Recording a record to the PC

[gusten]

lini: I have an older HDD 30Gb player from Cowon that can record 16/88.2 with high quality, it hasn´t been on the market for a long time, but it works very good.

I have been looking at this Sony to be able to record at a higher resolution, and without the problem You mention, in principle I have made up my mind, it´s going to be that one.

 

[MRL_Audio]

The recording software is all similar (go for free stuff, like the aforementioned Audacity).

The cleanup software is another ballgame.
Check into ClickRepair for something that REALLY works well.
It's worth it.

+1 here. Same combo. Great results.

 

[vinyl fiend]

You guys use the hard disc recorder as the player also? Or transfer it to the computer afterwards? It's nice to have everything filed and labeled.

 

[pdm4606]

Audacity does well...

Garage Band has some record features but it seemed clumsy.
I used Audacity to process some old, old tapes of family stuff. Worked fine. The best part was sending the data files to another relative and she made CD's of the recordings and handed them out for Christmas presents to other family members.
Worked out nice.

Paul

 

[DougMac]

If you need some restoration tools, download the free trial of Magix Audio and Music Lab. It also automatically splits the recording into tracks and allows you to add metadata, which impeds in MP3's. You can export to a number of different formats, both compressed and lossless.

It has a number of cleanup tools that do a good job. If the record is not very noisy, it does a really good job. For more extensive restoration, especiall for 78's, I use Diamond Cut's DC8.

Yes it is a tedious job. I just listen to records at home and use Rhapsody for portable playing.

 

[gusten]

You guys use the hard disc recorder as the player also? Or transfer it to the computer afterwards? It's nice to have everything filed and labeled.

Personally I transfer everything to the laptop via USB, and work from there.

 

[BobbyBluz]

Sound Forge Pro 11.0, the Swiss Army knife of recording & production software.

 

[robgmn]

PLEASE - use the search function. This topic comes up once a quarter so there is TONS of information already on this site.

And my response when this is said:

Archive the site and close it down.
All that can be said here has been said here. There is no new software, no new hardware and no new ways to do things that have been discovered since the topic was first posted.
Just Google search and read the threads.
You will find what you need.

 

[guest110]

I am just waiting for my new turntable and investigating phono Analog to digital converters. On my failed attempt I used a Project USB phono box. I wonder if it is the easiest way to go for D/A. Also how it compares in quality. I see Rega and Nad also have units in that price range. TAS recommends the PS Audio NuWave converter which retails for almost $2K. They also recommend a Seta for $4K. (As if!).
I wonder if they like the PS Audio more for its better sound quality or ease of use. Is the Pro-Ject adequate?

I just purchased the Cocktail Audio X40 (~$2.5K) which is an all-in-one box (minus amplifier). In addition to all the digital in/outs, it has analog in/outs (including balanced) and even a MM phono input with software to convert vinyl to Flac or many other formats, and an internet connection to download track lists and artwork. Also has a really good Sabre DAC and a CD drive (DSD,DXD,PCM supported) for burning that collection as well. There is 4TB of internal storage capacity and a back up capability for unlimited storage on portable hard drives and it will also stream the stored music and internet radio. I am in the testing phase and will be posting a full review in the digital forum section in the coming weeks if interested.
I love my vinyl collection, but it's time to join the digital age and dispense with all the storage shelves. I've just been waiting for the right technology to facilitate the rather large job....hope I found it.

 

[zacster]

I did 2 albums about 5 years ago using Garage Band, Audacity and I think iDVD to create a DVD audio. It was slow and tedious to say the least, but it did result in a 24/96 copy. The funny thing is I've upgraded my TT and those same albums now sound much better off the vinyl. I always thought the rips sounded good, but they now sound noisy by comparison.

I would think we could record in real time as always, but there could be software out there that would recognize the songs and breaks, create the tracks, name them and put them in whatever format you want. I did this all manually, but yet Shazam can recognize what is playing on a scratchy speaker in a noisy car. That same recognition could easily be applied.

 

[robgmn]

Nice attitude - NOT.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/search.php?searchid=19756588

this is just on Digitizing vinyl - titles only. I am sure there are other ways to search for the information.

Not attitude, just fact.
I'm sure that with 18,000+ posts, you've covered some of the same topics before and have seen the same topics or questions posted time and again.
It's the nature of the conversational beast, and telling people they search with the horrible search engine we have instead of asking questions smacks greatly of "Attitude".
Maybe you should also tell them there are plenty of other audio forums they could find the info. on and steer them away from here?




