Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Hi, I have been needledropping for years. I am pretty basic compared to you guys

- manual RCM with MFSL wash
- de-static (used Zerostat up til now)
- anti-static brush wipedown
- clearaudio table with CMB, Grado Statement needle and air bearing tonearm
- rip to PC (running Audacity) @ 24/96 thru E-mu 1212M
- no software processing

Mostly I just don't have time to process and edit my files - I just use it as a way to listen to my vinyl at work conveniently.

ANYWAY, my question is about the de-static. What do you guys use? My Zerostat died after a year of use. I hate to invest in another one if its just gonna stop working again. Is there a better solution out there? Kind of surprised there is no thin grounding wire type of system that automatically removes static while playing... If anyone has any suggestions, I would be most appreciative.

 

I use a Furutech DeStat. Part number SNH-2

Seems to work fine. There are less expensive De-Statics on the market but I'm unfamiliar with them.

 

Thanks One_L! Looks like a good option for me...

 

Good lord... needle dropping is more maddening than running a fantasy football team. I've been doing these since we got our first computer and I would run a crappy Sony belt drive right into the mic input. Learned a lot through the years with a lot of trial and error, reading up on sites like ours and studying the work of the masters. The only constant I have found in this hobby (and I para-quote the great Roddy Piper)... 'once you think you have the answers, someone pops up and changes the questions'.
Took a few years off and recently got back into things after purchasing an ASUS Xonar U7 Sound Card that allowed me to do drops onto a laptop in my room as opposed to doing them in the family room where I would often have to wait until one in the morning for it to free up so I could have some 'studio time'. Of course, once I thought I had things down, I decided to delete about twenty or so rips I did over the past few weeks because something wasn't sitting right with me (getting a weird line running straight through my spectrogram... think I determined it was coming from the cheap Onkyo receiver I was using). So as I start all over again for the umpteenth time, I'm going to read through this thread and hope to participate to learn and maybe share from my experiences FWIW.

 

Here's my current Vinyl Transfer Workflow...

Technics SL1200MK2 US Black Modified by KAB Electro Acoustics USA
-MK2 Tonearm w/ KAB Cardas Rewire -> KAB PC-1200 Connector Plate -> KAB Cardas RCA Interconnects & Ground
-Audio Technica AT440MLA Dual-Moving Magnet Phono Cartridge (Tracking Force 1.6 grams)
-KAB TD-1200 Tonearm Fluid Damper
-KAB KAB PS-1200GX Regulated Power Supply
-KAB SX-1200 Strobe Disabler
-Isonoe Sorbothane Boots with cork inside
-Technics 1/4" Super Mat
-Music Hall Decoupling Cork Turntable Platter Mat
-Rek-O-Kut Disc Stabilizer

Cambridge Audio - Azur 651P MM/MC Phono Pre-Amplifier ('MM' - Subsonic Filter: On) ->

Radio Shack 1/8" Dual Phono (RCA) to 1/8" Stereo Y-cable (if recording mono albums i will introduce a 'Hoffman' inspired Radio Shack 'double Y' stereo to mono cables) ->

ASUS Xonar U7 USB Sound Card plugged into an old Dell Inspirion running Windows 7 with as much crap disabled as I can get away with ->

-Create new audio file with Adobe Audition CS6 (32 bit Float, 192KHz, Stereo, WAV - Each Side = 1 WAV) ->
-open files in iZotope RX 2 to look for any big noticeable clicks/pops and fix with declick/decrackle tool (usually w/ 'vinyl record' preset)
-run files through ClickRepair 3.8.3 - Declick strength varies but my 'standard' settings are (Reverse (X), Declick: between 10-25, x2 (x), Automatic: All) ->
-open file in AA CS6 - prior to normalizing I visually inspect the files for any peaks that might effect the normalization (for example I once ripped a Tom Jones album and the hand claps on 'It's Not Unusual' were peaking very high, so if I normalized, the rest of the songs would have came across very quiet... in rare cases like this I magnify these peaks as tight as possible and use the HUD Gain control to bring them down, trying to keep them in line with the general scope of the other peaks - not done very often) - copy side two and paste it to side one then normalize to 98.6% (x) Normalize all channels equally - then mark and split WAV into tracks - then fade in & fade out each track as needed maintaining original gaps between tracks - start of tracks I will silence surface noise up to the start of any sound then apply a very slight fade in - at the end of tracks I use the 'cosign fade' option with a value that sounds good to me ->
-iZotope RX 2 for manual repairs done upon listening and by visually looking at the spectrogram, looking and listening for any clicks, pops or noises with the 'declick/decrackle' tool with the 'vinyl record' preset strength set as low as I can keep it, with bad sounds or bumps I use the 'spectral repair' tool default preset with the lowest strength I can get away with
-At this point if I am doing a mono lp I will go back to AA CS6 and 'convert sample type' - Sample Rate Conversion: Same As Source - Channels: Mono - Bit Depth: Same As Source - Dithering: Disabled
-Back to iZotope RX 2 v2.01.390 for resampling & dither (96KHz 24bit noise shaping dither (MBIT+) & for a CD I'll go from the 32f/192 wavs to 44.1KHz 16-bit noise shaping dither (MBIT+)) ->
-Foobar 2000 to convert dithered 24/96 WAV to FLAC (level 5) so I can listen to them on my Galaxy S4 ->
-Tag&Rename 3.6 (Tagging & Artwork)

