Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

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

  1. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    You ought to listen to pBTHAL. He knows what he's doing for sure.
     
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  2. JBStephens

    JBStephens I don't "like", "share", "tweet", or CARE. In Memoriam

    Location:
    South Mountain, NC
    When you're working from vinyl, you're working with the original master tapes (give or take a little bit). It's already been mastered once, presumably by folks who know what they're doing, so "remastering" from vinyl is somewhat of a mis-statement of what you're really doing. When I work from vinyl I concentrate primarily on flaw removal to make it as perfect as possible. Half the time when you try to make it sound "better" you just end up making it sound worse.
     
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  3. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Hi Dave,

    All audio signals are AC, which means that the signal alternates between positive and negative voltage values. When that gets to your speaker, a positive voltage pushes the speaker outwards, a negative voltage pulls the speaker inwards, and zero volts returns the speaker to equilibrium. A DC offset is whenever you have a constant signal that is either completely positive or completely negative superimposed (added) to the audio signal. That means that while the meaningful information in the signal is supposed to be at 0 volts, there is a constant voltage added on top of it that makes the speaker not quite at zero volts at that point. So whenever you add that on top of an audio signal, the signal will be "off-centered", hence the term DC Offset.

    Let's say you have a digital signal that has voltages of 2, -6, 8, and -4 volts for the first four samples, respectively. If you add DC a offset of 2 volts to the signal, then the sample values now become 4, -4, 10, and -2 volts. This is bad because let's say that your amplifier can only produce a maximum of 8 volts. Well, if you've got DC offset in the signal, then you're going to be clipping when you hit that 10 volt sample! Before, it wouldn't have been a problem, and you could have had the music playing at the same volume but without any clipping going on.

    The way to remove DC offset from the signal is to subtract the mathematical mean of the signal from itself. So, our mathematical mean would be: (4 + -4 + 10 + -2)/4 = 2 volts, which is the original DC offset we added in the first place. So once you do that, you're back to the original signal of 2, -6, 8, and -4 volts. Now you can enjoy the full dynamic range of the music you're listening to without the dynamics being compromised. (The same is true in the analog domain, but instead of talking about voltages at different samples, we would be talking about voltages at different points in time). You don't have to do this manually in sound editing programs, you can just click the "remove DC offset" button. That is just the technical explanation of what it actually does.

    You can see it below in the picture:

    [​IMG]

    The top image is the signal with DC offset added, and the bottom signal is the signal with no DC offset. See how they look identical except the signal with the DC offset added is sort of "shifted" upwards, and not centered around the 0 volt equilibrium? It's off-centered. Also, you see how the top waveform can't be increased in volume anymore without clipping? And see how the bottom one is able to go louder without clipping?

    DC offset can not only be present on recordings, but your system can add it too! Anything more than +/- 15mV of offset from your amplifier is bad news. a lot of amplifiers have manual adjustment for this, but you'll need a multimeter and your amp's service manual to do this correctly. I suspect many forum members here have some DC offset going on at the output of their amplifiers and they do not even realize it. If you do, you're really not hearing your amplifier the way it is supposed to sound.
     
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  4. DaveN

    DaveN Music Glutton

    Location:
    Apex, NC
    Thanks for that great explanation! I don't think I have ever seen this issue. But before now, I didn't know to look for it either.

    The stuff you learn here is amazing.
     
  5. bigtyke66

    bigtyke66 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA
    Having heard some of your recordings, I'm glad you don't do yard work. :cheers:
     
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  6. acdc7369

    acdc7369 Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States

    I think it has something to do with the reconstruction filter. One of the main properties of active filters is that they invert the absolute phase of a signal by 180 degrees. I suspect that maybe the engineers forgot about this? Or figured no one would notice or care.
     
  7. Jae

    Jae Senior Member

    OK, my turn.

    My equipment as per my profile.

