Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

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

  1. Grant

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

    Magix Audio Cleaning Lab probably isn't even considered serious audio software, but I am impressed by just how good the results i've been getting with it are. It it just weren't for the awful, non-intuitive interface and workflow. But, it was free for me. Can't look a gift horse in the mouth.
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  2. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    I already processed the gaps on archived stuff not that they didn't have any, my bad. Is magix formally Sound Forge? I have not use the new software. The Spectral denoise in RX6 advanced is amazing. Ever since I joined this forum most members say "I never denoise" Most of what I know today I learned from Stefan's RX2 tutorial and at that time you could hear the reason why. Today I spent a good part of the day processing drops and saving them in their own folder and playing both cuing them up and listening for a defect, so far none. Even clean records that you don't need it the background gets blacker and the music sounds the same.

    I'm wondering if a lot of people denoise in secret claiming otherwise making their setups look better, for those posting samples which really isn't that many these days. I remember the days when the needledrop thread was an active place.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2019
  3. I believe Sound Forge is now owned by Magix.

    It's hard to say how many people denoise their needledrops. I usually do to some degree since I frequent used record stores, secondhand stores and garage sales. You're right about the post your needledrop thread. It seems to have died out.
     
    ghost rider likes this.
  4. jmobrien68

    jmobrien68 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toms River, NJ
    I find new records (recently pressed) to often be the worst offenders when it comes to surface noise. I just picked up the new Struts lp and it's more like surface roar between tracks.
     
    gabbleratchet7 and arisinwind like this.
  5. BrilliantBob

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

    Location:
    Romania
    I usually let at the begining of the record 10-20 secs of pure platter/tonearm/cartridge resonance noise floor, with the stylus not yet dropped on the vinyl. I use first this pattern to denoise all sides of the vinyl. The second wave of pattern denoise I use is the stylus inner groove noise between tracks (track by track, side by side or the whole album, depends on the record quality). Now the record is as transparent as possible. Declick processing, some EQ tweaks (I like more BASS range 20-120Hz to blow up my subwoofer).
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  6. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    Well I went and bought iZotope RX 7 Standard. Now I need to learn all the ins and outs of the Spectral De-noise feature. Generally I plan to run De-hum, a light De-click (2.0 or so) then a low pass 20K and high pass 20 EQ filter followed by De-noise, when needed. It seems pretty easy to end up with artifacts with De-noise if you are not careful. I'm not sure about using it on the whole thing. For now I'm only playing with the in-between areas. Either fading in and out and using -Inf gain or using De-noise. I expect I will also use the Normalize module at -1.0.

    It has been my experience that many new records suffer from low level vinyl noise. No matter how much you clean them. The best new records are very quiet, but common ones are quite noisy. The difference between the top of the line pressing of Burrito Deluxe from Intervention Records and the very average pressing of the latest Mandolin Orange release from Yep Roc Records is large. And I'm not talking about pressing defects, there were none.
     
  7. Grant

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

    Advice: never plan to use a workflow, or presets. Every project will be different with different requirements.
     
    arisinwind and BrilliantBob like this.
  8. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    I'm sure that is true when you are going for a perfect digital result. In my case I am looking for a very good result that may have some clicks and a touch of noise left. If I can't get through a typical album in 30 minutes then I won't be converting nearly as many of my records. Now my most beloved original UK pressing may get a good bit more time dedicated to them.
     
  9. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Be careful running declick at any setting to the entire file. Most notably horns can become severely distorted. It can be hard to undo after you do a lot of work after the declicking.
     
  10. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    If RX cannot distinguish between brass and a click, I'll be forced to go back to using VinylStudio for click repair. Or maybe it's a matter of using a very low setting. Listening to every second of the album while running click repair is not something I'm prepared to do.
     
  11. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Yes, it's easy to "undo" as there is always the original or last version saved. Each step creates another version. Go back one layer of work and bingo, undone. A least in my work flow there is.
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  12. ghost rider

    ghost rider Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bentonville AR
    Ok sounds easy enough.
     
  13. Grant

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

    I don't think you understood what I said. My point is, never rely on a set number of processes. You may not need them all. You may be wasting your time by doing more than you need.

    Next: If you decide that you will spend no more than a half an hour on anything, you will not even do a very good job of the stuff you do care about.

    My philosophy is to do a good job on everything. Take pride. Have fun. Relax. Hone your skills.
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  14. Grant

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

    Yes, it can. better software can do this quite easily. I haven't had problems with brass breaking up in years since using better declickers such as RZ, or even Click Repair.

