Ripping from Vinyl, Simplified 415
An anonymous reader writes "In a short article at linmagau.org
John Murray brings Gramofile to our attention, just the thing to help you bring all those LPs in the cupboard into your MP3 collection. One more example of the analog hole in action, I guess ;)" It may not be CEDAR, but it sounds like a lot of utility for a 76kB program.
Why do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Records only get crappy after much use. If they could make them out of a more robust material, I'd be first in line to buy.
Re:Why do this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".
A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page [westhost.com] for more information.
A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.
Remember when 256 colour graphics cards came out? I bet you thought 'Wow! I'll never need more then those'. When high colour came out 'This is great - more won't make a difference, since the eye can't see any more'. as technology improved, so did our desire for more quality.
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
This cheap stereo system (high street retailers cheapest "got everything" model) sounded absolutely marvellous. Like kit costing fity times as much.
Ever since then, I have been of the opinion that it is not worth spending a fortune on hi-fi kit if you intend to install it in a room in which you intend to Have a Life. The necessary compromises to live in a room - particularly if you share with other people - will cancel out all the advantages of super-duper kit. If you are prepared to set up a special listeneing room, it might be worth investing in this kit. Until then, buy more music or more beer.
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover, different speakers do have different response to different sources, I believe that you will changge your mind saying 'absolutely marvellous' if you try listen to more hi-fi models, for example, alchemist amp wit
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're dead on. Many of the people who are like "you can't tell the difference" say that because they've never been exposed to a good system.
When I was younger, every 3 years I would go to get my prescription updated.
Every 3 years I would swear up and down that my prescription hasn't changed, and I can still see just fine.
Every
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Another impossible-to-live-with arrangement that I found made for excellent sound out of a pair of cheap speakers was hanging them from the the pipes in my basement room ceiling with some twine.
I can only guess that the lack of mechanical connection between the speakers and a hard surface allowed for better bass resonance.
I think the basement helped as well, since the ceiling was some kind of cheap cardboard-like material (harder than cardboard, softer than masonite) and the fact that tha
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude... HEADPHONES! (Score:5, Insightful)
You certainly can get a worthwhile improvement from spending moderately serious amounts on equipment, but you're right in a way--the place to spend the money isn't always obvious, and a lot of expensive kit is wank that's beaten handily by stuff a fraction of the price.
For example, you can spend $1000 on a set of incredible audiophile speakers... or you can spend $300 on a pair of good headphones and a headphone amp. Unlike with speakers, you can put an audiophile headphone system in a shared apartment and not have to compromise. In fact, you can build a portable headphone listening setup that'll sound better than anything with speakers that you might plausibly set up in the communal living room.
Even cheap equipment can often be improved greatly by add-ons. I just upgraded to some Sennheisers for my Sony Walkman, and the difference is incredible. I have a better headphone amp on the way too...
Last time I auditioned CD players, one thing that surprised me was the amount of difference in sound quality in half a dozen big-name players at around the same price. If you're serious about sound quality, you really have to audition the stuff.
Cheap tiny headphone amp (Score:3, Informative)
Funny you should ask...
I recently ordered the Xin Super Mini Amp [fixup.net] with crossfeed. It arrived today, and I immediately tried it out with my pair of Sennheiser PXC250 [headphone.com] noise-cancelling headphones (which, with noise cancelling off, act like a pair of PX200s [headphone.com]. Source audio was a Sony MP3 CD Walkman with LAME-encoded MP3s, either --alt-preset standard or --r3mix.
OK, enough hardware details. Let's just say that about half an hour later, my wife wandered in to the front room to find out what I was doing still out
Re:Why do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with you 100% there. Over these past few years, I've mixed on full analog, solid-state, and digital audio boards. Analogs (like a certain Trident) are my favorite for rock because when they clip, you don't get hit by it.