Cleaning Process
-Wash/Scrub with Audio Intelligence No 15 cleaning fluid with The Disc Doctor's Miracle Record Brush
-Vacuum w/ KAB EV-1
-Rinse/Scrub w/ Aquafina Purified Water with a separate Disc Doctor's Miracle Record Brush
-Vacuum w/ KAB Ev-1
-As needed prior to play, I will blast an album side with a Milty Zerostat 3 Gun, light brushing with a KAB Discsweep goat hair and Thunderon brush (if it gets wet, it stinks like a petting zoo)
-to clean the stylus I use MoFi LP 9 stylus cleaner & VP Dust Buster polymer gel stylus cleaner (or a piece of magic eraser)

Any comments, critiques or questions are welcomed and appreciated!

 

Clean record (VPI 16.5 and Mofi cleaning solution/brushes) ->
Play on an isolated Technics SL-1200 (AT150MLx cart) hooked up to my computer via an E-Mu 1812 interface ->
Record into Cubase at 24/192 (both sides on the same track to preserve original song volume variations) ->
Manually declick (draw out the pops) in Wavelab and remove space from flipping the record. ->
Normalize entire album (whole album is one file so original volumes of each song remain the same relative to one another) to -.3db ->
Split tracks and save as hi-rez as well as dither down to 16/44.1 so they can be played on a CD ->
Enjoy

 

Up until now I have used a stand alone CD recorder.

Can anybody recommend a good quality interface with phono input and usb output to go between the phono stage and a deadly ordinary Windows 7 64 bit laptop?

With level control at some point. And then software for very simple editing - i.e. splitting an LP side into individual tracks, and topping and tailing dubs from 45s?

With 24/192 FLAC and 16/44.1 WAV capability. I have no intention of de-clicking or attempting to remove surface noise other than by scrubbing the record beforehand (I have a ClearAudio Matrix record cleaning machine).

 

I think I will just leave my files at 24/96 & convert straight to FLAC, as I'm moving away from CD's & into file server for music

I probably wouldn't even bother with declicking either, not a big deal to me & all my new vinyl is clean anyway

 

I've only recently begun doing needle drops in earnest, and one thing i've noticed is that in the act of editing the files and cleaning them up, I'm interacting with the music in a very active way. I listen harder and feel a connection to which I'm unaccustomed. Whatever that means.

 

That's a fair comment, but as listening to music in a very intense or analytical way is what I often do for work I definitely don't want to lose my ability to just listen and enjoy music for it's own sake outside of a work context, it's a fine line that I don't want to cross, but as most people don't work for record labels I can see the appeal of full immersion, getting all technical and trying to make the absolute best of a transfer now and then.

 

Believe me, I understand. My job title is media manager, and a lot of what I do is cleaning up media files, although video in that case. And then I go home and do more media management, but of the sounds I love. It's a tricky line to navigate.

 

Every time I tackle a drop - I approach it like I am the actual original mastering engineer I strive for the absolute best transfer possible and the very best end result. The drop should play back with a transparency that rivals CD and should blend into the rest of our library seamlessly. Sometimes it takes a long while to get there - but it's worth it.

And now that I just upgraded to iZotope RX4 Advanced - this process should get even better yet.

VP

 

I tried moving to RX3 but for some reason preferred 2... I wonder if I should invest in 4.

 

Quite the opposite for me. If I'm at home, I play the records. The only thing my needledrops are for is the iPod in the car. Plus, most of what I would like to transfer is between 30 and 50 years old. New vinyl usually comes with a free download, so there's no way I'm going to bother transferring that when I have thousands of vintage records without digital counterparts!

 

I used to consider my needledrops a second best and considered the professionally mastered CD to be the real thing.

It was years later that I realized that in many cases I preferred the sound of the drop. I love the dynamic range, and the way they sound good loud, "crankable" is what they call it in the forums here. That's why I never understood why some folks normalize the file after a vinyl capture. I would use normalizing only for dialog in a movie if it seems to need it, not for music. Would normalizing a music file reduce that dynamic range?

