Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

The noise recorded on needle drop from the starting empty grooves on vinyl until the first useful sound signal contains the TT rumble and the stylus friction on the groove, but the noise curve looks like the RIAA de-emphasis work.

If I remove 100% of this noise, music sounds unnatural, so I think the RIAA de-emphasis is involved here.

What is the best practice to remove only the rumble and the stylus-on-groove noise but keep the useful noise to not alter the music?

 

What are you defining at the first useful sound signal?

 

I usually do not remove 100% of the noise. This heps to prevent that unnatural sound. I will reduce the noise sample 3-12 Db depending on the amount of noise. I can listen to the removed noise and if there is music I will reduce the amount of noise reduction until there is only noise. For between tracks, I will then section those parts off and reduce the volume until there is no signal. Now the between tracks are silent and the music has the background noise acceptably reduced.

 

Ah, you're forgetting the tape noise prior to the first musical sound. What you want to do is remove the vinyl noise prior to the sound of the tape's noise floor. Reduce that by about -12 dB and the tape hiss should remain intact.

 

I think the reduction of the record noise with -12 dB is the right choice, because is come from the experienced needle droppers.

A number of noise reduction techniques can be used to reduce the impact of the analog master tape hiss, but I think this is the job of the mastering/sound engineers who prepare the vinyl pre-master to use as the master source for lacquer cutting.

As I saw in my sample, the HF noise above/after the Low Pass brickwall I put at 22050 Hz, was dropped at -220 dB around.

 

If the music is loud enough, you generally do not hear any record noise (aside from clicks) so you shouldn't need to do anything. In quieter or silent passages where you may hear record noise, then I use the Izotope Denoiser and/or decrackle.

 

This is a needledrop sample of a new record. Recorded in DSD128 (5.6 MHz), converted to PCM 384/32.
The TT noise <-90 dB (DYI damping of the platter and tonearm).

Dropbox - 01.supertramp.test.wav - Simplify your life

I applied only:
- Low Pass brickwall at 50 KHz (for the DSD HF noise floor removal)
- Stereo to Mono conversion in range 0-26 Hz (for lowering rumble)
- "Multi-band random cliks" sensitivity 0.7 with iZotope RX 6
- Resampled to PCM 96/24 with dither and noise shaping
- normalized to 20 LUFS

No other processings.

 

UPDATE: When the "0" dB line in spectrogram of the noise pattern (from the stylus-on-groove to music start) become straight, I know the rumble was removed.

After full processing I gain soundstage. Bonus.

Dropbox - 03.side1_96k.wav - Simplify your life

 

Well, that is the choice of the mastering engineer, isn't it? A lot depends on the source material. Not everyone is needledropping pristine recordings pressed on quiet vinyl. There are no rules to this game. Some of us de-noise entire files, some of us de-noise sections, some of us don't do anything at all.

 

If you take that out, you might as well just listen to cds (imo). That "gritty rumble" has the slam. I love the sound of my records (most of them "minty" condition,)
and just "as they are", I play them to a cd recorder (real time). The needle-drops sound exactly like the record, and (imo) that is perfect results.

 

I learned to not remove all the noise floor of the needle drop because I will lose the drum/bass punch and the soundstage not present in CDs (the HF signal from 20-30 KHz which intermodulate with signals in the audible area). If I remove all noise any music will become the Mr. ROBOTO masterpiece.

I don't reduce mechanical the noise floor, eg. -12 dB anywhere and anytime. For any side of an LP I have the same target values, but the deltas (how much dB to reduce the noise) may vary.

I proportionally drop the noise from the "A area" (the TT noise floor) beyond -100 dB and in the second de-noising pass the noise from the "B area" (the stylus-on-groove noise floor) beyond -85 to -90 dB, until the "0" dB line looks straight. I obtain more opening and air for treble and more clarity and punchy vibrations for bass.

 

I'm moving forward with my converter upgrade. Turns out it will be a big update. I am betting that my old AMD system will not work so I'm doing a full system rebuild Based a i7 processor and information I was able to get verifying the chipset is on the list at Merging Technologies..
Looking at reinstalling all my software Clickrepair is the only one that looks kinda iffy. I sent Brian an email today and suspect I will get a reply soon enough

 

Finally got around to listening to this. I don't know the song but your processing is very good. The sound is full, highs are detailed but how you are dealing with the resonance/ rumble is fantastic. It's not like I can hear that low but to look at the wav in RX zoomed in to 0-30hz I don't see how the master could be that clean and accurate "looking" I would like to learn more on how you are processing needle drops.

