Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

I'm not necessarily in disagreement, just wondering? Is it really necessary to apply a high pass filter for needle drops? Forgive me if I appear ignorant, but hasn't that already been done when the record was cut? My personal preference is not to apply it, I think it takes too much away, even at 20hz. I do use it if going to a 16/44.1 file, but not at Hi Res.

 

That is not a reliable way to determine the frequency response. There's sound down there.

 

I cut it at around 17kHz because it helps to cut low-energy frequencies that make your woofers work harder for nothing in rerturn.

 

your avatar!!! is that a English Mastiff? We had to put our beloved "twinkie" down,... she looked like a 180lb twinkie.
great dogs, but dense thinkers

 

Yes, correct. I saw one learn how to undo the deadbolt on a door and open it up to go outside just from watching others do it. Once in a while they surprise you. So lovable, that picture is a 12 week old pup.

 

great dogs, but the HAIR !!!!!! probably not again, unless we move to our farm. only giant schnauzers from now on.

attitude of a 9 lb schnauzer (ill kill and eat the world) the visual of (wtf is that??!!) great deterrents.

sorry to derail a wee bit, i miss my twinkie !

 

I'm not going to disagree with you but I just can't hear any of that noise. Here is a file of it can anyone hear it?
sub noise.flac (23.26MB) - SendSpace.com
It's 10 min of the highlighted part of this image but it's only 23.26 mb in 24/96 do flac file save space?
upload image online

 

Yup! I heard it at normal listening levels through loudspeakers with the computer fan noise running in the background.

 

It is a well known fact Grant has bionic, almost super human hearing
Via crappy pc speakers at full blown level, I could only tell something was there was by turning the speakers on and off. Could of easily of been line level distortion from my system

 

I think the question we need to ask ourselves is whether or not the material down below 20Hz is actually audio present in the original recording, or is it rumble and/or correlated distortion. Same goes with material above 20kHz. When I first got into needledropping and hung out here and on other forums, people were talking about what looked like high frequency extension that was evident in spectral graphics but in reality, it's more often than not tracking distortion, etc. I was reading an article just yesterday in which it was mentioned that all components in a chain can add their own colorations or distortions that may seem like they're musical information but are in fact not. Plus cutting heads have high frequencies rolled off to prevent overheating them. In the case of low frequencies, the personnel doing the cutting will sum bass to prevent tracking problems and also roll it off in many case (not all).

Even listening to selected material in the area below 20Hz can be deceptive. For instance in RX, it's possible to select that area and play only the selected frequencies back, but then if you play around with the settings a bit, you realize the software resolution is such that it's not a brickwall at the top limit and what you're hearing is actually frequencies above the upper limit of your selection. Try shifting the frequencies up by changing the sample rate (on software that allows changing without actually resampling). Once you get the material up into highers frequencies, it's possible to isolate the material with greater precision and then you realize it's not really musical material at all.

 

Nah! It has to do with your speakers response curve at the low end of the spectrum. Now, since it is allergy season, I did have to make sure my eardrums were "popped" before listening.

 

But, when you do remove that region, it does affect the bass. I do experiments to see at what range I can safely cut and not affect any music. Usually, I find that about 17Hz is the threshold.

 

Can you describe how it sounds?It was The Isley Brothers Fight the power and the heat is on for no reason just I was working on it anyhow.
The meters on my preamp are moving and even with a 75% gain nothing out of my speakers nor do the woofers look like they are moving at all, so that means my theory that it needs to be removed. With headphones from the soundcard at full gain nothing.

Well with all the noise I hear at work its a wonder I can hear at all funny I would say I'm 1 out of 100 that use ear plugs daily some days all day.

 

I used to roll off at 20Hz and found (at least for 24/192 or 24/96) that I lost a noticeable amount of bottom end. I never tried going lower, say 17Hz, as the EQ in Izotope RX4 doesn't appear to go lower than 20Hz.

 

Well I'm sure I can't hear it but I'm going to follow your suggestion and cut it at 17hz. I could leave it intact if I can't hear it. So it certainly won't hurt anything by lowering my cut point.

 

It is a very low rumble with momentary bass bumps. The meters register up to around -30db.

