Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Vocalpoint, May 11, 2011.

  1. Numark TTXUSB turntable with Nagaoka MP-500 cartridge and internal preamp turned off > ART DJPRE II phono preamp > Stereo/mono switch (the one made and sold by fellow forumite @xmas111) > Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum sound card with kX drivers (way better than the factory ones)

    As I said before, you can hear my recordings in my YouTube channel (link in my signature). But since, for the most part, people is reluctant to believe in the true quality of an audio file being played through YouTube, here's a sample from one of my recordings in .wav format for you to check if you like (link will expire on Jan. 23). Again, my recordings aren't award-deserving, but I like the results I get.
     
  2. JohnO

    JohnO Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Very nice. But, why do you do the two simultaneously? You could take the Tascam recording and process it in normal ClickRepair and other programs.
     
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  3. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    Usually I make my recordings with max peak between -4dB to -3dB and RMS at -20dB +/- 1dB. I prefer more dynamic range and less loudness. Clipping free, distortion free. Ear safe.

    [​IMG]
     
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  4. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    My setup for needledrop is simple: a turntable, a desktop PC and a USB cable. :tiphat:
     
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  5. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Thanks harby what post was that link in I did see it. Also about phasing and dc offset issues. What causes these issues? Some kind of hardware anomaly? Do you need to constantly look for the errors or is it something you have or do not have?
     
  6. miguelfcp

    miguelfcp Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Portugal
    I normalized to -3dB it's saffer like you said even I will use it as FLAC file. I always thougth that the peaks were intact independently of the file's format. Always learning :)

    -------

    One question when I export the file to wav to 16bit or 24 it allows a dither option: none (truncate), white noise (TPDF) and noise shapping (MBIT+).

    Which should I use and what means each one? Or should I go with 32 bit?
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2019
  7. Grant

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

    Record in 32-bit. When you are done with your project and want to burn a CD-R, take it to 16-bit and use white noise (TPDF) dither.
     
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  8. FrankieP

    FrankieP Forum Resident

    Coz I can and if there’s one thing that takes me a long time to do is do post processing to get rid of clicks and pops. My usual workflow is record and do manual declick with iZotope RX. As soon as I discovered ClickRepairRT (thanks to forum members here reviving a now defunct software), I found it to be quite acceptable and i’ve been lazy!

    Most of the records I want to transfer to digital are rare and impossible to find a good clean copy. Most have not been released on CD so click and pop removal is important to me. But also, I want to archive the raw audio signal without processing in the belief that I would have time in the future to do so. So, simultaneous recording the unprocessed audio for archival purpose and the processed audio to immediately play out and listen, saves me time.
     
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  9. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    I'm looking to get something better than the restoration tools in VinylStudio. I don't do a lot, currently, just some basic click repair and normalization. I see B&H has RX Elements for $29 iZotopeiZotope RX Elements Audio Restoration and Enhancement Software (Download) . It looks like a previous version. It's hard to go wrong at that price. Just wondering what you think of those tools and if that is the version you bought or if you got the RX 7 version.

    Thanks,
    Ed
     
  10. Grant

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

    I just recently got RX Elements, and while it lacks the superior de-noising of the standard or higher versions (I have the original RX with the de-noiser), it does an even better job of de-clicking than ClickRepair. Honestly, $29 is a good deal. Grab it. And, you can use the modules in other host programs. It comes with Ozone Elements, which provides more comprehensive tools than SF.

    I also bought Sound Forge Studio. And, while it lacks features that the full blown Found Forge 11 has (I have Sony SF 10), it comes with another program called Magix Audio Cleaning Lab, which has some surprising tools, like audio cloning and a Dolby B simulator. However, the interface leaves a lot to be desired. Sound Forge Studio was also $29.

    So, if you just do needledrops, these tools should suffice. But, I recommend getting the full-blown versions of these programs if you can afford them. Sweetwater allows you to make payments to make it easier to afford them instead of paying the full price up front.

    BTW, Waves had been having a half-price sale on their plugins too. I'm looking at a couple of them, but I don't really need them for what I do.

