LP to CD burning software?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by RDK, Sep 7, 2002.

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  1. RDK

    RDK Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I know this has been discussed before, but a search brings up a ton of comments that are more confusing than anything else.

    I'm looking for opinions on a good software program for burning LPs to CDs, editing and declicking as needed. It needs to work in Windows XP and is preferably free or reasonably inexpensive (less than $100 say). I know that Cool Edit (pro? 2000?) has been mentioned as well as ProTools and Sound Forge. Can anyone sum up the plusses and minuses of either program and what might be the best option? I don't expect to do any really serious sound-shaping or editing (some of the stuff Grant, for example, talks about doing is impressive, but I don't think I have the time, patience, or ears to be so exacting). ;) But I would like something that handles the basics and is fairly easy to use... oh, and is a step above the Easy CD Creator 5 that I'm using now.

    thanks,
    Ray
     
  2. Grant

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

    Cool Edit 2000 sells for $69. But, to do de-clicking, you have to spend $49 more. So that's $118. SF's NR is over $200! In short, you are not going to get away without paying over $100.

    Pro Tools for free for the PC is a real gamble. it may or may not work. You must look at their website to find out if your PC can handle it. I don't think it has and means to clean up vinyl or tape.

    CD Creator and/or it's Soundstream is worthless.

    But, I seriously recommend Cool Edit for it's ease of use, it's quick learning curve, and it is still miles better than most . Besides, Cool Edit already has NR as a basic feature. SF XP does not.

    I do not know about Goldwave.

    If you have a Mac, someone else should be able to help you.
     
  3. mandrake

    mandrake New Member

    Location:
    UK
    Protools free only works with Windows 98/Me.
     
  4. RetroSmith

    RetroSmith Forum Hall Of Fame<br>(Formerly Mikey5967)

    Location:
    East Coast

    >>>>>I know. What a bunch of IDIOTS over at Protools. Not to make a version for Windows XP when everyone is upgrading to it is insane.

    I actually bought Cool Edit Pro 2.0 when I upgraded. Love it!!!
     
  5. mudbone

    mudbone Gort Annaologist

    Location:
    Canada, O!
    I use Steinberg's Clean. It has real time effects (de-clicking, etc) which allows you to modify your vinyl files as you listen to them. You don't have to process the entire file to hear what effect your effct will have.

    Mud-
     
  6. Grant

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

    Thing is, Dididesign doesn't really care! They make too much money from the Mac crowd to care. Besides, they have to rewrite the code for 2000/XP. Too much trouble for them, I guess.

    Cool Edit 2.0 is pretty neat, huh?
     
  7. Roscoe

    Roscoe Active Member

    Location:
    Orange County, CA
    I have to vote for Cool Edit as well...a great piece of software.

    Just a general warning regarding "declicking", though: This is a tedious, labor intensive process no matter which software you use. You really have to keep practicing until you learn what works and what doesn't. There is no "magic" series of steps that will work on all recordings. Be prepared for hours of your life to fall into a declicking black hole!

    (This is not a fault of Cool Edit...its declicking tools are great. It's just the nature of the beast.)
     
  8. Grant

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

    Also, one declicking setting will not work for a whole LP. One setting does not even work for one song, sometimes.

    I have at my disposal five declickers! If one doesn't get it, another one may. And, you can always declick manually by interpolation. With Cool Edit you can even invent your own techniques to clean up those clicks and crackles by nullifying the clicks and noise.

    I tried Waves latest NR suite. It is sweet, but the price at over $1200 isn't!
     
  9. RDK

    RDK Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Thanks for the info guys! Cool Edit 2000 sounds the best so far. I've been given an old version of CoolEdit 96, but I'd rather spend more for something more up-to-date (besides, I doubt if 96 works in XP).

    Ray
     
  10. RDK

    RDK Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Follow up: what do you think about using Easy CD Creator 5 for straight vinyl to CD xfers with no futzing? Is the quality limited to the sound card or the program (16 bit vs. 24 bit?)

    Ray
     
  11. Grant

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

    Yes. It works fine. I don't know how CD Creator works in XP (I think there are driver issues that may have been resolved) but it works great in Win2000.

