Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Ok, give me a couple of days (gonna be at work til Sunday).

 

I've tried automatic declicking on different software and I haven't found one that I fully trust. Of course it takes much longer, but I take my time to remove clicks manually. Not necessarily one by one, but by selecting sections in which instruments like bass drum and snare rim click (usually the most affected by declicking) aren't present.

 

I've been trying to find a balance of manual de-clicking and using Click Repair. I know it helps to remove the really loud pops manually first, and I'm trying to minimize the amount of manual clean up after using CR. For things with lots of percussion I seem better off staying in manual mode.

 

I didn't know that thanks. I'll look for it next time.

 

I can tell you right now that running the Sugarcube has made needledrops so much easier for me to do. Obviously it works better with some kinds of music than others but I find it to have less false positives than any of the other popular choices. I also agree manual declicking will yield the best results but to me that is 10x more time consuming.

 

Finally got some time off from work. So tonight, I did a needle drop of Josh Winks' "Higher State of Consciousness". This track I consider a litmus test for any type of automatic click repair method. I wanted to test which method retains the transients better. I've played out this record so much that it's click ridden and extremely noisy!

My setup for this shootout...
Turntable: Pioneer PLX1000 with an AT540VML/H cartridge/stylus
Phone Pre: MusicHall PA 2.2
Audio Recorder: Tascam DR-100MKIII
Macbook Air (Mid 2013) 11.6' Laptop running the following software...
- ClickRepairRT v1.4.3
-Rogue Amoeba Audio Hijack Pro (used to record hardware or software inputs simultaneously on a Mac)
-Rogue Amoeba Soundflower (open source kernel extension for MacOS, designed to create a virtual audio output device that can also act as an input)

Signal chain of recording...

Turntable -- MusicHall PA2.2 Phono Pre
-- 1 (via USB) -- ClickRepairRT 1.4.3 -- Soundflower output -- AudioHijack (captures ClickRepairRT's output in 24bit 96k)
-- 2 (via USB) -- AudioHijack (captures original nonprocessed output of the MusicHall Phone Pre in 24bit 96k)
-- 3 (via analog RCA output) -- Sugarcube SC-1 Mini -- Tascam DR-100MKIII audio recorder (recording at 24bit 96k)





After recording, I took the original unprocessed sample and ran it thru ClickRepair and iZotope (manual declicking only)

Samples to follow soon!

 

Here's the dropbox link for the samples above...

HIGHERSTATE SAMPLES.zip · 806.73 MB
Dropbox - HIGHERSTATE SAMPLES.zip - Simplify your life

Enclosed in the zip file are the various outputs recorded simultaneously. All samples at 24bit 96k wav (6mn 21s).

HIGHERSTATE_CRRT_2.wav (ClickRepairRT 2nd-pass with Declick slider set to 2)
HIGHERSTATE_CRRT_9.wav (ClickRepairRT with Declick slider at default 9)
HIGHERSTATE_RAW-CR.wav (ClickRepair pass with Declick:20/DeCrackle:Off/Reverse:On/Method: Wavelet..x2)
HIGHERSTATE_RAW.wav (Unprocessed capture of MusicHall PA2.2 USB input)
HIGHERSTATE_SC1M_1.wav (Sugarcube SC-1 Mini 2nd-pass with removal strength set at minimum 1)
HIGHERSTATE_SC1M_5.wav (Sugarcube SC-1 Mini removal strength set at default 5)

I didn't normalize or denoise the samples. I did line them all up as separate tracks in Steinberg Wavelab Audio Montage so they start and end the same time. That way one can import the files in a multitrack program and solo on/off for better audition and comparison.

I didn't include my attempt to do manual declicking with iZotope RX7. It was just too many and would've taken me ages.

Would love to get everybody's opinion on which sounds better and which method best left the transients intact.

 

Man it is so annoying 15 minutes into a needledrop and a big piece of lint is hanging off the stylus.

 

Phantom clicking/tapping sound on turntable
from post #3: 'I never get static since I've been doing this for nearly 20 years and it gets really dry here in the winter.
Lately I pull a recently cleaned record out to play, put it on platter then carbon brush it, then lightly drag the damp cloth over the record surface to pull off a stray hair or dust that the CF brush didn't get (I drop hairs all the time and inevitably one gets one the disc when starting the deck), and this is all I do and I get zero static.
Down a post or two from that I go into more detail, mainly because once you open up the 'I'm using a damp (or moist) cloth' door, immediately most people think you are getting the surface of the record wet.
The moisture in the cloth discharges static and helps drag hairs, etc off the surface after carbon fiber brushing that the CF brush didn't get.'
Your experience here shows that no matter how clean the lp is when you set it on the platter to play you can get a last minute dust or hair -the moist (even barely moist) cloth deal is the last thing you need to do and you can do it while the disc is spinning as the moist cloth will lessen as opposed to creating static in the process, a wee bit of alcohol (10 to 15%) in very clean water is good to use because with the lp spinning and barely anything (not even resembling wet) on the surface whatever does touch the surface evaporates almost immediately.