    My process:
    1. Clean vinyl. I use a Spin Clean. Works great for me.
    2. Record both sides through Audition 3 at 32f/96 (tests seem to prove that my audio interface works better at 96 than 192), with max peaks between -12db and -6db
    3. OPTIONAL: run through ClickRepair, usually at no more than 10 or 15, X2, Reverse. For mono albums I'll set Stereo->Mono.
    4. Manual clean up in Audition and/or RX Advanced. I use Spectral View for this.
    5. Determine what gain I need to add to get the highest peak to -0.5db. Apply the same amount of gain to both sides. I'll only apply a different amount of gain to each side where the volume difference between each is obvious.
    6. Split tracks (.1s silence, .4s fade up to sound start and 1 sec fade out after sound ends then silence for remainder of track "gap").
    7. More final QA on the individual files both with headphones and on system just to catch any stray remaining clicks.
    8. Dither/resample to 16/44.1 in RX Advanced.
    9. Burn, FLAC and archive.

    I don't DC Offset because I don't need to. I do always check though, but it's always at 0.
    I don't do NR.
    I'll very, very rarely EQ.

    The way I figure, I only transfer OOP LPs that will most likely never see official CD release (like mono stuff from the 1960s), so putting the time in to make it sound more like a CD than a crackly old record works quite well for me. If I want the analogue experience, I'll continue to listen to the vinyl, but if I want the digital experience, I want the best I can get.
     
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  8. JonP

    JonP Active Member

    I had precisely this same problem with the output of my Heed Questar into any soundcard I tried. And because I use the ASIO bitperfect drivers for my Xonar ST, I have no control whatsover of the recording volume digitally anyway, so I have to control it in the analogue domain.

    I solved the problem by purchasing a NHT Passive Volume Control (PVC-PC model). Sonically transparent (to me) and does the job superbly. You can hear some of my vinyl transcriptions in the latest needledrop thread.

    The only downside to this volume control is that if I have it placed too close to my PC (closer than around 8 inches) there is some interference, though it is at a very low level and would unlikely to be heard unless the volume is turned up to extremely high levels. But since I am pedantic about an absolutely clean and transparent transcription chain, I have made a mounting bracket for it that keeps it a sufficent distance from the PC.

    Also, you would need a second set of identical interconnects to maintain transparency. Nevertheless, in blind, level adjusted testing, I was unable to tell the difference between the NHT PVC inserted and left out of the loop.

    Having now used this passive volume control I would never go back to being able to adjust recording level digitally even if I never had a clipping problem. I am getting a much cleaner and transparent copy of the vinyl now, since I can use the bitperfect drivers, which I could not use before (owing to the need to digitally adjust the level).
     
  9. Grant

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

    What makes you think they don't? Most of us are meticulous.


    That's the thing: our work does not sound like processed digital files. What you say is obviously from someone who has probably never even tried restoring a record.

    Also, a lot of us want music that just happens to not be on CD or on pristine, new vinyl.

    Many of us want that vinyl sound without the noise.
     
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  10. Grant

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

    :uhhuh: :righton:
     
  11. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    Don't get me wrong, if you are happy with the results then that's great, but it's a serious question, I always believe in capturing the source as accurately as possible, so although your processing may give you something you prefer from my point of view each step is taking you away from the vinyl sound. Obviously I'm just recording records whereas you may be taking records as a source to make a recordings you prefer, in effect remastering, we're doing similar things, but for different reasons.
    I've never tried restoring a record using a computer, back in the nineties I did do some frame by frame editing on DAT and the results were released, likewise many transfers I've done have been professionally restored and released and in many ways the results are amazing, but as I said I generally record vinyl to listen to, I've gone through cassette, RTR, DAT, CD recorders and DSD recording, but my purpose for recording is the same as it was with cassette.

    One other thing I genuinely don't understand is why people seem to have so many issues with the vinyl they record, I use excellent condition vinyl that has been cleaned and generally don't get any clicks, pops or intrusive surface noise so I don't see why everyone else seems to need to process recordings so much.

    I'm not knocking what anyone else does, I'm just coming from a different approach, who knows sometime down the road I may decide to edit my recordings and be asking advice, I was just trying to understand why people need or want so much "restoration".
     
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  12. Grant

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

    And if you want a serious answer, you should seek some out by hearing work by people like pbthal, Stefan, me, and many others.

