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Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 11:36 AM
Hi all,

I have about 300 od old vinyls sitting in storage that I want to drag into the digital age by burning to CD, DVD or HD. I mentioned DVD as I have heard that you can get a far better sound... Is that correct?

anyway who has gone through this exercise and what software did you use - ease of burning/scratch noise reduction etc.

Is it better to go CD or DVD or has Mp3's made them redundant?

munruben
24th August 2007, 12:26 PM
Hi all,

I have about 300 od old vinyls sitting in storage that I want to drag into the digital age by burning to CD, DVD or HD. I would be interested in hearing comments on this too I have some cassette tapes I would like to transfer to CD.


Is it better to go CD or DVD or has Mp3's made them redundant? Just remember if you burn them to DVD you wont be able to play them in your CD player in your car or at home.

Gra
24th August 2007, 12:33 PM
I havent started yet, but I have a pile of 78s to do the same... I have purchased a cheap stereo from Kmart (~$150) that will transfer your records/tapes etc to a USB Key/MP3 player. quality isnt great, but its quick and easy.

I will have to do a proper job at some point, but that will involve getting a PC Card that coverts the analog data from the stereo into digital....

silentC
24th August 2007, 12:38 PM
I've done one. I plugged the Tape Out from my stereo into the sound card on the PC then used a program that came with the CD burner to record it to a .WAV file. I then used a WAV editor to break it up into tracks and burned them to a CD. A lot of this software is available as freeware. You can probably get something that will filter the pops but I left them in. Part of the atmosphere.

'twas The Sunny Boys :)

Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 12:56 PM
Yeh Silent, Ive done a search and come up with the recording as a wave file thing. Its sounds slow and convoluted to me.

That stereo to usb port sounds interesting Gra. Sound quality is very desirable but with about 200 hrs of recordings plus compilation time its a huge job so easy wins I guess.:-

I will still have to use anti crackle software though - some of those records have been the backbone of many a drunken party.............Nahh, i'm sick ovis record...lets hear zum Led Zeppelin sccccrrrratttch.:D

silentC
24th August 2007, 12:59 PM
Just remember that when you record to MP3 it is a compression format so you are going to lose a lot of information. I can tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD and the difference between a CD and an LP. If you can too, then you will probably notice a big difference between the MP3 version and the original.

WAV files are a lot bigger but they save more information.

Gra
24th August 2007, 01:00 PM
Yeh Silent, Ive done a search and come up with the recording as a wave file thing. Its sounds slow and convoluted to me.

That stereo to usb port sounds interesting Gra. Sound quality is very desirable but with about 200 hrs of recordings plus compilation time its a huge job so easy wins I guess.:-

I will still have to use anti crackle software though - some of those records have been the backbone of many a drunken party.............Nahh, i'm sick ovis record...lets hear zum Led Zeppelin sccccrrrratttch.:D


It was just a cheap stereo, I got as it played 78's and gave my other two older ones a rest. as for sound quality, you could probably use it to do the initial recording and then clean up in post production... Havent had the time to play with it yet, only recorded one song and got some of the timing wrong and screwed it up ..

PS> it doesnt work with Ipods, but will with other MP3 players, thought this could be a DU error

derekcohen
24th August 2007, 01:32 PM
The reason a good LP system can outclass a good CD system lies with the turntable/arm/cardridge used. Use a cheap system and you get crappy sound. So ... one needs an aftermarket interface to convert good analogue into good digital. I know they are around, but I have not searched one out - still ocasionally pull out the LPs (which now sound too warm - soft - by comparison to CD. Just how the ear adapts).

Regards from Perth

Derek

silentC
24th August 2007, 01:42 PM
The reason a good LP system can outclass a good CD system lies with the turntable/arm/cardridge used
In fact, if you look at how a digital recording is made, a CD can never sound as good as an LP, regardless of the quality of the record player. When an analogue source is digitised, the sampling rate will affect the quality of the recording. The sampling rate determines how much information is recorded about the sound waves - higher sampling rate, more information. But it is still recorded more like a bar graph than a continuous wave. With higher frequencies, the waves are occuring in tighter intervals, so less information is captured about higher frequencies than lower. That's why the highs on CDs often sound jarring or mechanical. These days the electronics cater for this effect quite well but I find it quite noticable in MP3 recordings. High hats and cymbals for example can sound very strange. I think most people these days just don't notice this because they only ever hear recordings on CD or MP3. It's what you are used to, as you say. The LP will always have a much greater dynamic range than a digital recording.