    Again, for the things you say you care about, I think you ought to be prepared to take as much time as needed to do the job right the first time. But, it's your life...
     
    gabbleratchet7 likes this.
  15. ascot

    ascot Senior Member

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    If speed is more of a concern than getting it right, prepare to be disappointed. Alternatively, be prepared to compromise when there are things you can't get quite clean without ruining the sound.

    I do most of my click removal manually. This is the most time consuming method but also gives me the most control over what comes out and what does not. It's gotten faster since I learned to use spectral mode to find the clicks.

    Another option is using more than one copy of the same pressing. When this option is available you can work on your better copy but edit pieces in from backups to cover bad spots.
     
    Grant and arisinwind like this.
  16. BrilliantBob

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

    Location:
    Romania
    The RX 6 "De-click" is a non-destructive automatic declicker if the sensitivity used is no more than 1.0. Also, for the hard clicked gaps between tracks is safe to use "De-click" up to sens 5.0 and click widening 5.0. After processing, I remove the stubborn remained big clicks manually, using even the "Spectral Repair" and/or "Interpolate" if needed.

    To know better where the clicks are, first I make the needledrop transparent by using the two stage noise floor removal:
    1. I remove the TT noise floor with "Spectral De-noise" by learning the first seconds of the record, before the stylus is touching the vinyl.
    2. After the first stage, I remove the vinyl inner groove noise floor with "Spectral De-noise" by learning at the begining of the record just before the first track, after the stylus is touching the vinyl (here I clean before learning all clicks and pops if any).
     
  17. Grant

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

    I've had to do that a couple of times. The downside is that you quickly discover that there can be differences in the sound of two different pressings. To eliminate that, you have to resort to EQ'ing one or the other.
     
  18. Grant

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

    I always de-click before doing anything else. Correcting phase, DC, reducing broadband/surface noise, and EQ, can all interfere with the effectiveness of a declicker.
     
    arisinwind likes this.
  19. BrilliantBob

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

    Location:
    Romania
    The main stages of my needledrop processing are three, in this order:
    - the noise floor removal
    - clicks and pops removal
    - Dehum, DC offset, Phase, Azimuth, EQ, De-esser, Normalize (peak and loudness control), high pass, low pass and other fine tweaks if needed.

    If I don't like how sounds the final result (after a break and listen other music) I don't hesitate to send the garbage to the recycle bin and I start again from stage 3.
     
    gabbleratchet7 and Grant like this.
  20. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    I would argue that certain parts of the workflow are constant. De-hum, low pass and high pass filtering and normalization. I don't see why I would leave them out. If they are negatively impacting the sound then I shouldn't be doing them.
    De-click and De-noise, of course are different. That's where I have to learn what's best. Light clicks do not bother me. So perhaps I'll start with a very low setting, move the result to my server and listen. I can always make notes and go back make targeted fixes.
     
  21. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    I assume you learned the "noise" of your turntable with the tonearm over a record with the platter spinning. Then you De-noise the entire file using that? I did record that in my system and it is extremely low level. But I suppose it can't hurt.
    In the second case, I've had lead-in grooves that where way noisier than the other track breaks. I wouldn't use that to De-noise other part.
     
  22. BrilliantBob

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

    Location:
    Romania
    Yes, I learn the "noise" of the TT and ambience (other electric devices nearby) with the tonearm over a record with the platter spinning and the stylus in the air then I denoise the entire file with this pattern. Strong removal at 40dB.

    Second, I clean well the lead-in grooves and I use this pattern to de-noise the entire file but gently, at 5-8-12-24dB. I check before with preview to not remove the song sounds. It's safe and I see/hear no rumble after that. The record is transparent, only music remains. I look into the spectrogram to find the exact frequency of any musical instrument and voices, for further EQ tweaks and balance.
     
    Last edited: Feb 6, 2019
  23. stetsonic

    stetsonic Forum Resident

    Location:
    Finland
    I thought IGD gets worse towards the centre of the record and shouldn't really be audible in the beginning of the side, provided the turntable has been set up correctly. It's really the nature of the whole phenomenon, where the resolution of the groove diminishes as the diameter gets smaller. So if you're trying to reduce the effect, wouldn't it be better to take the NR sample from the end of the record?

    On the other hand, inner-groove distortion shouldn't even exist in the silent parts at all as it occurs when the groove becomes too convoluted for the stylus to resolve (lots of high frequences in the material, for example).
     
  24. Subvet

    Subvet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Maine
    I'm afraid I don't understand your dB references. Is that Hz (frequency) instead of dB, or is it supposed to be dB and be the amount by which you are lowering the noise (reduction)?

    Here's an image of my tonearm over record noise in RX. It is recorded at the same level that I use for the vast majority of my LPs.

    [​IMG]
     

  25. I just tried this on my system and there was nothing. No visible or audible noise.
     

Share This Page

molar-endocrine