Solid-state boards are what I grew up with, so the clip isn't that bad...but not nearly as "nice as analog." The new digital boards suck in this regard--when they clip, they clip, generally leaving the technician
Clippy (Score:3, Informative)
The soft clipping effect can be obtained in most amplifiers with a single FET and a few resistors - cunningly wired - per channel. In real valve amps with valve rectifiers in the PSU, the clipping was so soft it was almost compression. Adding the correct hum, noise and slow turn-on is harder. Power consumption and heat is just a matter of wiring thumping great resis
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok, so a tube amp sounds more pleasant when operated out of spec. The real problem is that headroom is expensive. A well designed tube amp that isn't clipping isn't going to sound any different from a well designed transistor amp. By well designed, I me
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Interesting)
A relation of mine once met Bob Carver in the 70s and when he figured that he wasn't a Golden Ear tweak he showed him such a setup...at an electronics show well attended by tweaks. They did indeed ooh and ahh over
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, in some cases the software can handle more colour depth than you can view on any digital output devices. It requires a lot of
Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots (Score:3, Informative)
I am advised that it is because the electrons flow through solid material (as opposed to a vacuum tube) and there are no moving parts.
Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots (Score:5, Informative)
Offtopic, but can a native english speaker tell me why exactly semiconductor devices are also called "solid state" devices ?.
The term dates back to the 1960's when transistor radios were first developed. As the signal in a tube radio is processed from the radio spectrum to the audio output at the speaker, there are physical gaps within the tubes where the signal is transferred to radiant energy and sent across a vacuum that is a few millimeters wide. But in a "solid state" radio, the signal remains in solid materials-- wires, semiconductors, etc, for its entire processing.
At the time, the breakthrough of solid state technology was not seen as a matter of quality, but of reliability and portability. A portable tube radio required a car battery or portable generator, a case that would withstand the bumps of travel, spare tubes, and the tools and know-how to do tube replacements in the field. So a hundred pounds or more of delicate equipment to lug around, plus someone trained as the "radio operator". But a solid state transistor radio needed only a pocketful of nine volt batteries and a spare radio if you had to have back-up. Total weight less than a tenth of that of the tube option, and no special training required. Even fishermen in rowboats could now keep up with weather reports. It was a pretty big deal at the time.
I wouldn't say your query was off-topic. I think questions about the words used in a discussion are generally germane to that discussion.
Of course your inquiry did lead to this pedantic reply. But slashdot does no modding down for pedantry-baiting!
pedantically yours...
Re:Why do this? (Score:2)
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, when transistor amps came out in the 60s, everyone thought they would sound far better than tubes because they did not produce as much distortion (on the analyzer, at least). That turned out to be extremely wrong. The early transistor amps may not have produced as much distortion, but they sounded far worse than tube amps. It was later found out that this occurred due to intermodulation distortion, a particularly nasty-sounding type of distortion.
I will not agree that a CD is "more than adequate". That's like saying that 640K of RAM, 256 colors, or 56Kbps is more than anyone will ever need. A CD is mastered to an extremely shitty set of parameters. 44KHz is not enough to go up to even 22KHz (and humans can hear that rather well), and 16 bits is not nearly enough for a wide dynamic range. Remember, this technology was designed in the early 80s and was supposed to be cheap even then. Even the audio industry is now switching to new formats, such as SACD and DVD Audio.
Unlike records, you can't extract any "extra" quality from the CD. It's digitized, and you can't get what's not already on the disc. With LPs, better equipment makes a world of difference. With CDs, a better transport will at best reduce jitter but will not improve the quality significantly. That's why audiophiles prefer LPs -- that's currently the only way to get better-than-CD sound.
Finally, please listen to a truly good-quality audio system (no, I don't mean a trashy Bose or Infinity 5.1) at least once in your lifetime before posting such idiotic comments. You would be surprised.
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Interesting)
But we should remember that the original sounds are not a digital signal, they are in fact a complex collection of analogue signals.
Ultimately, anyone who really cares about the issue (and who has the requisite financial wherewithal) can check it out by comparison of a
Re:Why do this? (Score:2)
I've listened to both brand new records and brand new CDs. The only conclusion I could draw is that records sound like crap on the bass (relatively speaking).