The result from capturing an LP to your hard drive will depend as much on your sound card as anything else. Another alternative would be to get an audio quality cd recorder and just use the phono input on your stereo preamp then send the signal to the recorder, same way you would tape a record in the old days when people still used cassettes.

Barry_White
24th August 2007, 02:20 PM
This is the program you want. Absoloutly brilliant.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

silentC
24th August 2007, 02:21 PM
That's the one I used. Couldn't remember the name.

K_S
24th August 2007, 02:50 PM
I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under line in sampling

K_S
24th August 2007, 02:51 PM
I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under line in sampling

K_S
24th August 2007, 02:53 PM
I have used audiograbber in the past because it has an auto split tracks option - under file, line in sampling

Barry_White
24th August 2007, 03:01 PM
That's what I call "Repetition for Emphasis"

Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 03:23 PM
No I think the record is scratched.:D

RufflyRustic
24th August 2007, 03:29 PM
I was going to delete the dupes, but I don't think I will Nn... Nn... Nn... now :D




Having just bought myself the 30 gb Toshiba player, I too, am very interested in 'backing up' my cassettes and LPs as well.

Just out of interest, earlier this week in the junk mail, I saw a record player that included a cd/dvd burner in the unit, about $350.


cheers
Wendy

Barry_White
24th August 2007, 03:32 PM
No I think the record is scratched.:D

ROFLMAO. Very appropiate. :2tsup: :cool:

Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 03:49 PM
Just out of interest, earlier this week in the junk mail, I saw a record player that included a cd/dvd burner in the unit, about $350.




Yes Wendy I have just been to Kmart looking for one like Gra has with no luck. Tandy did have two. First one a TEAK for $500 and a smaller BUSH brand $250.00 a new item.

I think the smaller one may be better as far as having Usb and other connectivity to your computer so you can edit. But if you have that why do you need the built in CD burner?:?

I think I would rather get a good quality turntable and work straight to the computer.

Lignum
24th August 2007, 05:33 PM
The "Project Debut 111" turntables are the go. Complete with Ortofon cartrige they are around $350 but for an extra few hundred the same turntable has an electronic speed dial and built in phono stage so you can plug it straight into your computer or DVD recorder and it will also play 78`s using a different stylus.

Or look in the trading post for a second hand Rega 2 or 3 even the NAD 533 is based on the Rega 2 is a cracker of a turntable.

But spend as much as you can afford on the cartrige.

And a good scrub of your vinyl in the sink with some luke warm water and dishwashing detergent also works wonders, and if you want to get carried away build a little vacuum cleaner.

Nothing beats the magic of analogue:)

wheelinround
24th August 2007, 05:59 PM
:D:D:D Mine are all done used SoundForge ver 4.5 excelent easy to use http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/soundforgefamily.asp :rolleyes:got to upgrade one day

and Soundlabs http://www.soundlabs.com/ this is or was top line studio stuff when I used it 3-4 years ago still have it :2tsup::2tsup::2tsup: thanks to mate in industry.
The Ultimate is Wavelab http://www.steinberg.net/24_1.html EDITED forgot this
Helped set up his home studio system and then teach him how to use the software :doh::doh: he is older and not computer literate but been in the industry since he was 17.

Mostly done to CD as CDB and greated albums of MP3's for car, but have it all backed up on a DVD or two.

Biggest thing you'll need is patience and decent RCA cabes etc and clean needle.
MP3 is compressed and you can if recording straight to this format loose quality.
I recorded into wav there are other formats better for transfer to CDB.

Any questions gladly help

Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 06:29 PM
.

Any questions gladly help


Um OK... what is CDB?

Thanks for the head up re turntables Lig, I was wandering about that. As I don't really want to have a turntable in the lounge room - having to flip a record is about as appealing as changing TV channels without a remote - I dont want to go through the whole process only to have cr&ppy sounding recordings so I want to spend a bit but not too much.

I just remember what it was like in the 70's "My turntable has a floating ceramic head mounted on a titanium arm and the diamond needle is hand polished in a tiny provence near Montenegro etc etc.:D

Guess I can always sell it on Epay once I'm finished:)

wheelinround
24th August 2007, 06:38 PM
Um OK... what is CDB?
CDB is just the format that CD's are recorded as quality of Hz etc

I just remember what it was like in the 70's "My turntable has a floating ceramic head mounted on a titanium arm and the diamond needle is hand polished in a tiny provence near Montenegro etc etc.:D

Guess I can always sell it on Epay once I'm finished:)

Sounds like you had quality TT BT mate had one similar gave it to some woman as a lazy susan for dinning table.
Tricky Diky has a couple of good TT also one is Ministry Of Sound about $150.

tameriska
24th August 2007, 08:42 PM
The best program that I have found for recording tape or vinyl to cd was one I bought from Hardly Normal a couple of years ago.
They do have a website somewhere, the program that I use is called Magix Audio Cleaning Lab.
It has a preset for removing crackle from vinyl, that you can adjust the sensitivity on, and you can even record the 'hiss' between the songs, and take that exact noise out from the whole record.

