Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Thanks, Stefan! I only have RX5 Standard which I believe means I don't habe access to the Advanced button on the Denoise. Mine is not showing up.

 

I tend to leave the pops and clicks in unless its an extremely dirty record that has tons of pops

 

I don't mind either if they are not obviously annoying or take away from the enjoyment.
This was a straight record, the minor one's throughout the beginning don't offend me. This is about as tolerable as I get

 

First, many many thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. The signal to noise ratio is quite high and I'm learning a lot.

I'm dipping my toe into the needledrop hobby for the first time. My intent is to create digital copies of LPs that are not available in digital format (or in MP3 only which - I'm sorry - I detest). I'm not looking for PBTHAL level cleanliness and perfection but I also would like to invest some effort into doing a reasonably clean transfer.

My equipment chain: U-Turn Orbit with Grado Blue cart > Adcom GFP-565 > Tascam DA-3000

My Software: iZotope RX5 Standard, Adobe Audition, ClickRepair, DeNoise

I record in 192/24 (why not?) and being a Roon lifetime subscriber with lotsa disk space and a Fiio X5II so I'm ok with keeping everything at that resolution (in FLAC)

My first question here as I am experimenting and developing a workflow. I've been running a ND of Shamisen music (by Takashi Chikuzan - the master!) through ClickRepair and I am seeing a good amount of "clicks" like the one represented here where the offending waveform is sitting at the top or bottom of a peak.



I'm wondering if this is a false positive and (guessing) could be my cartridge not being able to handle (?) the recording faithfully.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

Let your ears be your guide. Highlight a small section where the peak appears and listen. Do you hear a tick/pop or not? If yes, highlight it and manually remove. If not, leave it alone. Your example looks like unwanted noise. The tough songs are the ones with lots of percussion.

 

Thanks, acsot! I was thinking the same BUT this is the Shamisen which has a lot of sharp transients (I hope I'm describing that correctly). Take a listen here. This is the same piece I'm working on in the screen grab above.

 

I'm getting an invalid link message.

 

Sorry. Try again!

Keep in mind - as I mentioned above there is a lot of this type of "click" showing up - at the top or bottom of a peak.

 

The odds of the click happening at the peak very often seem small. I would think if it is happening like that a lot, it may be indicating something wrong. It sure looks like a click to me, but if it happens right on the peak like that very often, I would say it can't be a click. I would tend not to fix it. Clicks should be random events.
What I do sometimes is to use my audio editor software to subtract the click repaired file from the original file so that you are playing back just the stuff that click repair removed (you can do this in click repair by selecting the 'noise' option, but I prefer the flexibility of my editor software). If you hear anything that sounds like the same rhythm or beat as the source material, then you are indeed affecting the music and not just the noise.

Terry

 

I've done a LOT of manual click repairs (using the draw tool in Wavelab), and those are not false positives. What you highlighted in the top part of your picture is what most pops and clicks look like before repair.

 

Since he has RX5 he could try Declick-Interpolate on it and see if any audio difference is heard.
A few of my old Front 242's have these types of 'spikes' I go through by ear

 

Ok, the link worked. Again, you'll need to listen for irregularities in the music as you go along. Focus on removing the obvious stuff first. If it sounds natural to you on playback go with it. I want to say "Ears before eyes!" as a mantra.

 

I shoot for pbthal cleanliness every time. If you're going to do a needledrop, make it your best, even if it is for the car.

 

So here's another brain twister (well, for me at least)... A significant spike/notch around/at 48khz. Would a low pass application with a sharp Q do the trick?

Thanks again! I'm learning.

 

Barring time constraints I'd certainly like to understand what it takes (given my equipment of course) to master the art. And from there I'll weigh the value of the effort. Like everything else hobby related I look at learning needle dropping as a work in progress.

 

It depends on your final sample rate. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

It is time-consuming to get exacting results.

 

Well said!

And, if you're ever out here you should visit SoundSmith. It is a sight to see!

 

In my view the declicking function in Izotope is superior to Clickrepair. I have the RX4 Advanced, its denoiser in my experience is way ahead of any other software, I imagine its similar in the RX5 Standard. So you probably don't need anything other than the RX5 in your process, as it is also good for the capture.

The declicker in the RX4 is amazingly good, I assume the same for the RX5. I would suggest that the best way to identify false positives is to use your ears in a simple before and after declicking check, I assume the RX5's Declicker also has the 'preview' function, which is very useful.

 

That piece could provide challenges, I think your ears are the safest bet in declicking that piece. I think the Izotope could do the job if carefully applied.

 

Getting the record very very clean to begins with is important before you start. This is not to reduce ticks and clicks as much as it is to assure good tracking - contact of the stylus and LP with no grit getting in the way of that contact. If you can get good solid contact and the grooves have little to no wear on them, you are 90% there. Ticks and clicks will be easy to remove, but you want to music to be tracking well.

I sometimes track with an extra .25 grams of weight on an older LP that needs more contact. Older vinyl seems to withstand this weight better than modern pressings.

 

I like manually removing clicks in RX 4 my favorite setting in single band at level .7 yes it's very low and works great for soft clicks and ticks. Usually it will not remove ambient sounds part of the recording and go up from there as required.

like Grant I would not worry about that. I get a spike like that too mine is around 38khz my speakers produce sound up to 22khz and my ears can't hear above 14khz.

Like most turntables I get a low frequency resonance around 5-10 Hz I can't hear that either but it will work my amp and speakers harder so I remove it by highlighting around 25hz and below in RX 4 and cutting it , that will silence it for the whole file.

 

ive been sifting through this thread looking for an answer and couldnt find it or just didnt see it in 65 pages, whats a good rca > usb ? need to archive motherinlaws vinyl and my mac laptop doesnt have a mic port everythings usb
found this:
Amazon.com: EAS USB 2.0 Digital Audio Capture Card Converter For MAC OS 10.11 And Windows 10/8.x/7 Systems- Audio Grabber Card for Cassette Tapes to mp3 Converter: Computers & Accessories

which looks like it should do the job ok when paired with audacity

 

My speakers go to 25,000 kHz, so I am not the least bit concerned about a spike that high. And, most of what I do is going to be played at redbook, so it gets filtered out anyway.

I can hear the effect on music down to about 16Hz, so that's where i'll set the high-pass filter. Besides, that infrasonic grunge makes your woofers work harder and subtracts power from the rest of the spectrum. It is best to remove it, but your going to all the way up to 25Hz is way too high for me. I can definately hear that!

 

Here's how I come to make my judgement on where to cut it. You can see on this drop it gets down to 18hz.
upload an image

and on this one of Rare Earth its way up there and could set it above 40hz before it gets close to cutting the music.
upload pics