Very nice job.

 

"Less is More", the lighthouse of a good needledrop processing.

* For rumble removal by phase cancelation I convert stereo to mono in the range 0-30 Hz, using the iZo RX 6 mixing function.

* The only "EQ" I apply to the needledrop is to manipulate the noise floor levels of different frequency bands. Even the noise floor outside the audible range of 20 Hz-20 Khz change the sound by intermodulation. The noise floor removal is very complex and differ from record to record.

* I put the high pass filter at 24 Hz order 2 and the low pass filter at 18000 Hz order 1 using the Oxford linear phase EQ.

 

In IZotope, you can sample the surface noise below 500 Hz or so and reduce it somewhat, leaving any tape hiss and other high frequency information intact. As long as you don't go overboard, it sounds natural, but gets rid of rumble.

 

Gentelmen, I have a question. Is there a recorder exist with USB input? There are recorders with SPDIF for sure, but with USB? So one can get away without yet another converter (USB to SPDIF) in a recording chain...

 

Quick and clean 100% rumble removal with iZotope Rx 6 (no High Pass needed)

1. Chose the "Frequency selection tool [F]"
2. Select a range from 0 Hz to 30 Hz for the entire file, in both L and R channels
3. Hit CTRL+c for copy the selection
4. Go to "File" and click "New from clipboard"
5. Go to the new opened tab in RX named "untitled", hit CTRL+a and then CTRL+c
6. Return to your audio file in the first opened tab
7. Right click on the mouse select "Paste special" -> "Invert and Mix"

Job done! All rumble vanished!

 

If you meant USB-out, I use one of these.

http://www.rega.co.uk/fono-mini-a2d.html
Rega Fono Mini A2D review | What Hi-Fi?

RCA analog L/R from turntable, into this box. And then, two outputs: USB out to your computer, and, RCA analog L/R out to your amp/receiver. Not pretty but works great!

If you really meant USB-in, then I don’t know

 

Yeh, I meant USB in... Oh well, looks like I'll have to get another gizmo for USB->SPDIF convertion... When and if I'll go to needledrop rabbit hole ))).

 

Hi guys.

One question. Since it's related with the topic I think there is no need to open a new post.

I've bought this to help my records keep clean. VINYL STYL - Vinyl Styl 72331 Record Cleaning System with Fluid - Merchandising / Acessórios - Compra música na Fnac.pt

My question is how many times I should use the cleaning fluid on the records? And the brush it includes should I use frequently to remove dust?

Another question is possible that anti static brushes can scratch records? Should I clean it with distilled water?

Thanks for your help!
Best regards!

 

I wash the vinyl records in the sink with hot tap water and detergent. I use a fine paintbrush of pig hair and rubber gloves. In water with detergent, the brush does not scratch the disc, it cleans fine. Then I rinse them well in the hot water from the tap, after which I clean the leftovers with sanitary alcohol and rinse again with hot tap water. The tap water here is very clean, without impurities (36 ppm). After washing, I place the disks in the natural dry on a horizontal rod.

 

I tried this Bob it's the same thing as muting everything below 30hz. I'm not sure why I even did it to a small section in the middle of the frequency band and it just removed everything. So it must be cancelling everything.

 

After copy you forgot to change to "T" (time selection tool) and click "Home".
Here is the shortcut (I copy selection to separate file when I remove clicks, pops & crackes):

Select the range 0-30 Hz (click "F" and select range) and copy selection to clipboard (CTRL+c).


click "T" (time selection tool) and "Home".
Right mouse click -> Paste Special -> Invert and Mix


Rumble vanished by out of phase cancellation method.

 

Not sure I'm following you. After highlighting 0-30 click T? If I right click on the section and hit T on the keypad it silences the section. The exact same thing happens if you just click cut. How do you click home?

I used to highlight and silence 0-18 stopped and started denoising the whole file. I'm trying denoising 0-30 then the whole file.