Back on topic: how much effort does everyone put into their process?
Mine are done for sentimental reasons (on out-of-print albums), so I do this:
1. Clean album thoroughly (scrub, pressure wash at 400psi, dry, and Discwasher-style brush before playing) then record to digital via Audacity (including normalizing and setting final levels to -.2dB before exporting to .wav)
2. Use ClickRepair to clean up remaining surface noise.
3. Use Audacity to split the songs up (add silence between each song).
4. Use Audacity to clean up the fade-in and fade-out of each song.
5. Export each song as a wav and a FLAC file
6. Burn the wav files to CD via JRiver Media Center and label them with LightScribe
7. Create disc case inserts from original album art.
8. Slap it all together & enjoy.

Occasionally (not often, thankfully), I'll have to use several of the same album to get the best quality file of each song.
It also takes some time for me to really appreciate the work as I've listened so many times by the end of the project that I'm "sick" of hearing it.

 

[illinoisteve]

I used to use a program called RipVinyl. In recent years I have used Audacity a bit, but I am far from learning all of its features.

As for the person who complained that people ask about this so often, even 4 times a year, and the ironic response that, yes, we could just archive the site and stop talking since nothing ever changes and questions don't need to be asked again -- I confess to some irritation when I see a question being asked that is actually being discussed in another current thread or in a few threads that have been active in the past week, but no repeating a question asked in the past 3 months is a bit excessive. Also, I usually feel rather ashamed of getting peeved about somebody asking an oft lately asked question. I figure, I can at least shut up and let somebody more generous than I'm feeling answer the post. I don't really need to share with the world when I've got my knickers in a knot.

 

[vdsvicky]

I am use Sony Sound Forge 10. Wonderfull program with many futures like cut, add, clear, level and many more things for best sounding the record. Just can't empty the pop corn from gramopfone record.

 

[lini]

gusten: Just btw, most reviews of the PCM-M10 as well as the manufacturers specs only seem to cover SNR for line-in to line-out with results between 87 and not quite 92 dB. Stereoplay over here also gave a result for line-in to medium, though, which was 97 dB. With the difference probably being caused by the line-out being limited to 1 V, I'd assume.

Well, and if I should criticise something about it: It's a bit disappointing that it comes without a matching pouch/bag - but that's not an expensive drawback to compensate. And for tape-deck-like use at home it would have been nicer, if both the line-in and line-/headphone-out were located at the top and the mic-in on the side instead - but that's also not much of a drawback.

And finally it seems a bit of a pity, that the microSD slot officially only handles microSDHC cards up to 16 GByte - which one may understand on a model that was already introduced a couple of years ago, but it would nevertheless have been nice, if Sony had updated that to maximum SDHC capacity on later batches. Because in the meantime 16 GByte cards already seem to have crossed the capacity per price sweet spot and thus will sooner or later be phased out, so that it would seem a good idea to better estimate one's long-term demand for those cards now and then grab a sufficient number as soon as these will hit the "rock bottom price point".

Over here good 16 GByte class 10/UHS-1 cards already are down to roundabout 7 Euro now - but I'd hope these to drop to 5 Euro on phase-out... When that happens, I plan to grab some 60 to 70, maybe 80 cards, which should suffice for all my CDs and LPs plus some spare capacity for new ones as well as my own recordings...

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[tcdriver]

I use Audacity.

 

[lini]

tcd: Problem with Audacity still is limited 24 bit recording support in combination with Windows... However, if one buys one of the cards or external interfaces above the entry-level segment, the software pack is likely to contain some good audio editing software anyway.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[oldvinyldude]

I use Spin It Again, from Acoustica. I was $25 in I bought it 5 yrs. ago (I think) , now I see it is $34. Really simple to use. Has good editing, click & pop removal, EQ and lots of others. Only con, It won't convert to flac. only wav and mp3 files. And yes, 24 bit, or what ever your sound card can handle.

I got this before I discovered the free software, but it does the job, so I use it all the time.

If the OP wants to get vinyl converted without as steep a learning curve, this is what I suggest. Audacity is great, but it's interface is very daunting if one is not comfortable with a lot of options.

I don't currently use any devices that must have FLAC format files though.

 

[gusten]

lini: thanks, all good to know.

 

[mhardy6647]

Well (and FWIW)... I don't know about very daunting, but it's certainly worth reading the how-to tutorials for Audacity before assuming one can figure it out on the fly.

 

[soundmig]

Vinyl Studio, in conjunction with J River …. highly recommend it/them. Easy to use, will record most any format and resolution you can feed it, track breaks are easy to do with it, de-clicking is easy and algorithms are effective, J River then picks up your recording and (based on title - if you enter it properly) picks up the album artwork on line and puts it into your J.River database - fantastic!