    In ANY program, the soundcard is the only limitation. If you do any processing, it's up to the program as well. And, as always, the job is as only as good as the engineer.
     
  12. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    I haven't looked at Cool Edit for several years; sounds like it's time for another look.

    I used Sound Forge XP for about five years before upgrading to Sound Forge 5.0. Haven't tried version 6.0, but I haven't been bothered by speed issues in 5. I like the Sonic Foundry products. They're easy to use (for basic stuff--more advanced stuff takes more effort, natch), powerful, flexible, and the company seems quite responsive--regular patches, etc. If you're careful, the "operate on sound file directly" can save you a bunch of time. Sound Forge 5.0 has very good and flexible EQ options (paragraphic, parametric, and 1/3 octave graphic). It accepts DirectX plugins. It doesn't come with NR, but after trying many NR packages (algorithmix, Sound Forge NR, Dart, CD Creator/Dart, etc.) I've given up on NR for all but the worst records--it's just not worth it. I declick manually, using one of Sound Forge's "repair" options: Interpolate, Replace, or Copy Other Channel. For mono work with a click on one side, the last option is wonderful to have. And interpolate works well, though it takes practice to get the best results (that's assuming I've actually gotten to that level, which might not be a good assumption:laugh:.)

    Sound Forge also has a nice "extract regions" routine that copies and saves regions (read: LP tracks I've marked in the program) as individual files. Nifty little time saver, that. Cool Edit may have a similar feature--dunno.

    Right now, the most attractive feature for me in Sound Forge 6 is the extra zoom capability, so I could get down to individual samples more precisely. Of course, a speed boost would be nice, too.

    I got my editing chops (such as they are) in radio; I used to be pretty good with the editing block, grease pencil, razor blade, and splicing tape. But doing sample-accurate editing is a whole 'nother ball game!

    Gardo
     
  13. Grant

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

    Gardo, the NR in programs like SF and Cool Edit do work VERY well as long as you have a good quality recording to start with. There is a learning curve involved with any NR.

    You ARE aware, Gardo, that working in the direct mode degrades the sound quality because you are working in 16-bit processing...

    Trust me, you will appreciate the speed in 6.0! But, it will do good to look again at Cool Edit Pro. There are a LOT of things you can do with the multitrack, even if you are just working on two-track stereo.
     
  14. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia


    SF's NR has saved some very scratchy stuff for me, but I always hear a difference in the transients I want to leave untouched.... If the recording is good quality to begin with, I just declick and live with the noise.

    Actually, I was not aware of this. Thanks. In direct mode I'm usually doing nothing more than trimming heads and tails, or simple splices. Will there be degradation in those cases? Or is the degradation you mention only if I'm doing EQ or normalization or such?

    Worth a look, I'm sure.

    Gardo
     
  15. Grant

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

    Most audio editors now work in 32 or even 64-bit internal processing by default. The direct mode circumvents this. This is why the direct mode works so fast. 6.0 does away with direct mode but makes up for it by being faster all around, so your audio quality never has to suffer.

    To be honest, Sonic Foundry is not too good with educating it's users on how digital works. By comparison, Syntrillium cares if their user base is knowledgable about how their software, and thdigital in general works.

    There is no harm in downloading a functional demo of Cool Edit 2000 or Cool Edit Pro. It has changed greatly from CE96 in performance and confuguration. CE96 was child's play in comparison.
     
  16. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    This I understand. What I'm wondering is whether any "internal processing" occurs if one is simply trimming or splicing.

    I quite agree that SF doesn't do much to educate the user; I think that's because their products are aimed at the pro and semi-pro market. Or perhaps they're just overly casual about documentation.

    Thanks,
    Gardo
     
  17. RDK

    RDK Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Thanks Grant, glad to hear it. Maybe I'll play around with the stock CD Creator before I spend more $$$ on CoolEdit. (CD Creator 5, btw, works fine in XP.) I'll have to check out my sound card and perhaps upgrade it as well.

    Ray
     
  18. Roscoe

    Roscoe Active Member

    Location:
    Orange County, CA
    There was a debate about this in another thread awhile back.

    Personally, I feel that doing simple trimming or splicing in 16 bit does NOT affect the sound quality of the wave. I have done a lot of this in 16 bit and have NEVER been able to tell a difference.