Re:Why do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
The master pressing can be made from maybe a high quality tape (also analogue), or maybe a digital source with a very high sample rate / sample depth. So not necessarily made from a digital source.
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Aren't records made from digital sources?
Depends. Many studios still use magnetic tape, although others use Pro-Tools and their ilk for everything. Once the multi track recordings are done, then the mastering might be to magnetic tape, DAT or Exabyte (amongst others). Then comes the mastering at the pressing plant, which is where any recording will go digital (if it's being pressed onto CD) at the glass mastering stage. Vinyl mastering produces a die, and this is still an "analog" process.
And yes, bass frequencies are limited on vinyl, I remember an early acid house track called "Oochy Koochy" which had such a massive kick sound that it trashed the mastering studios cutting head, something they weren't insured for. That reminds me - I'll have to extract that record from my brothers grubby mitts next time I see him ...
Chris
Re:Why do this? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why do this? (Score:2)
Sure, all of them! (kind of)
But of course!
Naturellement, that's the very definition of 'digital'! All that talk about bitrates, samplerates, bit depth, channels, DACs and codecs is pure poppycock, intended to confuse pure customers and talk them into upgrading from the perfectly good record players they bought from their pocket money as a child!
So what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Actually even 44.1kHz is overkill for audio recordings. The highest frequency that someone with excellent hearing can pick up is closer to 14kHz. CDs are capable of digitising frequencies up to ~22kHz. Increasing the bandwidth of the recording will not make it sound any better at all.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
Hertz (Hz) is a unit that in all practicalities measures "times per second".
The number 44.1kHz used to signify sample rate means that the sound is sampled 44,100 times per second. It has nothing to do with frequency of the sound - which is how many sound waves per second.
You should read the HowStuffWorks [howstuffworks.com] question, Is the sound on vinyl records better than on CDs or DVDs? [howstuffworks.com].
Re:So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Even though PCM is limited to 65536 discrete steps, this amounts to over 90 Db of dynamic range in a properly dithered recording. Although a record does have a continous representation, it is limited to something on the order of 50-60 Db of dynamic range because of background noise and the physical limitations of the vinyl, the cutter, and the playback medium.
Continuous does not equal infinite!
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
The Death of Dynamic Range [raritanval.edu]
CD "Hypercompression" Caught in the Act [raritanval.edu]
I'm old enough to give this to you first hand: When CD's first came
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
You could hardly be more wrong; you missed my point. He really referred to digitising LPs and not limiting oneself to sample rates which are standard for CDs and cheap sound cards, but in a way that implied that every digital rip would go onto a CD-Audio and could never be of higher quality. I just pointed out that this implication is totally wrong.
You're off topic (Score:2)
And another one who's compelled to start babbling about CDs upon reading about ripping records. Look, my parent said if a record's audio quality is higher than a CDs, there's no point in ripping it to CD. I merely reminded him that you don't have to put your rip on a CD-Audio. Absolutely no one was talking about ripping from CD.
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, the equalisation curve [paia.com] was specified by our good friends, the RIAA... all amplifiers that have a "Phono" input use an RIAA EQ curve in the pre-amp stage to boost/reduce the frequencies to get back to a flat response that should sound like the studio mix off the (pre vinyl mastering) master tape.
Often these days all mastering is done at a flat EQ curve, because CDs can handle this, and then mastering happens *again* for the vinyl stage. It used to be the other way round, so early CDs were replaced with "digitally remastered" cuts - Brothers in Arms, Pink Floyd catalogue, that sort of stuff - and had a sound that was more faithful to the original, pristine LPs without sounding "tinny" like the first released CDs.
Digital to Analogue converters and preamps are so good these days that there is little difference between vinyl and CD. A lot of the "warmth" that supposed audiophiles go on about is probably "rumble" anyway (that is, the 50 or 60Hz drone that comes from the platter's electric motor and is passed to the needle, and other artifacts created by the rotation of the record in slightly less than perfect circles, etc).
