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In Reply to: RE: Ripping my vinyl ... posted by andyr on December 21, 2022 at 17:38:15
That Uwe Beis website has some really interesting products. I did notice though that some products were not available. That's unfortunate because it seems like many of them, such as the ADICON ADC would be fairly popular.I also rip LPs but use a different approach. In the end it's not so much the process or gear as how happy you are with the final product: A digital version of your vinyl playback.
The main differences between your approach and mine is that I use an analog equalizer after the DAC(s) and record to 24-192 WAV using a digital recorder sitting in the stereo rack. The ADC is a 24-192 converter developed for the SweetVinyl SugarCube declicking device that then feeds the signal to the recorder. I use Audacity to clean up needle drops and runouts and to do loudness normalization so the resulting LP recordings are not dramatically lower in volume than CD rips and hi-res download files. After editing and normalizing, I down sample to 24-96 FLAC for final storage on a NAS drive.
I can bypass the 24-192 ADC but found that I enjoyed listening to LPs just as much in "real time" through the DAC in the SugarCube. Actually more so because the declicker does a nice job of removing the more annoying clicks and pops.
Enjoy that new PC!
Tom
Edits: 12/22/22Follow Ups:
Which is a great pity. :-((
I was looking forward to using his AD2USB converter to convert the coax output of his A2D converter to a USB input for the PC - but he's out of stock.
So I have to use a miniDSP 'USBstreamer' instead, to convert the optical output of the A2D converter.
Your setup looks very cool! :-)) Am I able to ask you some questions about the use of Audacity?
Regards,
Andy
I'm not an expert by any means but can suggest some features that work for me. How are you using Audacity in your setup?
If you're interested, here are the functions I use in Audacity to edit my digital recordings. I try to keep things fairly simple and not get bogged down in trying to make the recordings perfect and each LP side is kept as a single track; I don't split out songs.
Open LP WAV recordings: One file for each side of an LP.
Ctrl/Shift-F to view full waveform height.
Leave in default Linear view for now. I find it easier to see amplitude peaks.
Delete needle drop and run out sections.
Visually check files for loud peaks and use AMPLIFY to reduce the extreme peaks so they're closer to average max peaks. If a loud pop escaped the declicker process I use AMPLIFY to reduce them to below audible level. Sometimes it's better to split the stereo track to edit one channel and then join them back to continue editing. I don't spend a lot of time here because the LIMITER function can take care of the isolated max peaks.
Change to dB view. I find it helps to better visualize the perceived volume level.
Use LOUDNESS NORMALIZATION in Perceived Loudness mode with a setting of -15 to -18 LUFS depending on the dynamic range of the recording. I find that -16 LUFS is my default starting point because -15 LUFS often ends up with way too many clipped peaks and -18 LUFS is often too low to better match (but not equal) the amplitude levels of ripped CDs and hi-res downloads. Sometimes I'll use AMPLIFY to decrease the volume level of a specific song within the track (one with lots of max peaks) to allow for a higher LUFS level overall. (I'll also increase the amplitude of really soft songs within the track. Guilty as charged.)
I find it handy to check amplitude levels for comparison using the Measure RMS (analyze) function. Plus or minus -19.0 dB seems to be a reasonable target.
Use the LIMITER function to remove the scattered clipped peaks that often show up. (I used to spend too much time trying to reduce the amplitude of individual peaks but LIMITER does this automatically.) You have to be careful not to overdue this but LIMITER lets me increase normalization just a bit to get the overall recording closer to digital music levels. I use Soft Limit to -0.30 dB settings. It keeps it to below the 0dB clipping limit and seems to avoid overload problems with the DACs I use.
Export to 24-96 FLAC, adding basic metadata here. I use dBpoweramp to do final metadata editing and adding cover art.
Maybe TMI but that's my process and I've been happy with the results.
Tom
Your process is a lot more extensive than what I've been doing so far - but I've had to shut it down, on account of a. encountering a problem with Audacity that I can't seem to fix and b. it being Christmas.
I'll send you a PM, after the festivities.
(I hope you're not being hammered by the weather over there!)
Regards,
Andy
It does look like a lot of work but it's become an assembly line kind of operation. I use one set recording level (0 dB) for all my LPs; the recorder seems to accommodate the range of LP mastering levels without clipping and with sufficient resolution and dynamic range to normalize. I've got the normalizing process figured out pretty well so that I can get consistently good results without spending much time on it. A fair amount of the time spent is actually waiting for Audacity to load each WAV file, execute the two main processes, and export the FLAC file. I do admit to cheating on the declicking process by using a dedicated declicking device rather than VinylStudio or other software. (I previously used VinylStudio and it's quite good.) Not splitting out individual song tracks also saves time.Tom
Edits: 12/25/22
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