dumping vynil to the harddrive...

[dreamz]

hey hey....hope someone can help me. I'm trying to dump some of my records onto my hard drive to produce, but my record player makes this awful buzzing rumble that sounds grotesque. I have sound forge 6 with noise reduction and waves gold bundle, i've tried messing around with a bunch of stuff but can't seem to take out the hum of the record player's motor (which i'm pretty sure it is) without totally altering the original sound. It is not the computer either, i have played my records straight through speakers and it still has that buzz(in case you're wondering, it's not the usual pops and clicks expected on records that we like... it's just a steady hum...)i also use an audiophile2496 if anyone's interested. Does anyone think a different turntable might help?
I appreciate any advice

[marcuswilson]

You have a technical problem with the turntable. Are you using the correct type of preamp (riaa phono preamp)?

[regebro]

It's eitehr a ground problem (normal with 50/60hz hum) or mechanical noise from your motor. Firstly make sure evrything is grounded problem. If that doesn't help, borrow a turntable from a friend.

And yes, you need to use RIAA preamps, which typically means you need to run it through the phono input on your receiver, and send the monitor outs to your PC. But not using RIAA preamps would not cause a rumbling sound, in fact, it would be quite the opposite, and cause a sound that has very little low end.

[dreamz]

alright thanks for the help first off...no i'm not using a pre amp for the record player, i'm playing it straight through, and pardon this probably silly question...but what's a grounded problem...???
i'm gonna go borrow my uncle's turntable to see if it makes a difference...

[regebro]

"Straight through" is a very fuzzy word. You claim to have playedyour records 'straight through' your speakers too, and trust me, if it really were "straight through" those speakers wouldn't make a sound.

You have to understand a couple of things about vinyl players: The needle is basically a very small and weak microphone, that instead of picking up the vibrations of the air, picks up the wobbles of the vinyl groove and generates electricity from that.

To make a sound, you need to covert that electricity into vibrations of air, and thats what the speakers do. But when you say that you play your vinyl disks "straight through" your speakers, then this is in fact not straight through at all. If you too the outputs from that needle pickup and put it into a speaker, you would hear nothing. To hear something you must amplify the weak electrical signal so it's strong enough to drive a speaker.

When it comes to vinyl, this is done in three steps.

Step one is to amplify the signal to 'line' levels, which is simply the standard electrical level used between different equiopments such as tape players, and radios and also the level mostly used inside of the equipment.

Step two is to do a RIAA decode on the signal. This is because the signal on vinyl is RIAA encoded, which basically means that they have lowered the bass, so that the grooves can be made narrower. The RIAA decoder amplifies the low frequencies more than the high, so that the signal sounds OK again.

Usually step 1 and step 2 is done simoultaneously in a RIAA preamp.

Step 3 is the power amp, that takes a line level signal and amplifies it so that it can drive a speaker. This is also where you control the volume, by controlling the amount of amplification.


I guess you have an integrated system where the vinylplayer/radio/tape/amp are all in one box, and using the line out and feeding it into the line in of the computer?

In that case, you ARE using a RIAA preamp.



A ground problem is when two different peices of electricity doesn't have the same ground potential. If you don't understand what that means, you need to study some physics.

It's most easily fixed by making sure that all equipment is properly grounded. Many players, even the integrated ones, have ground screws, where you are supposed to connect the grounding. If yours do, put a cable between that one and a metal part of the chassis on your computer.

[dreamz]

well...now i feel really stupid...hehe...thanks for the physics lesson, i've had a few at school, i guess they just haven't sunk in yet...but i got the grounding figured out now, and the music is beautiful...much appreciation for the help...

[regebro]

Great!