    I still use Adobe Audition for speed and ease of some professional functions. I haven't touched Click Repair since I bought RX Elements.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2019
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  11. harby

    harby Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    DC offset would be unusual to find in needledropping hardware, but if you do identify it -- by a silent section of the recording's waveform not settling on the 0dB center line, but instead above or below it -- you know it is something about the hardware that will always be there until you fix it, or at least you'll need to remove the offset in audio editing software with a highpass filter every time.

    I'm curious what you think a phasing issue is, though, and how you would expect to correct that. If you discover your recordings are of inverse absolute phase (which can be hard to identify unless you know what to look for, such as the expected transient characteristics of dust clicks, or by even moving the stylus manually), or one channel is out of phase, then you can correct the cartridge wiring.

    Any other "phasing" repair would be much more advanced, such as identifying tape head alignment issues included in the LP mastering and correcting one channel with a delay.
     
  12. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    I don't really know of any phasing issue, just it has been mentioned in this thread recently and I wanted to check it. The same with DC offset. I'm pretty confident I have no issues with either.

    I went back and saw the link and yes I have known for some time how to switch into the spectral waveform view in RX. It does not look anything like the images you posted. I did install Audition 3 to use the 13Hz Chebychev2 lowpass filter but that did work right not completely sure if it was set up correctly. It still seems to me that simply cutting(muting) everything from 0-18hz is a fast effective way of removing this noise. This noise that I am physically unable to hear and I believe my speakers are unable to reproduce. I now know the actual music will go down as low as near 0 but I couldn't hear that either. I'm probably needlessly wasting time I have a method that thanks to your subsonic test works and does not appear to harm anything in the upper ranges.
    However I would like to use the 13Hz Chebychev2 lowpass filter in Audition and if that view you used in your subsonic noise test is in Audition steps to use it would be greatly appreciated.
     
  13. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    You can use the EQ in RX to brickwall the frequency range. Usually I use a highpass brickwall at 20 Hz and a lowpass brickwall at 30,000 Hz (this is the maximum frequency response of my TT cart). I think anything above 30 kHz and under 20 Hz is nothing else but noise, sibilants, rumble, aliasing. The needledrop sounds more transparent after processing.
     
  14. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Nice sample sounds pretty good to me. I looked at your subsonics and you cartridge TT combo does not seem to have what mine does. Are you filtering it in any way?
     
  15. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    I refer you to this post sugesting that the brickwall filter does something "peculiar"
     
  16. BrilliantBob

    BrilliantBob Select, process, CTRL+c, CTRL+z, ALT+v

    Location:
    Romania
    I see nothing "peculiar" here after the 20 Hz highpass and 30 kHz lowpass brickwalls applied.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  17. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    I'm not sure just going with what harby said when he analized the tones in the subsonic test after I applied the 20hz brickwall filter.
     
  18. Glad you liked it. Aside from peak normalizing to -0.3 dB, the only processing I apply to my recordings is click/pop removal on an individual basis. My phono preamp (ART DJPRE II) has a low cut switch (-3dB @ 22Hz) and that's probably what you notice.
     
  19. Grant

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

    That must've been painful!:D
     
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2019
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  20. miguelfcp

    miguelfcp Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Portugal
    So far I digitalized 3 of my vinyl records. Two of them are marvelous (Iron Maiden albums Piece of Mind and Seventh Son Of Seventh Son). Their sound beats everything released on CD and stream.

    The other one was Machine Head Catharsis. This one something bad happen and I don't know what and why. The drum sound is kinda muffled compared to sound playing on vinyl or CD.
     
  21. marcob1963

    marcob1963 Forum Resident

    Gunk on your stylus?
     
  22. miguelfcp

    miguelfcp Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Portugal
    Nope because on vinyl the records plays as it should. I'm thinking if it was the process to remove the clicks and pops that made that.
     
  23. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    What was your process? Over declicking will make the recording dull. Which is why many do it manually and as light as possible.
     
  24. In my experience, the main problem with declicking are percussion instruments, particularly bass drums and rim clicks. That's what you must watch the most when declicking.
     
    Grant likes this.
  25. miguelfcp

    miguelfcp Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Portugal
     
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