    Like I said earlier, the software we use today is so good that it is possible to preserve the sound recorded even with processing. We know it's done because we do it all the time. And, we have the skills. many of us have been doing this for at least a decade. We know what we are doing.

    And, I dare you to find a pristine copy of...say, Raydio's "Rock On".


    WE can make our vinyl sound like an audiophile CD!
     
  13. tinymontgomery

    tinymontgomery Forum Resident

    I have nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for the meticulous multi-step processes detailed in this thread, honestly. Maybe I'm lazy and/or impatient, but here's mine:

    • Albums I haven't owned from new get a spin on my RCM first.
    • Play album, recording it on the hard drive of my HD/CD recorder. No level-checking, as 10:30 on the record level control seems to be an acceptable default for all but the loudest/quietest vinyl.
    • Use HD/CD recorder's editing functions to move track markers to the correct positions if necessary (I get the equivalent CD's track timings from MusicBrainz to use as a reference) and remove side lead-ins of four seconds or more (the shortest chunk of time the recorder can isolate as a separate track for deletion).
    • Burn the result to a CDRW.
    • Rip the CDRW on my PC using dbPowerAmp (256kbps MP3s) and thence to iTunes and my iPod.
     
  14. Dubmart

    Dubmart Senior Member

    Location:
    Bristol, England
    I'm not questioning the results you get, your skills or the effectiveness of the software, I record vinyl so I have a convenient way of listening to the music that sounds as close to the vinyl as possible, you record vinyl to make the best sounding CD you can achieve through technology and skill, each to their own.

    May I assume that there is something wrong with the readily available CD issue of "Rock On", I'd normally only record something I had or could get cheaply on CD if the CD wasn't very good, or the vinyl was very obviously superior. If I come across a copy of the vinyl are you interested, I have seen it in the recent past.
     
  15. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    Oh, sorry. I'll just go listen to my piece of garbage now... :sigh:
     
  16. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    Would you like us to take up a collection and buy you a copy of Clickrepair? ;)

    Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
     
  17. Chris Schoen

    Chris Schoen Rock 'n Roll !!!

    Location:
    Maryland, U.S.A.
    If I needed to clean up my needle-drops I definately would get Clickrepair. I needle-drop mostly mint condition records, so I don't really need it. My needle-drops serve their purpose, and sound incredibly close to the vinyl playback. The Tascam CD Recorder is a nice piece of equipment for those who just want to get the record on a c.d., and don't have the desire, or need to fuss.
     
  18. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    my routine:

    Turntable and cart may vary, depending on the record

    The gear, lately: Audio-Technica AT-PEQ3 phono preamp > Mackie CR1604 mixer > M-Audio Delta44 soundcard > Windows 7 (64bit) PC ...

    Adobe Audition 3:

    - Brief level setup (Mackie mixer), careful to leave lots of headroom. Mono recordings are captured as mono (signal folded at the mixer).

    - Capture of entire LP - no interruption - at 32/96

    - Trim beginning, middle break and end of capture.

    - Check the waveform for any obvious pops and remove them manually. If any declicking is done, this is when it happens.

    - Subsonic filter applied (Sonic foundry paragraphic EQ - low shelf @20Hz).

    - check RMS/peak statistics of capture, determine amount of gain desired, then apply value using "Hard Limiting" with ceiling set to -0.1dB.

    - resample to 44.1/16, then save file.


    Sony CD Architect 5:

    - open capture file, mark track points, then burn RedBook CD

    a few things:

    It seems like a lot going on, but I rarely end up spending more than 30 ~ 45 minutes beyond the actual running time of the LP to get this done. My PC is pretty fast, and thanks to CD Architect I never have to split the file into separate tracks (which saves a lot of time).

    The use of the "Hard Limiting" tool in Audition may strike some as dangerously close to Brickwalling, but I prefer not to normalize by peak as the resulting level usually comes out to be too arbitrary. I like being able to dial in the amount of gain I want, and let the app take care of the occasional stray peak without worry of clipping.

    I'm not averse to using declicking. I have a few plugins that I sometimes use in parts of captures, but I prefer these rips to sound like records.
     
