Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

I don't think they did, but I could be wrong. I was able to locate all of the options except Stop Attn. Also, chebychev 1 and 2 aren't options, it is just chebychev (not 1/2).

 

Does anyone use phase correction when needle dropping stereo lps? I watch the phase meter(in audition) and some stereo records hover around the 0.8 mark while some drop to nearly 0. Audition has auto phase correction, would that be worth using for the stereo lps?

 

Many stereo records have out of phase elements, so that's gonna happen on occasion. But, if you think there is a problem, by all means, use the phase correction.

 

Yeah, it usually hovers in the high 0.7-0.9 range, but sometimes (and rarely) drops, probably might just do it for peace of mind, don't really see a quality difference anyways.

 

What indication do you look for on the phase metre to indicate an out of phase record?

 

I watched a few videos online about phase and correcting phase. The phase meter basically goes from -1.0 to +1.0 and everything above zero is green/yellow and everything under zero is red/yellow. Basically the way I understand it, having it in the green (.70-1.0) is ideal.

 

I currently do a lot of rips with my PS Audio NPC exporting to Vinyl Studio on my Mac Mini. It does a great job. My only problem is that I'm slightly dissatisfied with the NPC as a phono stage in that I think I'm losing a little detail and tonal warmth in addition to slightly softened transients. What I've been trying to do is to upgrade my phono stage and use the NPC strictly as an ADC to get better vinyl rips. The problem is that I like to rip in DSD but very few phono stages provide enough gain to work with my Soundsmith Zephyr MIMC Star (heretofore to be referenced as the "Star") so that the ADC can output at sufficient gain to record in DSD. I'm figuring I need at least 69 dB gain in order to achieve this, which is more than a very few MC stages provide. I'm currently in the process of getting my new Rogue Ares fit with 12AT7 tubes (more gain than 12AU7s) to up the gain to accommodate my gain needs. My question is would a different ADC give me more flexibility and/or gain so that I can output to the proper level for DSD recordings? Just how good is the ADC in the NPC, anyway? I think it's pretty good, but I have no frame of reference. Would I be better served using a Korg unit and software? Am I worrying about all this too much and should just rip with the NPC and listen with the Rogue unit?

 

Hello,


I described my "best practises" in the other thread: How do I make the best possible sounding needle drops

and the following posts.

However, due to suggestions in this thread, I would give it a try with a Low Cut/High Pass filter, to avoid subsonic and rumble noise, and so on.


There's one thing I would like to add to this thread:

Sometimes it happens, that the record player is too fast by say, 1% or so.
And it's just the way the machine works,and no way to adjust anything.
You don't mind while vinyl playing, but for a needle drop you want to have it perfect.

In this case, you need to slow down the digital recording of the record. But also, need to turn down the pitch the same amount.

One great free tool do to it, is "r8brain" from voxengo.
It's a tool for sample rate conversion. It converts, for instance, a recording done in 96kHz down to 44.1kHz.
That's nothing special.
But, you can tell the tool to interpret the 96kHz recording as beeing recorded really in 90kHz!

Or, tell the tool to convert a 44.1kHz recording into 44.1kHz recording. But, make the tool belief, the original 44.1kHz recording actually was done on 45kHz. The result will be a slow-down, both in duration and pitch, without any of the artifacts of the pitch shifters or time strechers, that you find in every audio editor.

It's a free tool, get it from voxengo.com.

I think, it's really helpfull, for adjustment of playback speeds of various recordings.

Best regards

 

Some belt drives run a tad off-pitch. But, some records are also mixed or cut a tad off pitch, sometimes on purpose. I read somewhere that a tape machine running 1% is within the industry standard of tolerance. I never adjust the pitch with software because my turntable is spot on pitch.

Again, be careful because oftentimes the pitch variation is intentional.

 

Anyone doing serious needledrops should use a TT that is bang-on speed. No point messing around with software to correct it IMO.

 

Not only that, some software produces artifacts when adjusting pitch because the music has to be resampled.

 

Can anyone recommend a quality ADC to do rips with? Maybe one a little easier to work with/more flexible than the PS Audio NPC via the analog stage. Would like to spend less than $1k.

 

In the 'Kind of Neat' Category
The LGV20 phone uses a ESS chip, 'touting' some good recording quality's
24/192 audio-24/48 Video Audio on the recording side
ESS Technology :: ESS Technology Brings Advanced Audiophile Features to Mobile Devices for the First Time
My contract with ATT is up in October and was thinking of getting one. For $#@!'S and giggles I was going to give it a shot

 

I must say I'm intrigued by the Astell & Kern AK300 with piggyback recorder ADC unit which will record in hi res PCM or double DSD. NO need to go through a PC to do your rips. Pricey though!