As for ticks and clicks, I don't think that they add anything good. I am about to do an old King Curtis and the Kingpins album on Atco. It sounds great but a few too many ticks. It's going to be a really great one when I finish I just know it.

 

Not at all. I normalize simply to bring the source a standard defined threshold so the finished product has the same "peak" windows as everything else in the library. While it would be awesome to be able to manually dial in the input gain on the signal when it's being "dropped" so all tracks peak @ -0.03dbFS - that is simply not possible to attain since every record has unique levels.

When I normalize a drop in Wavelab - I am merely ensuring all source peaks at the same threshold and Wavelab makes sure all the other material moves with those peaks in a uniform manner.

No dynamic range is altered whatsoever by this process. The audio is merely shifted to meet a specific peak value.

VP

 

One part of it that can't really be documented in a step-by-step process is this the judgement of the particular person doing the transfer and clean-up. One may have the most sophisticated equipment there is, but if their sense of what sounds good isn't there, even the most advanced equipment can't remedy that.

 

True dat. However - what is a good decision to one guy may not be to another. Some folks in here are fine with simply capturing the record and leaving it warts and all. Wish I could be that quick

But I would rather take the time and make the transfer the very best it can be. That is one thing I really like about tools like iZoTope etc is where you can make several decisions and A/B/C them to see what sounds best. All without committing to any of them. Granted this does take more time but it's invaluable to my decision making process.

Cheers,

VP

 

My process:

Clean vinyl with VPI RCM. I have various fluids and methods depending upon the record's condition.
Zap with Zerostat gun.
Record vinyl on VPI Classic 2 with Soundsmith VPI Zephyr into a Sutherland Ph3D and finally into a Edirol FA101
I use Adobe Audition 3.01 and transfer at 32/96.
Next I make a run through Click Repair and adjust the settings depending on the level of clicks and pops to be removed. This does not remove every click and pop, so I will also do some manual removal in AA afterwords.
In AA I will normalize to -.1db then save to 24/96 wav
CDWAVE to split tracks and save to FLAC

A_L

 

1. Rip the LP any old how, not bothering to clean it, not bothering about ticks and pop, totally unconcerned by nonfill, off-centre pressings, warps, skips and jumps.

2. In Adobe Audition, reverse out the EQ of my cartridge and phono preamp so the LP truly represents the EQ that's in the grooves.

3. Split tracks using Vinyl Studio.

4. Rip an old CD of the same music that I bought for £1 on Amazon. Check in Adobe Audition that it has full dynamic range and was obviously taken from a high quality source.

5. Using Voxengo CurveEQ, transfer the EQ of the each track on the LP to the corresponding track on the CD.

6. Sit back and enjoy the result, which is now a better-than-perfect rendition of the LP. (Better than perfect because it has better channel separation, more dynamic range, no surface noise, no summing to mono of all the lower frequencies, etc etc etc.)

Works for me!

 

Anyone interested in an "Audacity only" version of this thread? I find their user manual rather basic.

Also, does anyone use a phono pre with adjustable gain?

Bill

 

This is so very true. I have read plenty of guides by computer geeks who have no clue at all about sound. But I got the basics down early on from their computer techno speak which was fine enough. Basically I do not like processing at all. Even normalizing is a no-no, because I think it changes the digital file and changes the bits. I get my levels correct going in, and they are always perfect. Once in a blue moon a song is just much higher level (than all others on that LP) and it pounds into the red. I then go back and redo that song or I redo the entire album with that one loud song being the peak level. It depends on if it is a mastering error - or if the artist wanted that song to be the killer rocker of the bunch and thus louder. I consider my options and simply redo with new levels.

I do clean the LP intensely, use a brand new stylus (for anything important), use my best TT, and I even remove the dust cover from the TT, as I was told it can pick up vibrations from the room. I keep volume levels on the speakers a little low.

Basically, since I am using such clean condition LPs, and things have gone really well once I got to know everything that can mar a good drop, I leave the file alone other than ClickRepair, and my track splitting. Side one gets fade in and side two get fade out, I may not fade between side one and two if it is super clean.

I've taken my drops over to a friend's place who has a $20,000+ system and we A - B'd the drop against the original LP. With the drop being pretty much spot on, and everyone impressed.

So I continue to leave the file alone, no EQ, no normalizing, no anything except click, song breaks, and fades.

 

I use Vinyl Studio for everything except I do a manual normalization by eye with sound forge 7.
What are people's opinions on vinyl studio's click removal and noise reduction compared to other programs?
I didn't care for sound forge click removal.

 

What cartridge, TT. and sound card/ADC are you using?

Btw I don't know anyone who is using Vinyl Studio.

 

I' m using a Pro-ject rm5 table with an Ortofon 2m bronze cartridge.
Preamp is a Bellari Vp530 with a USB output.
Recording via Vinyl Studio.