Your Vinyl Transfer Workflow (sharing best needledrop practices)*

Wow, sone folks really strive for perfection with their needledrops...

For me, I just want to capture the best possible sound, remove obvious clicks and pops, do some careful editing, tagging, artwork and be done with it.

On the weekend, I can easily record and finalize 5 to 10 albums.

I try to record all my vinyl and also borrow records from friends to record.

If I find a real treasure, I take a bit more time with removing clicks.

I do not fade in and out between songs on the same album side, but I do between sides.

Sometimes, if I don't have a cue-sheet from a CD, I don't bother editing the album into individual tracks, I just leave the album as one big, long file. Perhaps I find time to edit it into individual tracks later on.

 

waiting for samples. Also, keep in mind that the noise profile for delta-sigma ADCs is such that 192 kHz and higher rates have inherently noise increasing in the 50+ kHz causing the the noise peak level on the level meter to increase.

 

as for purrfection, once your chain is half-decent, you can hear why de-noising/de-clicking is not worth it for analog pressings - PCM kills the soundstage space and depth. Gotta grow to it.

 

What does PCM have to do with de-noising/de-clicking? I don't really understand it.

PCM is just the recording format, or do I misunderstand the term wrong? I do record in 96/24, some say it is sufficient to do 48/24.

I do not record in DSD, although I would have the option with my Korg MR-2. In fact, I never even tried to record vinyl in DSD, maybe I should try it one day.

I use very minimal declicking. On new records a setting of 9 and on used records a setting of 15. I do have to add some manual declicking afterwards, since these low settings do not catch many of the clicks.

When I compare my vinyl playback to the recording (needledrop), they sound very close to me. Not identical, but close enough that I do not worry at all.

Recently recorded a "run of the mill" pressing from Europe (Netherlands) of Michael Jackson's Thriller. One of the multi-million pressings done, and certainly not an early pressing (with W as the letter in the deadwax, and they started at A). I have what many consider the best CD version of this album (early European CD with original Japanese mastering), and I also own the rare and expensive Japanese SACD. The SACD is better than the CD, quite noticeably, but my needledrop of this vinyl pressings easily beats the SACD.

I think I have a decent setup (Technics SL-1210 GAE table, Dynavector MC cartridge, Dynavector preamp), but why I very often get better sonic results with this setup with needledrops when comparing to high-end digital releases, I really don't know and understand. My setup is decent but there are certainly better ones out there, and in the studio, they should have much better equipment, and mastering from the original tapes.

 

it's just any de-clicking and de-noising are done in PCM. As for SACD worse than PCM needledrop, it depends on the DAC and the monitoring chain. The shorter the playback chain, the better. Try your MR-2 in PCM and DSD in high-grade headphones while capturing, the difference in terms of soundstage depth is there. Especially at DSD128, DSD64 has its coloring, while DSD128 only has the coloring of the analog parts around ADC and DAC. BTW, Korg MR-2 is a great device, have had it and sold out of stupidity.
Of course, to hear the difference in a room on speakers, the room, speakers and listener/speakers position must all be impeccable.

 

De-clicking and de-noising make some bad things, indeed, BUT you have to know HOW to do that! If you have a good recording and the record itself is in a good shape, the de-click must be done MANUALLY. If the shape is so-so, the de-click in Izotope must be done at no more than 1.8 at Sensitivity.

 

It has absolutely no difference to me since you still are in PCM when declicking manually. PCM to me is an avoidable evil for AAA vinyl, sorry. And digitally-sourced vinyl is yet a worse evil. yes, the latter may sound better, but it's a subjective better.

 

Especially @Stefan :

I've abandoned Adobe Audition for iZotope RX and Ozone for my projects. I love them!

My question is, after I add markers, is there a button I can click to automatically turn the markers into regions? With Audition this process was instantaneous with the click of the merge button. But, in RX, I have to manually enter the start and end times of each track in RX, which is a hassle. I think I did it once in RX but can't remember what the hell I did. Can you or anyone help me out?

BTW, the more I use RX and Ozone, the more I love them. The only reason I ever have to export to Audition now is if I want to add some reverb or something, as I haven't invested in any iZotope plugins yet.

 

Start and end times? I just put the cursor where I want mark the individual tracks and name them. When done, I go to the File menu choose "Export Regions To Files..." and RX will export the individual "split" tracks into the folder that you want.

 

denoising and adding reverb seems more like a unpaid hobby of audio restoration.

 

Heh! I just now figured it out. Thanks! See, I was expecting the start and stop times to show up in the markers and regions box. I just now tested it out
Thanks anyway!

 

Hi Grant,

I see you resolved the issue with RX markers. It's not exactly intuitive as you can also create regions that show up as such in the Markers and Regions list by selecting sections of a file and create a region out of them. However, as long as you have two or more markers, using the File > Export Regions to Files... command, RX creates separate files with each starting at a marker.

One thing I noted in your text was about not adding reverb as you haven't invested in any iZotope plugins. I'm not sure about the standard or elements versions as I have the advanced versions, but I believe all versions support VST plugins from all manufacturers (In RX you have to go in and enable VSTs and point it to the directory where they're stored. In Ozone you have to add a plugin module to the main Ozone plugin or in the Ozone standalone) so if you have any reverb plugins other than those built into Audition, they'll work. If not, there are lots of free VST plugins out there that sound surprisingly good. The site www.kvraudio.com is an excellent resource for finding them (look for some free impulse response VSTs and then some free impulses. Those can sound amazing). If you want to purchase any plugins at good prices, keep an eye out on pluginboutique.com for specials. Sometimes there are amazing deals. I recently picked up a tremendous reverb called R4 from Exponential Audio (a division of Izotope actually) for something like $20 (it normally sells for $200).