AK Recorder

 

Some software, yes...

But, you must distinguish between pitch shifting, time stretching, and resampling (to have both done in the same amount).
For instance, time stretching (while preserving the pitch) needs to repeat slices of music, to make the sound last longer. To make the sound last shorter, short slices of music are played back overlapped by a short time.

Of course, that introduces more or less artifacts.

Resampling, from say 45.0kHz to 44.1kHz can be done in a practically transparent way, without any audible artifacts. That's what r8brain does.

However, best thing is, if you don't need it anyway. When your TT is on speed.

Regards

 

I'm always interested in way to improve my needle drops. What do you gain by recording in DSD? I looked into it a bit and looks like if you do record in DSD you can't process it or not with RX 6 advanced. I like to be able to remove the pops and silence the gaps. My McIntosh C2500 will not decode DSD but my Oppo 105D will and the handful of DSD I bought sound great but I can't say I like them more than vinyl.

This looks good I currently use a Focusrite Forte audio card its 5 or 6 years old and my guess sounds nearly the same as other cards priced around $500 maybe even more expensive ones which may have the same converters but more options.

 

I mainly use DSD because it makes me feel better, to be honest. I may, occasionally, on a good day detect a slightly more vinyl-like reproduction than PCM. I take care of my records and always rip immediately after a thorough clean with my Nitty Gritty, so clicks and pops aren't usually a big deal to me. Plus, I try to get levels right during recording so I don't need to normalize very often. So DSD is usually fine with me. Storage space isn't an issue. I will use PCM on a noisy, used record on occasion and de-click and de-hiss with Vinyl Studio to good success. But, yeah, I think I like DSD better, but I wouldn't get bent out of shape if I couldn't use it any more. My DAC is the PS Audio Directstream and it really likes DSD, BTW. I guess the main reason is to archive my LP's to as high a degree of faithful reproduction as possible and DSD is at least as good as unprocessed PCM. If I want to process in PCM with VS from my DSD master, it's pretty easy, so it's a win-win, really.

I am having some success with using a borrowed Creek OBH-15MkII and running it through the analog in on the PSA NPC and the rips sound great. I like the sound better than the phono stage on the PS Audio. So a new ADC is now on the back burner. For now.

 

I'm considering embarking on a project to needledrop the Beatles' mono boxed set and I'm wondering whether I'm better off recording the mono sound in stereo and then - on pc - deleting one channel and replacing it with a clone of the other (in order to ensure identical channels) or to sum the channels to mono using the mono switch on my pre-amp (I'm bypassing my main amp) and record in mono. The latter will reduce noise but may lock in any issues that may arise if my cart isn't perfectly aligned (which it probably isn't ).

Any thoughts?

 

Gonna ask this here as well as the needledrop thread to get more eyes on it.

 

You could go from:

turntable -> phono preamp (or receiver) -> ADC (or soundcard, or most laptop audio inputs work) -> capture with a software program (Izotope, Audacity, Adobe Audition, etc.).

You can use sound cards, discreet ADC, discreet recorders, whatever you like, the options are nearly endless.

I use:
Turntable -> PS Audio NPC (which is phono preamp + ADC) [output via digital from ADC to] -> Tascam DA-3000 recorder [digital input] to record in PCM or DSD.

I then take the captured wav file from the Tascam to my laptop to de-click, split tracks, tag, etc. using Izotope RX.

I have no desire to insert a multi-tasking, multipurpose, noisy computer in the middle of my chain to simply capture bits, but YMMV. At one point I used a Sony PCM-M10 from my analog outputs on the NPC, that worked too. A lot of ways to skin this cat....

 

If you are using noise reduction software (like clickrepair), its best to have a stereo signal of mono material because that can help the cleanup.

 

Interesting. I won't be using any NR as such - just repairing clicks - but that's useful to know.

 

Just read the two threads. There's a tremendous amount of wealth of information in them.

 

There's two schools of thought here. One says to sum the two stereo channels, and one says you can copy one channel over to the other with software. Alternately, you can blend them with software. The one advantage of summing, however you do it, is that you can eliminate some surface noise through cancellation.

 

Trust me, I tried. Really doesn't help considering I don't (or at least didn't) know half of the terms used, everyone uses a different method, and everyone has a different level of accuracy they want to achieve, which means equipment of various price levels being talked about. I figured listing exactly what I am working with and asking what would work best would be the way to go.