What I like about LPs is the bigger artwork, the physical effort required to play a recording, and the soothing 33 and one third RPM of the disc as it spins on my old JVC turntable. Also, records which are well kept - as they generally are in my collection - sound pretty good too. However, they're not *better* than CDs. Just different. Old analogue stuff has afficionados everywhere, but please stop bleating that it's because it's better. It's just different.
One interesting argument though - a big thing in digital audio is to keep a fully digital path all the way to the very last, then have a top D to A converter right in the amp and straight to the speakers, some people even sending a digital feed to speakers which have reference D to A converters or even some system to use the digital signal to generate an analogue wave which goes beyond normal D to A electronics (can't remember too much about that, Google around if you feel so inclined). With my vinyl setup, however, I have a signal path that is fully analogue, and no need of a DtoA stage at all ;-) - although I do have solid state electronics in the system... which old wind up 78rpm players didn't have. I bet some people claimed they sounded better than the newer 33rpm records with electric motors and all that, too.
Re:Why do this? (Score:2, Insightful)
This wouldn't produce 'warmth', but pitch variation :o(
The best thing about good analogue recordings is the 'air' around the instruments. The soi-disant clean sound of solo string instruments on many CDs bears li
Re:Why do this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Best is to have a digital crossover filter and then two DACs to feed two amps per speaker. One for the woofer, one for the tweeter. This will minimize phase problems in your speaker. Some studio monitor speakers do just that.
You could extend to three- or four-way systems, but that's overkill.
analog (Score:3, Interesting)
People all have a certain type of music that sounds the best to their ears and is the most comfortable to listen to... likewise, people have a certain type of audio gear that is most comfortable.
For me, I prefer using my analog vacuum tube amp (an Antique Sound Labs MG-SI15DT with Svetlana KT88 power tubes and Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 preamp tubes... if you're interested). It sounds much different than my Sony receiver... anyone can tell th
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
1. Your turntable is crappy (spend a couple of hundred dollars fer chrissake).
2. Your turntable is not configured correctly in the arm/pickup/tracking department. Really, extremly fine tolerances are involved, and you should get a professional to set it up.
LPs...decades of use...bla bla.
Re:Why do this? (Score:3, Informative)
Turntables on the top of cheap stereos usually have cartridges with diamond stylii, that (being one of the hardest substances on Earth) will naturally damage the record as it plays. All good carts will have sapphire stylii, which are much nicer to the record.
Generally most good cartridges/stylii have a recommended weight of 3-4g. It is very important to make sure the weight does not exceed the recommended weight, or you'll end up damaging your records and wearing dow
Re:Why do this? (Score:5, Informative)
What is does is;
Record a whole side at a time
Apply some filtering to remove clicks and pops
Find the gaps between tracks for you, and split the final tracks into individual files.
Not sure why you can't just go read the article; It loaded fine for me just now.
I thought the correct way of ripping a vinyl was (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I thought the correct way of ripping a vinyl wa (Score:5, Funny)
Other possibility (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Other possibility (Score:2)
Re:Other possibility (Score:2, Interesting)
Back before CDs came along, a UK childrens TV programme (Blue Peter) had on a guest who could 'read' the music between the grooves.
The presenters handed him a bunch of LPs (with the labels covered) and he proceded to correctly hum or sing all of the tunes on them.
Try doing that with your HD full of MP3s
- Derwen
In Your Cupboard? (Score:4, Funny)
Did I somehow miss something when I was growing up? Other than the occasional "Loose Plate", or "Little Platter" I've never seen any kind of LP in someone's cupboards.
(And I check... I'm weird like that.)
Not really hip on this whole LP scene, I guess. Can someone shed some light on this?
krystal_blade
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the goal here though is to save those old Pink Floyd/The Who records you still want to play every other day, but don't want to wear out from constant use. And who wants to go out and buy a whole new set of CD's?
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:2)
I mean, on a bad hangover day, I might just wind up piling on some eggs and bacon on top of ole Pink Floyd, and that just wouldn't do...