 

I hate that.

 

It’s best to minimize the potential for damage to the recording, and leave some ticks present rather than minimizing post manual cleanup.

 

Light setting in ClickRepair is not trust worthy in your eyes? I find it a few cuts above.

 

I've been watching this thread for sometime and now that I have time (laid off) I'm diving into some needledrops.

I won't bore you with too many details (yet). My issue is with my newly acquired Motu M2. I'm running left and right inputs through xlr's. I am using Audacity to capture the inputs. As far as I can tell I have to adjust both left and right input levels manually. Is there a way other than that with this unit to make sure the the levels are exactly as they are the the source recording without guessing?

Thanks!
Rick

 

I've done about 20 drops from various albums since Mar. 29 or so. I have 4 or 5 more to work on that were recorded but having not yet gotten the trrack splits and CR, encoding to FLAC and taggged meta done.

Percussion has not been an issue with CR so much as sections of music with loud horns.

 

I use Steinberg’s Wavelab and Declicker when editing needle drops. I don’t declick the whole track. Instead I’ll listen to the file and use the default setting when removing a click, which really doesn’t affect the sound (especially when you’re working in milliseconds), then if click is still there after relistening, I will lower (or raise) the declick setting until click is gone. If sound does suffer some degradation, I will declick manually. And yes, it takes a lot of time!!

 

I’m not hearing degradation in sound quality after using ClickRepair brand tick removal. I listen closely to the ambient information, that reverb or room sound and I’m happy to report it’s still there.

I am avoiding running tracks through a reverse and a forward pass if they clean up well with just the reverse pass, just to be safe.

And some of the ticks that are getting removed are those really tiny background ones that I would never have time to deal with. As a matter of fact most of my records don’t have many real clicks / ticks that I could deal with by hand. It seems the bulk of it is those real faint mild ones. And it’s nice to have them GONE anyway.

I did a restoration/ repair job on The Rolling Stones - “Garden State ‘78” 2LP boot. Anyone know that soundboard recording from Passaic, NJ’s Capitol Theater on the 1978 tour? I’ll write further about this 24/96 wav work in a future post in the thread.

 

Too many LPs are cut with one channel slightly off, or the entire side cut less loud due to being over 23.5 minutes, etc. so the effort should be to get your levels dead on right, and not to try and capture what exactly is coming off of the LP in regards to levels. Correct what’s wring if anything. It’s not a set perfect level and you’re done.

 

I have a quick question on this. I like concept of this technique but how do you delete something in the pasted file without altering the length of the selection. if sections are deleted then pasted back into the original they won't match up. thanks.

 

I copy from the selection to another instance only the garbage (clicks, pops, thumps, crackles). Using "output clicks, pops, thumps or crackles only". Same size with the original selection. Here I delete any false positive signal and I mix the result, inverted, with the original selection. All garbage will be cancelled. Of course, I keep the selection in the original instance to match.

 

ok, sorry, but I'm hung up on the word 'delete'. if I select the click with the time or region tool and press the delete key or right-click and select delete it removes that from the file and thereby shortens the length of the recording (or selection). then, a mix paste invert will not place it back in the same place in the original file of the original length. I hope that makes sense.

what am I missing here?

 

Use [Shift+s] to "delete", not the delete key. In iZotope.

 

ah, ok. Silence. makes sense. added to body of knowledge and workflow. thanks.

 

Yep, always cool to learn new ways of doing things. I've gotten away with copying and pasting tiny bits of info from one channel to the other to get rid of the thumps that are sometimes left behind after cleaning a nasty pop.

 

The best way to remove thumps is to either a) switch to M-S mode and remove the click/thump from the right (S) channel or in normal R-L mode b) select just the offending area in spectral view (using both horizontal and vertical selection mode) and use spectral repair attenuate. Setting it around 1.5 or so should take care of it.

 

Since iZotope is having a May sale for loyal customers, I was able to upgrade to RX Standard 7 for $99. Now i'm considering upgrading to Ozone 9 for the same price.

I've been having a lot of fun with the Music Rebalance and De-reverb modules. I made new versions of songs i've always hated having vocals that were too loud. I made a new "mix" of Elton John's "I Want Love". The vocal is still compressed, but now it's lower in volume and much more tolerable to me with no artifacts. There's a lot of other song's i've fixed to my liking.

I want to upgrade to Sound Forge Pro 14, but the sale price is still too steep for me at this time.

Now, all I have to do is upgrade my soundcard and i'm back in the needledropping business!

I had been experimenting with the trial version of Steinberg's Spectral Layers but I just can't get it to do what I want. Or, I haven't invested the time to figure out how to cleanly remove elements from recordings.