Vinyl to Digital Recording-Can't anyone answer the question?

RidinTheWave · Dec 17, 2000

Yes, everybody talks about this as if it has been answered a million times but I have searched this entire forum to its deepest depths and about ten others and have yet to find some good advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. I do belive that alot of people could used some good advice here. Is this topic suffering from people who are trying to keep the good advice a secret so that each person who wants to do this must go through the same trial and error hell until they hit the objective? I must appologize for the hostile tone of this post but I am very frustrated. I have spent nearly 30 hours all over the net without conclusive results.

#1.) What is the best method for cleaning/preping vinyl prior to digital recording/mastering. Washing/floating water on vinyl while recording/ groove glide/toothbrush/paintbrush?

#2.) Which software currently available will remove Clicks / Pops / Background noise without degrading the original quality(recorded at 44.1/24bit)? What are the recomendations and Why?

#3.) What is the best way to get that pefect quality when recording your LP's(free from clicks and pops and anything else that is not supposed to be there while maintaining original dynamic range)?

Anyone who has a working system for this would be helping alot of us with your in depth advice.

Thanks in Advance!

bvaleria · Dec 17, 2000

RidinTheWave · Dec 17, 2000

I did not post this thread because I was unable to use the search function exhaustively or creatively. Or beacuse I lack the determination to find the answer to my question by doing over 30 different searches or because I can not read. I am simply asking for a professional answer to the question which has not been provided in as much detail as is required in any of the posts on this forum(or any others for that matter). Your post was uncalled for because it assumes that my questions are answered in this forum-They are not- Hence the reason for this new thread. So my intention is to provide these answers all in one place to save everyone in the future from having to look at countless useless threads claiming to answer these questions.

Thanks for the Nice links but you obviously didn't read them in relation to my three very specific questions. All of the links that you posted except for two(which were not even relevant) I had read before posting my thread. That being said the questions still stand. I would appreciate advice from someone who records vinyl to digital with the intention of obtaining the highest quality audio possible in the final copy. I would assume that this would have to come from someone who #1 is framiliar with pro recording #2 makes money from providing this high quality service or is just anal about doing the highest quality work possible.

Thanks again in advance to any pros able to help answer these questions.

[Edited by RidinTheWave on 12-17-2000 at 15:52]

bvaleria · Dec 17, 2000

OH.......... you wanted an answer from a PRO... well that's different then, I guess I shouldn't have said anything.... *smirk* :rolleyes:

Question #2 WAS answered in those posts and question #3 is automatically answered by question #2.............

As for question #1, why would the "prep" be any different than for normal listening???? As long as the vinyl is as dust-free and scratch-free as possible......... there is no magic solution you can apply that won't harm the vinyl..........

I'd be happy to do your transfer for you at my PRO facility - I'll give you the special HomeRecording.com NEWBIE discount.

Bruce Valeriani
PRO Engineer - Blue Bear Sound
http://www.iosphere.net/~bvaleria/bluebear.htm

mrclay · Dec 17, 2000

<b>>#2.) Which software currently available will remove Clicks / Pops / Background noise...</b>

I think there are lots of programs made for this, but CoolEdit Pro does this job for me pretty well, but you may want to check if it'll work w/ 24-bit files. I thought it was only 8,16, or 32-bit but I could be very wrong..
CEP has a click/pop remover with a convenient "Auto Find All Levels" button for sensitivity that never fails me. If it doesn't quite remove enough at the tail of the song, just do it again at the end. Some big pops are unrepairable with this, but you can try running a low-pass FFT filter at 200hz over a tiny section containing the pop and it'll usually do the trick.
It has a noise reduction function, but it usually reduces the highs a bit too much for me to use for the whole song. Instead I create a unique copy of the song, do 50% noise reduction on the end of the copy, put both waves playing simultaneously in the multitrack and crossfade from the original to the noise-reduced one as the last note fades. That way you reduce the noise where you'd mostly hear it - as the end fades and you can never hear the noise reduction processing "turn on" or have to process the entire song. Kind of like automated EQ in a way..
It all depends on how much time you wanna put into it. I typically give a song an hour, but then again I only usually do a couple songs a month or so. If you're maniacle you could transfer the song twice after dusting the record in-between and use bits of the other take where pops couldn't be eliminated (assuming the pops would be in different places).

sonusman · Dec 18, 2000

The facts as I know them....

1- bvaleria already provided a great answer to this. Clean the vinyl before playing. Use a good needle.

The error here is mostly that turntables are NOT even close to the same quality as even your average 16 bit converter....

2- ANY dsp will degrade sound quality! There is really no way around this. Now maybe if you have a Sonic Solutions system with Lucent or Apogee 24 bit converters, we could talk about "possibly" applying some dsp without losing some quality. Refer to http://www.digido.com for more details about the folly of dsp in most systems that the rest of us can afford. The articles about dithering and "More Bits Please" are very reveling.

I have yet to hear of ANY noise removing software that doesn't choke an already aneamic high end in digital....

3- A well running DAW is not going to add anymore noise and/or pops or clicks to the audio. If the source has noise, well, it has noise. mrclay provided a very realistic scenario about what it would take to "clean up" even one audio track using a DAW, but again, you need a very high end system, something that will set you back like $15K to apply dsp that is mostly invisible to the sound.

You are not going to find terribly high quality converters in most sound cards. A few stick out as having converters in line with outboard converters that are considered state of the art. Lynx One and the Card Deluxe are two. I have heard a little bit of the Digidesign 001, and it seems to be a pretty decent converter too. After those, well, I cannot attest to it being quality that is considered "pro", although, I have heard very fine sounding stuff using other soundcards.

You are really looking to do what mastering suites that cost 10's of thousands of dollars, and are staffed by very very experienced engineers do. If you haven't invested around $30K or so in equipment, and have loads of experience in mastering, I would not expect top end results. That is just unrealistic. Experience is THE great divider in high quality audio, with state of the art gear being a close second. Without either, or only one, your results will not be as good as they could have been.

Never discount too a high quality monitoring systems in a very well tuned room. Not being able to hear in great detail the results of any applied processing to the audio means you are guessing.

It took me almost 4 years before I REALLY started to get a handle on my room I "used" to have for mixing and mastering. A long story on why I don't have that available right now, but I have struggled in two other rooms now trying to find that "sweet" sound.

Don't expect so much unless you are prepared to spend a lot of money and time on top shelf equipment. This is a reality check here. I am not trying to discourage you from pursuing what you want to do, I am just telling you that the reality is that you will need to make a considerable investment in time and money to get the results you seem to be asking for. There really no "second" best when you are manipulating already mastered audio. You either have the nice gear, and really know what you are doing, or you are cheesing the audio.

Good luck.

Ed

Vinyl to Digital Recording-Can't anyone answer the question?

RidinTheWave

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bvaleria

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RidinTheWave

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bvaleria

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mrclay

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sonusman

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