(It would probably make the eggs taste bad...)
krystal_blade
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:2)
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:2)
Well, I've met one or two who really love the final scratch [finalscratch.com]. So much so, it's a little freaky, actually.
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:3, Informative)
with the advent of tools like final scratch [finalscratch.com], people are starting to switch, which means that there's a hell of a lot of vinyl to rip. Also, there's a lot of rare tunes, dubplates and white labels that have been deleted, and are only ava
Re:In Your Cupboard? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dispite the fact that I was born in the 70s... I only recently gained an apprication for vinyl. As a kid, when I bought records, it was cause I didn't have a tape player, and I treeted my vinyl poorly. I went with cassettes cause they were so much more portable, I could play them on my TI-99/4a data recorder, and they didn't get damaged too much if I didn't put them back in their cases.
But I was missing something actually. Amazingly enough vinyl is actually a really good standard. Part of my prejustice was the fact that I was a kid and was listening to the stuff on my folks record player, some wooden cabinate deal with cheepo tv tweaters, stereo that was screwy from date of purchace, and an 8track that the program button was screwy. And plus the fact that all the records I had at the time were hand me downs from family members, played to death.
When CDs came out, I was instently impressed... vast sound improvement vs cassettes I noticed right off the bat, no background hiss, and vs the vinyl players *I've experenced* no background 60 cycle hum. So I went for one of those, I was older and could afford one, at first a simple boom box, eventualy a dedicate amp and a multi-disk changer with remote, and then I had something resembling a servicable sound system.
While I'm not a true audiophile, there are those who believe that vinyl is a superior standard to CD. Recent experiments have show me personaly that it's good, it's pretty damn good. If you are lucky enough to have a decent turntable, with a decent cartrage, a new needle, proper alignment, and kick ass wires that don't pickup that annoying 60 cycle hum that most turn tables seem to be a victim of, they sound great, in fact, they do kick ass. Wether or not they have a more natural sound due to the fact that they are analog and have more descrete values between their max and minium range, or if the better cartrage / styluses pickup more noise giving it a warmer feel rather then accurate, I don't know.
Before I get too off the mark, it's reasonable to believe that an analog vinyl record can more accuratly produce natural sounds due to it's analog nature, that whole issue with descrete values in the human percieved range is easy enough to believe. I've never seen it personaly, but i'm willing to believe this. However, in order to achive maxium effect, you need a virgin pressing, virgin record, kick ass turn table, etc... etc... and ya know... I am not going to spend that sorta money on a sound system, nor am I going to spend hours tweeking with my stylus alignment. Forget that. CDs sound pretty damn good, mp3s at a high enough bitrate are adquate for portable audio. Even an old goodwill CD-rom drive will proved *great* audio at sub $20.00.
So to answer your question, no you are not weird like that. While some will argue that the vinyl standard is superior in quality, you can't argue about the entry level cost of CD vs vinyl. CD provides damn good sound for few bucks. CDs are damn cheep to produce dispite the phohographs simple technology to extract sounds from a disk.
But now we are getting stanards for digital audio that more then double the sample rate and 33% the bit width... it would be interesting to see how phonophiles feel about sound quality vs ye old snap crackle hiss humm.
Request for Name Change... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't want to sound picky, but I REALLY think we need a new name to replace "analog hole". Something about it just doesn't sound right.
Digital (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Digital (Score:2)
Is some moderator on an ego trip or what?
Re:Digital (Score:2)
I agree... I mean the thread concept is a software application to record vinyl. I would *think* that a reference to the following links...
http://www.ttx1.com/ stanton str8-150
http://www.stantonmagnetics.com/alpha44 / tt_str8-1 50.asp
Re:Digital (Score:3, Informative)
as soon as you can show me ANY home audio "digital" anything that can beat my Santa-Cruz in recording an analog signal to digital, I'll be amazed. NOTHING other than a $1000.00 pro recording sound card can beat it.
and yes, I do have the full testing results to prove it.
