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I'm ready to try transferring lp's to digital. I have a good audio card with ADC (RME Digi 96/PAD) but need software to do the mastering.
Any recommendations from someone who's been down this road before me?
Thanks as always.
Follow Ups:
I've been using an Alesis Masterlink for this and have been pretty impressed by the results. As good as the original, no. But darned good retaining a good bit of the analog smoothness and depth. That is when the recorded disc is then played through my cd player. I don't believe the analog output on the Alesis is as good as a high end redbook player.I don't believe that any computer recording option will be as good as this. You are much better recording to this, or the HHB etc. and then transferring to the computer if you want to edit.
...worked well for me and is easy to use for multi track home studio software.
WAV Repair has been my favorite software for a while, but i only use
software to trim & split the tracks. you can download a trial version.If you use an rcm and clean your stylus routinely, you shouldn't need noise reducing capabilities...unless your records are ancient & damaged. take care of noise up front & you won't have to figure out how to remove it later.
i've been after quality cd's from lp's for a while...not that easy to do. the best recomendation i have to is to not use your computer initially, get a standalone cd burner like HHB or tascam. i then rip the master cd's to HD using EAC - then trim & split, etc
can't afford pro level software or gear...so i do what works best.
Thank you for this idea. Actually looks like a very good solution. Archive the vinyl to CD and then treat the CD like any other for getting into your PC audio system.
Looks like you're limited to 16 bit, even though the internal ADC is 24 bit - it dithers it down to 16 bit to conform to Redbook standard.
Does anyone know if the HHB's digital output is also limited to 16 bit word lengths?
Initial results using CDWave are pretty encouraging.
If all I want is to capture the wav file, split it into tracks and save them, this program is very easy to use.
Sound quality using my (reasonably high end) vinyl front end and the record out on my preamp
to a Digi 96/8 Pad audio card (analog in)
24 bit/44.1
sounds just like the vinyl, even through headphones.I also tried Audacity but found it not as easy to use. It is really a general purpose audio editor.
CD Wave (and I suppose Wave Repair as well, tho haven't tried it) is geared specifically for ripping LP's to a hard drive and so fits my needs.
Any ideas on tagging? I suppose any general purpose tagging program - I'm using TagScanner 5.0, which is freeware - can tag the files for use in Foobar, unless anyone has a better suggestion.
I've never gotten completely satisfactory results with mine. I mean, I get files that sound good, but are obviously digitized and seem a lot flatter than the vinyl. Maybe it's playback equipment (moving to an outboard DAC and anti-jitter box in the next month or two); maybe it's the bit depth/sampling rate.I've never actually tried recording with anything other than 16-bit/44.1K... I'll try a 24/96 take of Doolittle today, I guess. I can only put out 16 bits right now (I could really use a different ASIO driver (ASIO2KS came with my USB-to-digital thingy) but I'm too lazy to look for one this morning) so maybe I'll try 16/96 and 24/96 and see how they compare...
Anyway, I just use Audacity, doing everything the hard way; that is, playing the loudest track as a reference for setting the input level, recording the whole side, cutting it up manually after I'm done, saving to WAV, encoding to FLAC, and then tagging them all in foobar. For albums without track breaks, the ctrl-B (place marker) really gets a workout...
I did some listening tests (recorded the same one-minute sample six times: at 44.1, 48, and 96kHz and with 24-bit and 32-bit float options) and, yes, 96kHz sounds remarkably like the LP (I got around my playback problems) and there's a pretty big difference between 48 and 96. Bit depth really didn't matter at all; they were all saved as 16-bit WAV files anyway.This means that I'll have to re-rip all of my ripped LPs in 96kHz versions... which take up twice as much disk space... and keep the 44.1 versions for CDs. Thank God I've got 300 more gigabytes on the way...
One of the best purchases I have ever made is HHB 830 burner.
I'm using a 10 yr old HHb 850. at some point i'll get a new 830. The HHB has been a true revelation. I used my pc for transfers about 2 years then finally wized up. No soundcard for less than $500 is gonna give the performance of a stand-alone. I tweaked the hell out of my pc & M-Audio soundcard -the old HHB 850 just tramples that set-up though.if anyone wants serious & hi-quality sound from your LP's - get a nice standalone burner. New HHB 830's can be found on ebay for around $400.
plus, if my HD ever goes, I have MAM-A Pro gold discs that are supposed to last a lifetime as a backup.
bobp - if you do not pre-treat cd-r's you should look into it. I rinse off & treat all blanks with Mikrosmooth...even MAM-A Gold Audio Masters designed for 1x-12x. smoothing out the optical surface allows the burning to be really, really precise.
