Ripping from Vinyl, Simplified

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.

Digital

[billy_troll]

if you want better quality when you are recording vinyl, a high end pro turntable such as Numark ttx1, (http://www.ttx1.com/) stanton str8-150 (http://www.stantonmagnetics.com/alpha44/tt_str8-1 50.asp) does onboard digital, so you can get digital straight out into your computer. better than your onboard soundcard. (although you need a digital in....)

iMic and Final Vinyl

[Davidge]

A similar, but non-linux solution is to use the extremely useful Griffon Technology iMic [griffintechnology.com] (USB audio) and their software, Final Vinyl [griffintechnology.com] on MacOS X (not everyone runs x86 hardware).

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:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, unless they are made from an analouge source, you know, like a good ole' analouge mastertape or, heck, even a direct to disc recording.

Re:Amazing new tech!

[Technician]

A good quality 70's or 80's vintage receiver will do the trick taking care of the low level and RIAA equalization. Most have a magnetic cartridge phono input and will provide line out to the record jacks for the tape deck. If you have the turntable, you also have the receiver don't you?
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:Why do this?

[zcat_NZ]

Gramofile is special because it's useful, small, free, and open source.

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.

Re:Why do this?

[cpoch]

Almost all music is mastered in the digital domain today. Even the music that you can still buy on vinyl. Professional audio editing is much easier using nonlinear editing tools, which are all digital. If you don't think the sound of the CD is up to par with other sources, maybe you need the newer formats of SACD or DVD-A. Personally, I can hear the difference between those formats and standard CD, but the difference is minimal. I'd rather have a 5.1 channel format than a higher sampling rate.

I did

[Konster]

I did this last November using a trial edition of Sound Forge and their lp restoral plug in.

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:Why do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your LPs are getting worn that rapidly, it could mean that:

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.

What I do...

[Tronster]

I DJ on both vinyl and CD, but prefer spinning CDs. The problem is that all the "good tracks" can still only be purchased on vinyl.

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.
--

Re:In Your Cupboard?

[tolan-b]

i have over 300 lps, all bought since 1995. have you not noticed 'dance music' (i think it's called electronica in the states, both are shit names). 99% of house, jungle, breakbeat, drum & bass, techno, trance, booty bass etc etc etc is released on vinyl first for djs.

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 available on vinyl.

There's still music that's vinyl only.

[phaxkolumbo]

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:The Need For a Long Patch Cord

[lateralus]

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.

Re:Why do this?

[admbws]

Mod parent up, parent is quite correct.

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 down your stylus unneccesarily - you should read your turntables' instructions on how to change the weight on the tone arm.

Re:Any other solutions for linux?

[admbws]

are there any linux MP3 players that let you adjust speed and pitch?

Yes, AlsaPlayer [alsaplayer.org].

Re:Digital

[Lumpy]

does onboard digital, so you can get digital straight out into your computer. better than your onboard soundcard.

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...)

Re:The Need For a Long Patch Cord

[James Youngman]

I know finding one of the old pre-amps from Radio Shack is probably out of the question - does anyone else remember the little black boxes with RCA in and RCA out jacks, a screw terminal for the ground wire that also comes out of turn-tables and a power cord?

I always use one with my amp, because it's better than the phono stage in my amp. They're called "phono stages" or "phono amplifiers" usually.

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).

Re:I did

[Two99Point80]

...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.

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.

Re:So what?

[admbws]

With all due respect, you are completely wrong.

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].

ripvinyl

[woogieoogieboogie]

I have used this Rip Vinyl [clara.net] with much success on audio tapes and it works pretty much the same with lp's. You can also use EZ-CD Creator's SoundStream to record from cassette or lp.

Been there - Done that

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1999, I wrote an article [banjo.com] on how to do this and improve the quality (dynamic range and pop elimination). Its an old article but many albums actually sound better from the CD/MP3 than they do from the turntable.

http://www.banjo.com/Articles/CD-Vinyl.html

Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots

[alkali]

Offtopic, but can a native english speaker tell me why exactly semiconductor devices are also called "solid state" devices?