[216.239.33.100]
HERE
(Note, the origional website seems to be down... so the google cache will have to do until it comes back...)
What I found Interesting.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The results of the poll can be found here [linmagau.org]
Weird (Score:2, Insightful)
> though it's interesting to note that even now
> some indie bands (notably the White Stripes with
> their recent Elephant album) are still releasing
> stuff on vinyl.
This sentence strikes me as slightly weird: why would I buy the latest White Stripes on vinyl if I was intending to convert it into mp3? Maybe because of the artwork? *shrugs*
Cool record btw, although De Stijl remains their best.
Re:Weird (Score:2)
Probably because you're like me in that you like having vinyl for playing at home in the living room, but its not such a great band that you're prepared to give them double the cash for a CD or Mindisc as well just to be able to listen to it while you're on the move. My car just doesn't have a 6-disc LP changer, oddly enough.
Of course, there are times that I end up doing just that. The new Blur just had to be bought in the lovely book CD, normal CD f
Re:Weird (Score:2)
iMic and Final Vinyl (Score:5, Informative)
F.V. allows you to rip to wav or aiff and allows you to split tracks based on cue marks. It includes built in RIAA filtering and auto or manual gain and equalisation.
You just plug the iMic into you USB port on your Mac, plug the turntable directly into the iMic's input socket (well, ok, with an RCA to 3.5mm plug adapter), setup your preferred gain in F.V. and off you go.
Re:iMic and Final Vinyl (Score:2)
The software I like is Wave Repair [nildram.co.uk] (for Windows). Lots of control over your repairs.
The Need For a Long Patch Cord (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Need For a Long Patch Cord (Score:5, Informative)
I buy at least as much vinyl as I do CDs. I used Baudline [baudline.com] to tune the setup before creating a digital representation of the music on my hard disk in the form of an OGG file.
I have a number of artists; old and new on heavy vinyl. Stunning.
Try this interesting experiment. Play a CD and a vinyl record of the exact same track into Baudline's spectrum analyzer and notice the average DB across the high frequencies. Doing so with Fugazi's "End Hits" album showed me that the CD cuts off above 16Khz while the vinyl continues to reproduce the signal up to 20khz.
Most people can't hear above 16Khz but such signals create harmonics that extent down into the audible range.
Radio Shack Pre-Amps (Score:2)
Oh...the Radio Shack pre-amps now use a 9V battery, which is somewhat annoying if you forget to turn it off after using it. Battery drainage...
Cheers,
Vic
Re:The Need For a Long Patch Cord (Score:5, Informative)
The one I use is a Musical Fidelity X-LPS [19art.net], which I find works very well. You can plug it into your amplifier (which is how I use it for normal listening) and then connect your PC to the tape or MD output jacks of the amp to do the recording, or you could do it the other way and plug the X-LPS line-level outputs directly into the PC (I do it this way).
The critical thing when using Gramofile is to get the recording level right (this is the "igain" control in your audio mixer). If you get it wrong, you will saturate the A/D converter's input. This only needs to happen very occasionally to ruin the recording, and it normally happens at sractches. However, Gramofile, while it does a good job with scratches generally, can't deal so effectively with the aftereffects of saturating the soundcard's input (you tend to get a kind of echo of the crackle). So, even if it tells you that "0.0%" of the samples were at full-scale, check the actual number of full-scale samples.
The best way to do this in my opinion is to launch the ReZound [sourceforge.net] audio editor. This will colour-code the full-scale regions of the sample file, enabling you to identify at a glance if you need to re-record.
Lastly, I suppose this is a rather obvious point, but the result of doing this will never be as good as the results you get listening to the original record. You can only lose information, not recover it. So, if you really care about those LPs, invest in a good turntable and cartridge! This doesn't have to be so expensive. I bought a second-hand LP12 earlier this year for less than 1/3 the price of a new one (obviously to do justice to it I will need to get a much better sound card than the one that comes on my PC's motherboard).