I never thought about pre-treating. I am into tweaking, I use extremely heavy DIY power cord and maple platform for vibration control, Homegrownaudio silver cabling. isolation transformer, Dynamat enclosure treatment, but thought that's all I can do.I have checked HHB branded CD-Rs and they are actually made Taiyo Yuden. So I bought a lot of unmarked Taiyo Yuden blanks at approx. 1/2 the cost.
Thanks so much for your advice, I am eager to try pre-treatment.
bobp, you haven't heard how good your are cd-r's yet! your equipment is capable of really high quality copies. the efforts spent on cabling & vibration control aren't 100% audible with an untreated blank cd-r.try some mikrosmooth, it has a money back trial. So far Viva papertowels work best too, necessary. You rinse the yellow scouring pad from MS & shake it dry. Run a blank cd-r under the faucet & then dry off both sides from center out with the Viva...never circular. Apply mirosmooth in really small circles (wax on) then rinse real well & wipe center out again with Viva. i don't ever touch the optical surface except with Viva...the directions say to use your fingers.
take any 2 treated blanks and run them against one another, face to face - they'll be smoooth. then do the same with any 2 cd's, stamped or cd-r. the change is drastic. ignore the mfgr directions & try this method on a few blanks. folks have reported scratching discs when going by the directions...the wet pad & pre-rinsed balnk is the key.
mikrosmooth removes mfrgr'ing defects on the optical surface. error correction isn't needed, jitter is reduced (so i'm told) & the static is removed for the burn. i've used, at length, Optrix. don't like the sound it imparts though. it works well on the label surfaces though to remove static.
HHB blanks are good, but MAM-A Gold Audio Master 1x-12x are my fav right now. they are $1 each, but i hear rumblings of a loss in mfgr'ing quality. MAM-A was Mitsui & are made in the U.S.
i wish HHB golds could be purchased in bulk. i use normal silver taiyo yudens for most burning - they work & sound great.
for a 1x burner, you need cd-r engineered for slow speed burning. do not use a 48x or 52x cd-r in a 1x burner.
all other cd treaments that i know of add to the optical surface. Mikrosmooth is the only one that takes away. i haven't tried this yet, but my gut tells me that Jena labs & other new treatments would work better on mikrosmooth treated cd-r.
lots of tweaking left to do!
I am now archiving all my vinyl to DSD via Pyramix. I've also got Pro Tools HD 4/Accel, Sound Forge 8 and Sonar 6... Pyramix DSD beats them by a WIDE MARGIN!!
Ok, even I, the master of overkill, say TOO MUCH DUDE! I bet it sounds good, but think what would be better to put your $25,000 into? Better vinyl playback? Buying backups of whatever albums you are afraid of wearing out?Do you think the DSD recording sounds better than a Finyl table?
I've heard the Finyl TT and it sounds like Shite!!
The best TT's I've heard are a Rockport and Walker.
Me... I do overkill on everything!! (insert Tim the Toolman Grunt!)
I know the Finyl TT is not the best, but better than a digital copy isn't it? More pops, less digital.I do like the Walker too, but I haven't heard the Rockport in a long time. I like the Shindo 301 myself.
Thanks for the suggestion. Hadn't considered DSD recording. Figured WAV files at 24/48.1 or 24/96 would extract all the resolution from my vinyl.Also, this stuff is not inexpensive. Seems to me I'm better off going for a good sound card or a good ADC like the Benchmark, since my read on this is that the analog to digital is the most important step, assuming you have a true audiophile analog front end to begin with. After that, it's all just 0's and 1's.
You mean I can convert it to DSD and play it trought normal sound card?
No.. it doesn't work quite that way. There IS software that will convert PCM=> DSD and DSD=> PCM. I use Weiss Saracon. Pyramix will do this also. The only DSD recording/editing sofware is Pyramix and Sonoma. SADiE is no longer sold. The minimum outlay of cash for a DSD recording/editing rig is > $20k
Web research indicates two good candidates:
CD Wave
WavePad/Golden Records Vinyl to CD converter
Any experience with these?
Soundforge appears to be most focused on music production and has a lot of stuff I don't need.
Priorities are: 24 bit word length, easy identification of track splits, noise clean up.
Secondary but nice: Normalization, output to FLAC files, application of tags for use in Foobar. (Note goal is not to make CD's out of vinyl, but to get vinyl tracks onto my hard drive in highest resolution for use in Foobar).
Thanks for the responses so far!
it's FREE !!! Look for it on the web.Latest version will support sampling up to 24/192. You can slice, dice, eq to your hearts content. It will output into just about any audio format.
It is resource intensive however.
Best,
Audacity looks promising and I will give it a try.
How is it at easily splitting the tracks?
More tools than you can shake a stick at.
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