Bleedin Thumb
24th August 2007, 10:05 PM
Sounds like you had quality TT BT mate had one similar gave it to some woman as a lazy susan for dinning table.
Tricky Diky has a couple of good TT also one is Ministry Of Sound about $150.


Yes I bought it cheap off a junky (my boss at the time) who had just gotten busted and had to leave in a hurry. It served me very well but eventually I could no longer get needles for it so it became landfill.

Tam, I wonder if there is any software for making someone like Joanna Newsom sound good? ..Nah technology isn't that advanced:no: :U

wheelinround
25th August 2007, 07:45 AM
Got to thinking and thought I'd put some hassles I have had not just with my Creative sound Card setup but also with mates Studio system.
Mind you we all have been able to do this since Windows 3.1
http://www.pcabusers.net/vinyllp/vinyllp.htm

It doesn't matter how god your record player is it can still have rumble transfer from the player to the recording.

Sound Cards play a big part of course the best quality can result in the best recording but not always. Quality can be attributed to Bit Rate of your soundcard, speed of your computers processor and memory. These dictate if you can or have to record ONE Track at a time or the WHOLE album and then edit split etc.

Many sound cards have just one input RCA or mini jack for the mic and thats how you have to record which means your recording "What You Hear" which means it can pick up any sounds such as windos ding's etc, static, rumble, pop's, click's, two way radio, mobile phone spalter. These I have had trouble with on mates system also.

Cables quality is the next thing but with cables if they are even top line they too can have their defects due to fine strands and if using Optic Fibre to transfer the slightest break can render distortion.

Those recording anything prior Stereo its all Mono and can be recorded either mono or stereo or converted later depending on software.
Most players these days have stereo RCA plugs you may need a conversion plug to single RCA or to mini jack to attach to sound card.

I have the old Creative with front mount additional plug in's all stereo.
Found this it may help answer some questions http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm

Happy recording you'll be surprised at the time it takes and hours you'll enjoy with those old Vynals.

Bleedin Thumb
25th August 2007, 01:29 PM
Happy recording you'll be surprised at the time it takes and hours you'll enjoy with those old Vynals.


Somehow I don't think I'm going to be pleasantly surprised by the time it will take. :(

I am however looking forward to hearing them again it must be getting close to 10 years. I'm lucky that when I built my office that I had miles of soundproofing that I packed (stuffed) into the walls and ceiling so I can turn up the volumn and enjoy myself without scareing the neighbours:cool:

DavidG
25th August 2007, 03:34 PM
Sorry but :

The dynamic range on an LP is about 45db and on a CD around 100 db

Noise level on a LP is about -46db and -100db on an LP

Frequency response is about 45hz to 20khz on a LP and 10hz - 45khz on a CD

That warm sound on a LP is the lack of upper end harmonics.

CDs need a better quality amp due to the greater dynamic range otherwise distortion will occur on the higher transients.

silentC
27th August 2007, 11:20 AM
Sorry, yes dynamic range was the wrong term. On paper, CD's should sound better, shouldn't they? Wonder why they don't.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that there is a noticeable difference in sound between an LP and an MP3. When I first started listening to MP3s on my PC instead of CDs, I hated it. The high end sounds very tinny to me. So I reckon recording straight to MP3 for posterity is not the best approach.

DavidG
27th August 2007, 12:20 PM
SilentC
Agree 100%. MP3 is a lossy compression system like JPG is for pix.

CD sound sounds lower quality than records in most cases due to the poor response of the amplifier.

For a record a dynamic range of 40db with low distortion is all that is required.

For a CD you need 100db which means the amp is going to cost a LOT more for good results.
Problem is that the amps supplied do not have the dynamic capability of the CD so distortion occurs on the higher transients.
This sounds harsh and tinny to the ear.

ie Blame the amp not the CD.

silentC
27th August 2007, 12:45 PM
Makes sense.