    If you're really paranoid about this, you can upsample the file to 32 bit in Cool Edit prior to making any edits.

    As the above posts indicate, true "processing" (e.g. declicking, noise reduction, etc.) really should be done in 32 bit. My early attempts were done in 16 bit, and I could definitely hear an improvement when I switched to 32 bit processing. Obviously, you have to downsample to 16 bit prior to burning to CD.

    A note about Noise Reduction: I have experimented with this ad nauseum in Cool Edit and can ALWAYS hear faint digital artifacts. In the best cases, I could only hear the artifacts when listening through headphones, but still...I strongly advise against noise reduction.
     
  19. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    Thanks very much for that info/opinion. And I have to say I fully agree with you regarding Noise Reduction. It's truly a last resort, and only in cases where the noise utterly ruins my enjoyment of the recording. Those little digital artifacts are almost always more annoying than routine clicks, pops, and surface noise.

    Gardo
     
  20. Roscoe

    Roscoe Active Member

    Location:
    Orange County, CA
    Just curious, Grant: Do you use the "Younglove" decrackling technique in Cool Edit?

    I have used it occasionally for cases of constant crackle, with pretty good results. I'm always paranoid about doing too much damage to the original file, though...
     
  21. Grant

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

    Well, sure! Anything you do to a file, even one little simple edit, requires some mathmatical calculation.
     
  22. Grant

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

    I have used it in extreme cases, and variations of it. I personally don't like it because it does leave artifacts or destroys the essence of the sound. As much as I hate clicks, I would rather have a few than to have a file sound like Astley did it!

    About NR: I do use it, and, depending on the type of noise you are dealing with, the amount, and your soundcard, you can do a good job or a bad one that leaves artifacts. Cheaper quality cards like Creative cards will give you a hard way to go. But, I leave a small amount of noise in the music.

    I NEVER NR a tape!
     
  23. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    Yes, of course, I understand that. But it seems to me that recalculating where sample values go on a time line is different in kind from recalculating the samples themselves. Here's a rough analogy: it's the difference between moving beads around on an abacus and restringing the abacus with different beads. Perhaps a better analogy would be the difference between splicing a tape and redubbing a tape to add EQ or perform NR or the like. For splicing a tape, all you need is a simple, straightfoward operation that does nothing to the recording itself. I understand that with SF this is done mathematically, but that math shouldn't need to affect the sample values themselves, or so it seems to me.

    Gardo
     
  24. Grant

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

    Editors generally create a 32-bit copy, or "virtual" file for you to work on. Nothing is changed on the actual file until you save it. This is called UNdestructive editing. You can't change your original file unless you save your work to that same file.

    Now, if you work in a direct mode, the software does NOT create a virtual file, you work DIRECTLY on the file, so anything you do is final when you do it. There's no turning back! The reason it is done in 16-bit is because that 32-bit temp file was never created. So, the process is sped up. It may, create a simple 16-bit copy...

    There is also a question of dithering your files. You generally want dither. You need it because you would normally work with 32-bit temp files. If you used direct mode, you may get simple truncation in SF 5.0. It is not clear, and SF does not say (if they even know, their tech help isn't that bright either, only the programmers know), if the results are dithered. If not, you will wind up with grainy, thin sounding music. In Cool Edit, this is optional all around. Even the type of dither is user definable!

    SF is geared towards pros? Maybe, but those amatures and radio guys who use Cool Edit are getting a better deal!
     
  25. Gardo

    Gardo Audio Epistemologist

    Location:
    Virginia
    I don't know about the dithering. Interesting point. I always thought that dither was primarily to randomize noise and eliminate stairstepping at the "bottom bit," thus increasing the apparent dynamic range of a 16-bit file. Maybe it serves a similar purpose at the 32-bit level.

    I *can* speak to the "direct mode" issue below....



    This is mostly but not entirely the case. You can "turn back" in direct mode so long as you haven't saved the file. If you close without saving, none of the changes is permanent. The prudent thing to do in any case is to work on a copy of the original file that you've "saved as" under another name. That way you can have the increased speed of direct mode with the security of not affecting the original.

    I don't remember--but don't you still have an "undo" option in direct mode?

    Interesting conversation!

    Gardo
     
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