Another tip I can offer is to use a program called MP3Tag to tag the files once you've saved them (donationware, and yes I've donated since I find this to be a tremendous tool). By the way, in spite of its name, MP3Tag actually handles a lot of different filetypes.

Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

You can use this to read album details from a number of databases including discogs (with discogs, which you can join for free, the first time you attempt to read an album list from discogs with mp3tag, it prompts you for a code. Log in to discogs and get the code and then it gets stored in MP3Tag for future use). You can even use discogs to find the details for exact pressings of the album you've needledropped and then use the discogs ID for that pressing to search in MP3tag. Then you just import the album details (song titles, artwork, etc.) and save it to the files.

Another little free utility I used to use a lot is called cuelisttool (CueListTool - www.StefanBion.de ) for those who like to work with cue lists.

 

That MP3tag discogs feature is a God-send.
Copy/paste the discogs numerical that matches your manufacture etc...
I do renumber, as my SBTouch won't read A1/A2 etc.. So I just manually 01/02

 

I'm already there. I also like to use Media Monkey.

 

The foo_discogs plugin for foobar2000 works similarly, and is a huge time saver.

 

Good to know thanks!

 

+1

 

By the way, for anyone with iZotope RX wishing to upgrade to RX9, pluginboutique has a nice bunch of specials on until October 31.

(Note that these are now 64-bit only so if you're running a 32-bit machine, they won't work.)

If you have RX8 Standard, you can upgrade for only $49 instead of the list $199.
RX 9 Standard Upgrade from RX 8 Standard

For those with earlier versions of RX Standard, you can upgrade for $99
RX 9 Standard Upgrade from any previous version of RX Standard, RX Advanced, or RX Post Production Suite

Also, for those with Apple M1-chip Macs, RX 8.5 (free update for those with RX8) and RX9 are now compatible via Rosetta. According to their website, they're working on native M1 support, so the Rosetta versions are just temporary.

For those with RX Elements, you can upgrade to standard for $199 (standard gives you a lot more power!).
RX 9 Standard Upgrade from RX Elements/Plug-in Pack

There are other upgrades possible as well (Rx8 Advanced to 9, also $149). The whole range of RX9 products on sale until Oct. 31 are here: Buy iZotope VST Plugins, iZotope Instruments and Effects, Download

I've bought several plugins from pluginboutique.com and never had any problems.

 

Speaking of iZotope, I just noticed this and thought I'd pass it on here for anyone who doesn't have Ozone, to celebrate their 20th anniversary. iZotope is giving away Ozone Elements for free until October 25. While it doesn't have many of the features in the standard and advanced versions, Elements still has a lot of usable functions for EQ, imaging and maximizing (a dirty word to some folks here I know but useful to some of us heretics ).

Here's the link: https://izo.to/3ATBJRx

 

I often use the maximizer for limiting, and it's quite transparent if you take the time to find what works best for your file. I like that it's highly configurable. I also recommend that if you have RX, get Ozone too. I recommend getting the Standard or Advanced versions because the Essentials versions are always lacking.

Oh, while i'm here: quick advice for those of you who use the dithering in Ozone, The first slider will set the dither to 16-bit if you select it, but it won't actually take your file to 16-bit. You have to export it, but you also have to disable the dither in RX first or you'll wind up double dithering, which can be bad. You may or may not hear the damage, but it's never a good idea. What I like about dithering with iZotope is that you can switch the dither in and out as you preview so you can hear exactly what it's doing to your sound. I usually just go with the defaults, but once in a while, you may hear where the default settings don't work with a particular file. This is important to me because most of what I do gets stored as 16-bit.

 

Thank you! This is a game changer and time saver for me.
I always used Audition to cut up a large wav file... set the marker, convert it to range and then manually type in each marker's endpoint... a bit tedious and time consuming.

 

Yes, it's quicker. I used to export the file with markers, load them into the app I mentioned above cuelisttool to create a cuesheet that I would use in mp3tag to get the titles, etc., then load the cuesheet into foobar to create the split FLAC files. It seems more ocmplicated that it was and once I got used to it, the process was quick, but spplitting directly from RX to flac files is certainly more efficient!

 

I have a Sound Devices Mix Pre 3 II, that I use for film making. I was realizing the other day that this could be perfect for recording some records I have. I'm pretty content to just listen to Roon/Qobuz for most stuff, and most of my stuff is available there but for the occasional item that isn't it would be good. My main interest however is to record some mixes, just as something fun to do right off the record onto my sound recorder. I'll probably have a ton of questions and I'm making my way through the 186 pages of this thread but my first two questions are:

Should I go from my phono pre amp to the recorder? Or from the tape out on my amp? Additionally, the Mix Pre has XLR inputs, should I put a Left and Right phono adapted to XLR into two channels on the Mix Pre or should I use a y cable and put both channels into one XLR channel?

 

I've never tried exporting a RX markers list to a cue file, don't know if that works? I use the save regions to files function often, I find it very easy to work with: I name the regions, export, fill in with Mp3Tag (file name to tag function) and voilà !

 

This audio interface/portable recorder has specifications that at best could be described as complete fiction. 142dB dynamic range? They must have read that's what 24 bit supports. Hand-crafted (in Taiwan). No Signal to noise specs. The 0.005% THD+N also might mean -89dB distortion plus -89dB noise.

It looks like the easiest interface is the 3.5mm aux input, in line mode. Use a stereo RCA to headphone cord. That way you don't have the volume knobs in the way of matching channel levels. You'd have to go into record mode and pick L&R linked to hope to make a stereo WAV.

Directly from a phono pre is better, without the added noise of a receiver and its hum, but might not allow you to hear what you're doing.