I did (Score:5, Informative)
It took a few hours' worth of fiddling (even with the plug in), but I finally constructed a digitized version of a recording made in the late 40's and it sounded excellent, save for the last disk which had an off center hole. It had varying pitch, which I was still able to tone down a bit.
The rest of the lps in the collection were in very good condition, but still had poor sound attributed to its 50+ year age.
I am unfamiliar with the results that the professionals produce, but even a simple trial version of Sound Forge can work wonders on old LP's for merely the cost of electricity and a blank cd.
Re:I did (Score:2, Informative)
If the center spindle of the turntable is removable, position the record so that the pressing is centered. It's easy to check this visually by spinning the record fast with the turntable switched off.
This'll also help with the occasional record which is pressed off-center.
Next Illegal Project: How to Rip FM Radio (Score:2)
Medium reliability (Score:2)
At least my vinyl will be playable in 100 years, can we say the same about harddrives [slashdot.org] and compact discs [slashdot.org] ?
personally when i buy music it will always be on vinyl, i get a fairly robust product,no DRM, great artwork and will last with good care [garrard501.com] forever
(having already 20,000 from 20years of dj'ing might sway my opinion somewhat
Re:Medium reliability (Score:2)
My take on this software (since I can't read the article) isn't that mp3's are better than vinyl. It's that if you have vinyl, you can make mp3's.
Reliability? Since you have vinyl records, you're in an excellent position to rip them to mp3 and see which is still around in 100 years. Not arguing for one or the other, ju
Re:Medium reliability (Score:2)
using both ie backing up the vinyl onto mp3 so i do not need to wear out the vinyl is a great idea but alas i fear people will choose to rep
Re:Medium reliability (Score:2)
Another worthwhile program (Score:4, Interesting)
Oops (Score:2)
What I do... (Score:3, Informative)
After reading the Tom's Hardware guide on the TerraTec DMX 6 Fire [tomshardware.com] I knew that would be the next sound card to purchase. It has a phono-in as two RCA jacks, and comes with decent* software to clean up scratchy vinyl (*- Yet doesn't clean up RIAA filter artifacts. See below.)
Ripping vinyl is not intuitive though. I made a few rips via Sound Forge and wondered why all my bass wasn't coming through. The card had on-board RIAA filtering, which caused other problems. The solution: Download the RIAA Direct-X plug-in and run the filter on the WAV after it has been captured.
The RIAA filter itself works most of the time, but about one in every 6 records I rip, the filter creates very loud, 1 to 2 sample, "popping" artifacts, that need to be manually removed. I don't know if it's the filter itself or the implementation...either way I just wish it wasn't it didn't have that effect.
Once that is done, normalize to a good level and you're done. The process takes about 20-45 minutes per record. It's a pain, but spinning the end result on CDJ-1000 [cnet.com] makes it all worth it.
--
Interestin (Score:4, Interesting)
A nice side effect is that buying music became fun again. Browsing records and then putting them on the store's listening turntable is somehow a nicer experience than pressing a couple of buttons on a CD player. I now have a couple of albums that I didn't buy because of copy protection and couldn't be happier. Of course CDs are easier to handle, and there is none of the static and other little noises you can get with a record. But for me music never was about the highest possible sound quality.
There's still music that's vinyl only. (Score:5, Informative)
There's lots of (quality) music released today that's released only on vinyl. DIY punk/noise, techno, electro and house, to name a few.
Personally (as a wannabe-DJ) I buy vinyl instead of CD (as a form of protest?), and preferably from small labels. And I've got a collection really old 7" artifacts and oddities. It's a big plus to get the tracks in mp3 (or ogg), for archival and sharing purposes (which I almost consider the same). After all, one day, you might not find a working turntable anymore...
Yes, I believe it's okay to share stuff that's limited to 500 pressings, sold out and almost impossible to find. There are actually labels that release their music on vinyl and free mp3 download.
The point of this post? Not really any, just wanted to let you know what this software might be used for.