  19. JonP

    JonP Active Member

    I seem to be in the minority who does not like Clickrepair. I do not find it to be sonically transparent, regardless of how conservative the settings are. There are better options out there and you will get what you pay for. Clickrepair costs something like $40 and you get $40 worth of performance. It might do as good a job as other programs in removing the offending material, but it also audibly effects the remaining musical content. The expensive ones don't have this flaw.
     
  20. One_L

    One_L Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lower Left Coast
    ^^ I was thinking the same.^^

    Most people who rip vinyl have Izotope RXII for over $1k. So why run the initial recording through a $40 program like Click Repair, then fix the pops manually through Izotope.

    Can anyone shed light on this procedure?
     
  21. bliss53

    bliss53 Forum Resident

    1. Clean record with Nitty Gritty machine.
    2. Zerostat
    3. Clean Stylus
    4. Start Pure Vinyl on Computer.
    5. Enter album title
    6. Set level
    7. Record sides at 24/192 raw. Phono correction equalization (RIAA) is applied to the raw digital file by the program. Files can be saved in corrected form.
    8. Run declick if needed. I do not record may records that need it.
    9. Locate tracks
    10. Program assigns tracks. I leave them numbered rather than entering song titles. I tend to listen to complete sides rather than individual cuts.
    11. Save files to itunes. Files can be converted to smaller formats if desired.

    Pure Vinyl has the following features built in (Mac only). It it sounds like I am hard selling but I am not related to Pure Vinyl. I just like the quality of the output.

    Features (from site)
    Unique, "Scratch" Style, Grab & Spin "Vinyl Cueing" Nondestructive Audio Editor
    Cueing Trigger "Noise Gate" feature Automates Recording Process; Just Lift Stylus and Flip the Record
    High Quality 64-Bit Sample Rate Converter for Exporting CD Format Tracks to Digital Players (iTunes, iPod, CD-R)
    ZEPHRR® Zero Phase Shift 64-Bit Rumble Filter for Resampling; Adjustable Frequency, up to 96 dB / octave slope
    Adjustable Noise-Shaped Dithering for Word-Length Reduction
    Built-In Correction Curves for pre-1955 Vinyl / Shellac
    NetSend for Streaming Audio to Other Computers (up to 192 kHz, 24 bit, uncompressed)
    Virtual Line-Level Preamplifier / Source Selector (for audio interfaces with more than 2 analog input channels)
    Built-In 2/3/4-way Crossover (with 64 bit internal resolution and Adjustable Time / Phase Alignment) (for audio interfaces with more than 2 output channels)
    AudioUnit Plug-In Support (add parametric / graphic EQ, etc.)
    Also Built-In: Channel D's Acclaimed Pure Music Digital Music Player
     
  22. bliss53

    bliss53 Forum Resident

    Forgot to list the chain of equipment used.

    Refurbished Thorens TD124
    Benz Micro Reference 3 Cooper
    Ortofon AS309S Tonearm
    Custom tonearm cable DIN to XLR
    TC Electric Impact Twin Microphone preamp with DAC, ADC and Firewire
    Apple Mac Mini with itunes, Pure Vinyl software
    Iomega 2 TB drive
     
  23. bliss53

    bliss53 Forum Resident

    Picture
     

    Attached Files:

  24. Stefan

    Stefan Senior Member

    Location:
    Montreal, Canada
    It's been my experience that Clickrepair does an amazing job at automatic removal of lots of smaller typical clicks but doesn't deal with bigger stuff as well as RX (by the way, the standard version of RX is still extremely powerful and doesn't cost nearly as much). On the other hand, RX can take a long time to automatically process a whole album side, plus I find it much more effective for "surgical" restoration, going in and fixing thumps, big clicks, etc. Plus it has many other tools I use for producing the best final version possible so it makes more sense to my personal workflow to get the basic auto removal of the little stuff out of the way before turning to the main fixes.

    Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk
     
  25. vinyldoneright

    vinyldoneright pbthal

    Location:
    Ca
    Don't forget to pull some weeds when you are done
     
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