This reminds me of way back in the year 2000. Some guy offered up his mp3 needledrops to the world. I admittedly downloaded a few songs, but, didn't keep them. Why? Apparently, the guy did all of his listening on computer speakers that bottomed out at 500 Hz, so, because he couldn't hear that low, he slashed all the files up to 500 Hz.

Yeah, those were the wild days of Napster, Grokster, Kazaa, internet speeds were like molasses, and music files were 96 kbps or 128 kbps. We all knew it was wrong, but it was the only way to find some things.

 

The scientific filter in Audition allows you to go as low as 0 Hz.

 

Yes. Beware of eliminating bass bumps.

 

Hey Guys,

Looks like RX-6 is coming out next month. They have what looks like a good deal on upgrades. RX users must have gotten the same email.
iZotope RX 5 Sale | Audio Plug-in Deals

I'm still happy with my basic RX4 but had a bunch of issues at first but learned to work with it. How much would the advanced of 5 0r 6 give me? Were there big performance improvements with 5 compared to 4? To this day If I convert a file from 96 to 44.1 or any other I have to close the program and reopen to play at 96 again.

I may get it, also I'm not completely sure if it will let me upgrade from basic at that price.

 

I'm getting ready to start making digital recordings of some LPs and Cassettes (not available in any other format) and have a couple questions to start. I have a Denon DN-700R recorder arriving soon that I intend to use to make 96/24 wave files. The remainder of my equipment is listed in my profile.

I understand that I will want the levels to not exceed -6db with a good range being -10 to less than -6. I'd like to know how you go about setting the levels (generally) and if there is any data available for known recording that might pinpoint the loudest track / location.

I intend to do my editing on my PC. The Denon can automatically send the files to the PC via FTP if desired. My initial needs center around breaking the file into tracks and increasing the levels. For restoration/improvement of the data, I don't expect to go beyond click removal and then only in the worse cases. I'm fine with it sounding like my cassettes did back in the day, without the hiss.

I've only experimented Audacity and VinylStudio. For me, VinylStudio is much better for track spliting than Audacity. Does anyone on the thread use VinylStudio or it is too low end for what you're trying to accomplish.

Thanks,
Ed

 

Hi Ed,
I'm not sure if I can fully answer your questions but I think you will do fine. Nice system you have I'm not sure about the sound of the Denon DN700R. It's not cheap so it should sound good, be sure to post some samples in the needle drop thread. I was going to tell you one of my big improvements was getting my cartridge aligned correctly if not near perfectly. Then I see you also have a VPI TT and DV-XX2, so that goes double for a VPI TT.

As far as the levels for recording anywhere around -6 is fine. I don't mind if the peaks are a little higher. Later you can normalize each track as you like. I just bring the level of the entire album up to -.03. There are other ways to maximize the loudness that give the perception of better sound. I just turn the volume up if I want it louder

I don't know Vinylstudio. I think many use RX and for click removal there is no better value than Clickrepair.

As far as the cassettes are you saying they produced cassettes that did not get released on record? I would try to track down the records if they are available.

 

I record with Sound Forge 10. VinylStudio seemed to have problems with 24/96. I'm sure it was my processor speed on my laptop. Sound forge would record with no issues.
For a long time I then imported the file in to vinyl studio to put on the finishing touches.
Recently I bought click repair because everyone recommended it. I think it does work better than vinyl studio.

So now I do these steps
Record via sound forge
Declick with click repair
Back to sound forge for volume adjustment
Import to vinyl studio for tagging, track Dividing and trimmimg.

Sounds complicated buy not really. I don't get obsessive.

 

Thanks Bill. I bet your system sounds great.

For alignment I used a Feickert protractor and set it up as well as my old eyes allowed, then a Fozgometer and final tweek with a particular mono record for azimuth. I'm sure it's not perfect but it will have to do.

My favorite artist, Richard Thompson, has two fan club cassettes that are not available in any other format (there is an unofficial CD from Germany). That's the only reason I even have a cassette player.

I'll give RX a try but will probably end up buying Clickrepair and use that along with VinylStudio.

 

I'm not recording with VinylStudio so that's not a limit for me. Clickrepair sounds like a good possibility. What do you do in VinylStudio to set your final levels?

 

I use sound forge to set my final levels.
I set my peaks around -.03 or so