just don't have that time, patience, or focus. You always want to start with the best source to avoid all that, but there are times when you have to work with the source material you are given. That's when the tools and skill come into play. Of course there will be a bit of compromise somewhere, but the engineer can control that too.

    Now, if you don't mind, or like the surface noise and clicks that may come from less than pristine sources, skip my post.
     
    sathvyre likes this.
  6. Grant

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

    That's why you don't try to remove it! You can reduce it to a degree. Again, there will always be a compromise somewhere. You may get lucky and there will be no compromise. The better tools will leave little or no artifacts. Nut, you have people on here who use stuff like Audacity because it's free. You get what you pay for.
     
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  7. Grant

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

    CEDAR isn't nonsense. It is a legitimate tool with legitimate uses. The bottom like, once again, is the skill of the user, and when to know when you are overdoing it.

    The problem with CDs from the 80s and 90s, especially, is that when noise reduction was used, they overdid it. Sometimes grossly overdid it! I think of Hank Waring's FDS, and the overindulgence of people like Jon Astley and Bob Norberg. With Waring, they used it on bad source material. With the other two, who the hell knows what they were thinking at the time? But, digital NR came about from collectors who wanted clean music without noise. They were so seduced by what digital audio was, and could do, they forgot about the SQ, IMO. Some master tapes are going to have hiss. Some older digital masters are going to have hiss in the form of quantization and/or dither noise. Those should be left alone.
     
  8. Is there something wrong with Audacity? As long as you capture the audio without using any filters it shouldnt be any different than a $1000 DAW, would it? I've seen a lot of praise for it in the open source community.
     
  9. Grant

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

    There are much better tools out there, like the one in iZotope RX. Again, you get what you pay for. If you don't have iZotope money, you can opt for ClickRepair's NR. @Stefan used it to great success. But, all these tools take a great amount of work. There's no such thing as an easy way out.
     
  10. Dr Jackson

    Dr Jackson Surgeon of Sound

    I hate to be that guy, because this is educational and all, but we may want to move these "finer points of the discussion" to another thread or close this one down. Topic is beginner's guide to transferring vinyl to digital, gentlemen. Wouldn't want to discourage anyone new to the experience by derailing the practical work information for three pages.
     
  11. I have Ableton Live Suite (tons of high quality plug ins for it). But I found sometimes its easier to open Audacity and quickly capture the audio, it is after all taking the audio and outputing it as data. All the heavy work is done with my DAC. Again, I dont want to process the sound any more than necessary.
     
  12. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I agree, some nice simple and direct ways to get good results, ClickRepair, etc.

    Btw. GoldWave is a great PC audio recorder/editor to get a beginner going and up to speed quickly.

    There back on track......
     
    Dr Jackson likes this.
  13. plug your TT into a mixer or Pre >
    connect to your audio interface >
    open your program (Audacity is free and works) >
    click record (set the encoder 24Bit/48k at least if you can) >
    export (choose a lossless file type) >
    name your file
     
  14. Grant

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

    Ableton Live Suite isn't made for mastering or restoration.

    I think you may be missing the point. We don't want to process because we can, we just want to process as much as needed. And, the need depends on the specific project, and the individual's taste.
     
  15. Ableton can totally be used for mastering. iZotope plugins can also be imported as a VSTi into Ableton. Anyways, I know what your saying, Im not trying to argue with you.
     
  16. marcob1963

    marcob1963 Forum Resident

    I'm assuming that by room noise, you mean the sound on the record? Meaning the sound of a guitar coming from an amp in a room or the sound of a drum kit in a room.

    I don't lose that when I clean (declick, decrackle or denoise). I only denoise, unless absolutely necessary, inbetween tracks or in quiet parts. Admittedly, I'm using really good software (Izotope RX4) which is fantastic for declicking, denoising etc.

    You run more of a risk of losing that 'room sound' if you don't capture at the highest resolution possible. 24 (or 32) bits is a must and 192000k captures far better than 96000k.
     
    Nostaljack likes this.
  17. Grant

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

    And, I get that about plug-ins. I get what you're saying, and i'm not arguing with you, either.

    Hey, all this info is good for the purpose of the thread, even for "that guy".:D
     
    Rhapsody In Red likes this.
  18. Grant

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

    You probably haven't used any modern advanced DSP.
     
  19. David756

    David756 Active Member

    Location:
    Australia
    I have the Waves restoration bundle, as well as having used Adobe Audition CC, that is beside the point. The point is, start with the best possible source, don't use restoration unless you have to.
     
    Grant likes this.
  20. sublemon

    sublemon Forum Resident

    the most important part of getting good needledrops is having a quality analog rig that is set up properly.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  21. Grant

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

    OK, that was worded better, and I agree.
     
  22. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    I meant the overuse of CEDAR, of course. Noise doesn't have to be bad. Often, people will go to any lengths to achieve noiseless recordings - even when the quality is compromised horribly.

    Ed
     
    Grant likes this.
  23. vinyldoneright

    vinyldoneright pbthal

    Location:
    Ca
    To each his own, as someone who has probably done 5,000 rips that ran the gamut of equipment and software, my results tell me that my statement is 100% factual. If you are happy with your routine then that is all you need, my statement is for the rest of the ripping community who want to get the most out of their recording.
     
  24. Nostaljack

    Nostaljack Resident R&B enthusiast

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    This is all subjective, really, and neither of us could ever be 100% right. I, too, have done many, many rips and do much mastering to pay the bills. You'll find that most people here are hardly neophytes when it comes to "ripping" so your experience doesn't set you apart around here, I'm afraid. My encouragement to the OP is to take neither of our views as "gospel" and to try both approaches out to see which one suits his ears best.

    Ed
     
  25. vinyldoneright

    vinyldoneright pbthal

    Location:
    Ca

    I am certain that if you run any declick program in full automatic mode you will achieve less than optimal results versus manually..this really cannot be disputed but of course you can try all day long if you like.
     
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