I guess when I was learning about these things, CDs were quite new. I was doing a sound engineering course and the lecturer went through the theory and explained why (in his opinion) a digital recording was never as good as analogue - primarily talking about magnetic tape vs. digital sampling. It made sense to me at the time - basically you have a lot more 'activity' to capture at the higher end of the frequency range than at the low, because of the speed of oscillation of the sound wave - so at a given sampling rate you are capturing more information at the lower end - multiple sample points along the wave = a smoother transition. His reasoning was that the 'bar graph' charting of the wave was what caused the harshness of the top end.

CDs are sampled at 44kHz, which means that the highest frequency they can reproduce is 22kHz and I believe that the electronics are 'capped' to prevent higher frequencies from passing through. That's theoretically enough for the human ear, although some people say they can detect the absence of higher frequencies in digital recordings. I'm not one of them!

From my reading, the frequency response of the average CD player and LP player is roughly the same: 20Hz-20kHz for a CD and 30Hz to 20kHz for an LP. Magnetic tape is a lot wider, but again, whether people can really hear it or not is debatable.

DavidG
27th August 2007, 02:33 PM
SilentC
I agree.
My learning was along time ago as well.

Used to do the control board inspections on the broadcast stations and all the sound gear during my youth.

In the end the final result of recording from the old vinyls will be controlled mainly by the quality of the vinyls and the record player arm, head and needle.

Lignum
27th August 2007, 03:34 PM
In the end the final result of recording from the old vinyls will be controlled mainly by the quality of the vinyls .

And thats why the a great deal of LP`s in the 80`s sounded like crap, apart from dropping the the weight, it was mostly recycled vinyl (excepf for some of the specialits recordings)

silentC
27th August 2007, 04:02 PM
I thought it was because of what was recorded on them, not what they were recorded on!

Who can remember the last LP they ever bought? The last one I remember buying was Crowded House. About 1985?

I was working at The Music Post in Manly in 1988 when Polygram announced they would no longer be releasing LPs.

I think the first CD I ever owned was a collection of soul and funk stuff - I worked in a warehouse packing CDs and bought a portable CD player so I could listen while I worked. The boss told me I could keep a couple of 'samples'.

The first CD I ever bought was Wish You Were Here.

Lignum
27th August 2007, 04:31 PM
My last "New" album was Nirvana MTV live, about 18 months ago. (White 200gr)

My first cd was I Robot. Allan Parsons Project (great cd, but a killer on vinyl)

Thank god there are still hundreds of new vinyl releases every month. It will never die

silentC
27th August 2007, 04:35 PM
I should add that I sold all my LPs, including a complete set of Bowie minus Pinups, nearly 20 years ago for rent money.

My wife, on the other hand, still has every LP she ever bought. Shame she had such bad taste as a youngster... Bruce Springsteen! Billy Joel!! Michael Jackson!!!

At least she also had the good sense to buy Midnight Oil, Sunny Boys and The Jam :)

DavidG
27th August 2007, 04:44 PM
I should have expresses that as the quality of the vinyl NOW
After all the playings and scratches and dust it has collected.

Still have a complete boxed set of the Beetles, numerous readers digest and a cupboard full of others.
Still have my turntable. Servo drive. all adjustmenst etc (if I can still remember what they are for)

wheelinround
27th August 2007, 09:30 PM
My last new LP x3 was the Beatles Anthology
last 2nd hand LP's Moody Blues to replace those which were leant by some one who should never have loaned them and they never were returned.

Krazee
28th August 2007, 01:33 AM
Just a few things to consider if you are going to undertake this type of conversion.

It all has to be done in real time. Unfortunately vinyls don't have 2x, 4x or 48x. So you will have to spend a lot of time.

MOst of the older turntables are not suitable to be plugged straight into your computer. From memory there were at least three different types of pickup cartridges ceramic, moving magnet and moving coil. Each one needed different equiisation and adjustment of the input signal level for it to sound OK. This was usually performed by the amplifiers of the day or in some cases a special box that performed this task. Not sure how the modern turntables manage this as most new amplifiers do not have a turntable input(s). If you still have an old turntable and amplifier I would suggest that you use the "line out" from the amplifier to the "line in" of the computer.

The old vinyl's have no recorded info to identify the Album/track info. With CD's you can usually bet this detail via the internet. With vinyl's you will be up for a lot of typing if you want this info for your MP3 player, etc

If you are looking for software this may be worth investigating http://www.nch.com.au/golden/index.html. I have used some of their other audio/dictation software which has been excellent (including support) but so far have not tried this. I understand they are aussie and prices are not exorbitant (some software is free).