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.

gramofile updates and automation

[C R Johnson]

There are updated versions of gramofile with new and improved filters available here [nebuchadnezzar.zion.cz].
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

Re:Audiophiles : pedantic idiots

[mysticgoat]

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:So what?

[alanh]

That HowStuffWorks article is wrong. It completely ignores the reconstruction filter in CD/DVD or D/A converter. Any well engineered D/A system will capture ALL of the information up to 1/2 the Nyquist frequency assuming you don't exceed the dynamic range. The reconstruction filter turns the stairstep output into a smooth analog representation and is a necessary step in any good D/A.

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?

[Snork Asaurus]

I think that one of the reasons that many consumers of popular music do not appreciate the inherent (potential) audio superiority of the CD medium versus the LP is that the industry has been negating the advantages of increased dynamic range by compressing everything to death and even allowing clipping to occur. I've posted these before, but they're a worthwhile read:

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 out, few would argue that they sounded better than LP's in terms of frequency response and dynamic range. The again, the North American record industry had been doing a lousy job mastering and manufacturing LP's ("cut the quality, we need profits!"), which gave rise to: 1) people who would pay for (costly, but superior) European pressings and (more costly, but even better) Japanese pressings of a given LP; 2)special high quality re-mastering outfits like Mobile Fidelity [mofi.com] and Sheffield Lab [sheffieldlab.com] that produced sonically superior remastered LP's on higher quality (i.e., less noisy) vinyl that sold for more money.

There almost seems to be a lather, rinse, repeat cycle going on with CD's.

Clippy

[leonbrooks]

I see you're overdriving your amplifier. Would you like me to

[ clip horribly ] [ clip mushily ] [ catch fire ] [ blow a filament ]

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 resistors across the power rails. (-:

Re:Why do this?

[StarFace]

Not to be pedantic, but even 24bpp has fewer colours than the eye can see. A practical example of this is setting up Photoshop in the Lab colourspace, and then drawing a gradient from black to a primary the width of the screen and noting the "banding" that appears. If you work with digital media all of the time, you can notice the limitations in more complex images as well.

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 care, since you cannot see what you are doing, but when you output to devices that can handle it, you get better results that do not look "digital."

Re:Is Vinyl better than CD?

[sharph]

"A vinyl record has a groove carved into it that mirrors the original sound's waveform. This means that no information is lost."

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.

Re:Is Vinyl better than CD?

[Toshito]

Actually, a lot of audiophile grade records are direct to disc. No digital step, no analog tape mixing... see: Direct to disc [auldworks.com]

Anyway, this article is a good way to show how the CD's resolution is quite limited, compared to the original analog waveform. And it shows that new digital format are much more closer to the original.

gramofile a real pain

[reptyle]

I have used gramofile successfully to record a number of albums of different varieties (Bach, blues, and the soundtrack to "Decline of Western Civilization," to name a few) and I can not recommend gramofile for everything; a swiss army knife for cd --> vinyl it is NOT. I think it's a good learning tool because it makes one with a geeky, tinker's mind examine the mechanics of filtering sound digitally. I far prefer to open two windows and use a horribly convoluted variation on SOX because it saves me the interim step of separating tracks -- alt-tab allows you to start one track and end another seamlessly.

I will concede this is a personal preference on my part, not a dogmatic technical point.

Cheap tiny headphone amp

[metamatic]

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 there. The answer is that I was hearing musical details I had never heard before. The amp drives the headphones effortlessly. The crossover circuit effect is subtle, but it does indeed seem to give an open, spacious feeling to the sound, particularly on techno tracks where there's a lot of left-right fooling around.

The Sennheisers, by the way, are much better than the Bose noise cancelling headphones in sound quality, with the added advantage that they fold up and are significantly cheaper. HeadRoom rate them the best active noise cancellation headphones available as far as sound quality goes, and I can believe it--they're comparable to my regular home-listening Sennheisers. I considered some Etymotics, but experimenting with silicone earplugs left me uncomfortably sore; my ear canals seem to be rather shallow and narrow. So the Sennheisers are recommended too--but they do need a headphone amp. The Walkman can barely drive them without one.