Re:There's still music that's vinyl only. (Score:2)
Chances are, the software would be used by people who own vinyl, but don't want to deal with the fact that the media is bulky, the player is bulky, and the simple mater of the media degrading with each use. Not to speak of those who own vinyl who would enjoy getting it on CD to play in their car, rather like we did back in the 1980's with cassettes in the car.
As far as rare stuff... chances are it's o
What's this "ripping directly" (Score:3, Funny)
Wow.Your idea is phenomenal!
Great news for Jazz (Score:5, Interesting)
Just think of all the music produced in the 20's, 30's and 40's that was never remastered and released on CD. Big Band Swing, Jazz, Blue Grass, tons of music that still has a copyright on it (thank you disney), but the copyright owner doesn't want to keep current in their catalog (too expensive). Get this music out on Kazaa, and introduce yourself to a generation of music that is slowly being lost.
Re:Great news for Jazz (Score:4, Insightful)
I highly agree in saving very old recordings. Frankly, I think they're much better than the "digitally remastered" versions (Read: Guido shot first).
Re:Great news for Jazz (Score:3, Interesting)
ripvinyl (Score:3, Informative)
gramofile updates and automation (Score:3, Informative)
my own project, xmcd2make [freeengineer.org] abuses the make program to automate gramofile and the mundane and redundant file naming and encoding tasks using xmcd files from freedb.org [freedb.org].
There is a HOWTO [darecomputer.com] as well
blind test (Score:4, Interesting)
Basicly I was getting annoyed at some audiophile dj friends of mine. Ones who will quote stats and specifics yet not really give you a decent answer to the question, "does this sound good".
What I did was I was demonstrating turn table vs CD. I actually had a few things that were made most recently, like pearl jam for example. What I did was I played the CD, and when I told them I was playing the vinyl, I secretly replaced the sound they usually hear with literaly what I filtered out of an entirely diffrent album. I call the track crack pop fizzle and hum.
And sure enough... I was told that the second play, with the added snap pop crackle and 60 cycle hum was indeed had a warmer feel to it, and was the superior recording.
Needless to say after revieling to them that it was a wave file with just vinyl noise, otherwise it was the same thing.
While I appricate a good audio file who can put terms too annoying aspects of my sound setup that I can't place my finger on... I have little tolerance for idiots who are making a judgement based on feeling. I'll be the first to agree that a CD's clean sound may sound artifical to ears who were raised listening to vinyl. So the solution for this market is clear, create a turntable noise generator and those few vinyl psuddo-elitists will be happy.
This is not to say that there are not people out there who trully have an ear to pickup the diffrences between analog and something sampled 44.1kHz. But should you be bothered with such folk, do your own blind test and see what happens.
Re:Amazing new tech! (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't just hook line out to line in and expect a decent result. You need some decent software as well. this guy [lp2cd.com] makes a living doing decent conversions. If it was truly as easy as you say, he'd be out of business.
Re:Amazing new tech! (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you need to do lots of scratch and pop filtering, CDex is a great program for ripping both CD's and Vinyl. Under tools, use Record. It works great.
Re:Amazing new tech! (Score:2)
{side note, i've heard reference to 1v line level, and reference to the empeg using either 1v for stereo output, and 4v for quad output, but really don't have any clue}
There are except
Re:Amazing new tech! (Score:2)
Re:uhm... (Score:2)
Re:Any other solutions for linux? (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, AlsaPlayer [alsaplayer.org].
Re:Any other solutions for linux? (Score:2)
The Noatun player for KDE has a nifty plugin that gives you sliders for speed and pitch on playback. It's loads of fun.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
lightweight....
only a real audiophile has the holy grail of albums....
Leonard Nemoy's album... Nothing beat's hearing ol' spock ripping out "Proud Mary"...
Re:Is Vinyl better than CD? (Score:3, Informative)
That is very wrong...
Audio is often transferred to a digital medium before being put on vinyl nowdays, and even then, before being cut into a master, the sound must be processed to prevent weird things from happening when you play/press the record.