Topic: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Hi everybody,

I just purchased a high end turntable (Linn lp 12 + Ekos 2, Akiva, Lingo II, Linto...). I plan to record all my vinyls and i now need a new soundcard to replace my old soundblaster audigy platinum ex.

Several person convinced me that RME is one of the best brand for it's audio equipment, but now i have to make a difficult choice between all the models. The FF800 have the lowest harmonic distortion rate for its A/D converter.

The FF800 seems better than the FF400 because it has separate A/D and D/A converters. But an internal card could also fits my needs. The FF800 is for me quite expensive for the use i will have. I don't really need all these inputs and outputs, i just connect my turntable and sometimes a roland pc 300 (usb + midi) in usb... What i am now after, is a recording sounding exactly the same as the original.

Is there an alternative that will give me the same audio quality for recording, but for less money ? I plug the RCA out of my Linto pr?amp directly into the soundcard.

Thanks a lot

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Hello,

you could consider an RME ADI-2 AD/DA converter plus a card with SPDIF I/O, e.g. HDSP 9632.
The AD conversion is the same as in the FF800.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Your feelings about the vinyl sound are your own business.  But I'm sure you agree that whatever it IS about, it ISN'T about extended frequency range and accuracy.  You may find that the "better" soundcard merely reproduces surface noise better, and you in fact prefer the sound through a SoundBlaster!  I wonder if you can borrow a Fireface (and other options) before comitting to a purchace?

4 (edited by Despotic-Mind 2010-06-03 12:50:55)

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

RME Support wrote:

Hello,

you could consider an RME ADI-2 AD/DA converter plus a card with SPDIF I/O, e.g. HDSP 9632.
The AD conversion is the same as in the FF800.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Thanks for the advice !


Laurence Payne wrote:

Your feelings about the vinyl sound are your own business.  But I'm sure you agree that whatever it IS about, it ISN'T about extended frequency range and accuracy.  You may find that the "better" soundcard merely reproduces surface noise better, and you in fact prefer the sound through a SoundBlaster!  I wonder if you can borrow a Fireface (and other options) before comitting to a purchace?

Hi,

Missfortunely i don't have any opportunity to test such material. When reading your post, it seems that changing my soundcard just for improving my recordings is not really usefull. Your mark a point: i really enjoy my current sound. I am used to it. Maybe i am wrong thinking that my soundblaster's line in is not good enough ? I am not an expert at all in this matter, but i believe that this card was not dedicated to a pro use (i wich way, i don't know... maybe things like noises, distortion... quality of the amp. I recently read a test that you can see here http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/terratecd … index.html and even in 2002, several other sound cards were better), and that it could lack the benefits of a very precise turntable like the linn.

I record vinyls since a long time and i am never really satisfied. First of all: the sound volume. As explained earlier, i directly plug the rca jack from the phono preamp in the line in of the card. i push the line in volume until 1/4 (if i put more i hear it's clipping), then i record with accoustica mixcraft or soundforge. I apply a peak normalization but the recording remains low if i listen it next to the average mp3 or .wav tracks from cd or itunes. All i can do is to add a compressor like the L2 VST, but i am not sure it's a good thing to do. Maybe things would be different with the RME amps and a good software to visualize the listening and recording levels in action.

The soundblaster also only can record at 48khz. I heard that recording in higher frequencies (like 96) helps when adding effects and downsampling to burn on cd...

Feel free to tell me if this is, for you, an useless (or not very usefull) investment, and that i should prefer using this money to improve my rca cables for instance.

5 (edited by Eki77 2010-06-03 15:17:53)

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Despotic-Mind wrote:

Missfortunely i don't have any opportunity to test such material. When reading your post, it seems that changing my soundcard just for improving my recordings is not really usefull. Your mark a point: i really enjoy my current sound. I am used to it. Maybe i am wrong thinking that my soundblaster's line in is not good enough ? I am not an expert at all in this matter, but i believe that this card was not dedicated to a pro use (i wich way, i don't know... maybe things like noises, distortion... quality of the amp. I recently read a test that you can see here http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/terratecd … index.html and even in 2002, several other sound cards were better), and that it could lack the benefits of a very precise turntable like the linn.

I record vinyls since a long time and i am never really satisfied. First of all: the sound volume. As explained earlier, i directly plug the rca jack from the phono preamp in the line in of the card. i push the line in volume until 1/4 (if i put more i hear it's clipping), then i record with accoustica mixcraft or soundforge. I apply a peak normalization but the recording remains low if i listen it next to the average mp3 or .wav tracks from cd or itunes. All i can do is to add a compressor like the L2 VST, but i am not sure it's a good thing to do. Maybe things would be different with the RME amps and a good software to visualize the listening and recording levels in action.

The soundblaster also only can record at 48khz. I heard that recording in higher frequencies (like 96) helps when adding effects and downsampling to burn on cd...

Feel free to tell me if this is, for you, an useless (or not very usefull) investment, and that i should prefer using this money to improve my rca cables for instance.

Hi!

The sound volume issue cought my eye. I believe it's an issue that you cannot "fix" with a better interface, it's probably due to modern recordings being way more compressed than the old ones. If you ask me, those CD recordings are the ones that would need fixing (you could google "loudness war" to get an idea of the reasons). If you apply compression to the vinyl recordings to get them to the same level you lose the whole point of vinyl recordings, and you would save a lot of time if you just bought them remastered on CD and trasferred them to your computer. I would suggest just to turn up the listening volume when you listen to vinyl recordings.

Actually, what you could also try first is to view your trasfers in your DAW software. If the discs are very worn, you might have clicks and cracles (from scratches) that are way louder than the music. If you don't do anything to those, your normalisation will end up being much more quiet than with "clean" music. Also check that you have removed the needle dropping sound from the beginning (before normalising), this is also much louder than music. I have only experience on Sound Forge and it's own "click and cracle removal" plugin, it works well enough if you are very conservative. There are also commercial, expensive and way better working plugins out there.

I also think that you should first check the quality of your turntable, your money is well spent there. If it's good enough then you could consider some RME products (never a bad choice...) but I think that for your turntable to be able to fully use the quality of ADI-2 it would have to be a real high-end device with an astronomical price tag smile. Edit: I didn't notice that the first mail actually described your turntable.. which seems to be quite a good one. In that case I think you could consider some RME device, I think any RME interface is in differrent league than your sound blaster.

ps. Now that I think of it, if you have all your music on your computer in mp3 format, you could check out LAME encoder, it has some kind of mp3 metadata value for relative loudness of the track. That could be used to match the playback volume of your CD and LP tracks if your media player supports that system. It doesn't affect the audio data, it just tells the player how loud this track is. I've never used it but I saw it in the documentation, you could check that out. I might also remember (or have understood) wrongly.

6 (edited by Dr Tone 2010-06-03 15:29:02)

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Laurence Payne wrote:

Your feelings about the vinyl sound are your own business.  But I'm sure you agree that whatever it IS about, it ISN'T about extended frequency range and accuracy.  You may find that the "better" soundcard merely reproduces surface noise better, and you in fact prefer the sound through a SoundBlaster!  I wonder if you can borrow a Fireface (and other options) before comitting to a purchace?

When you listen to the vinyl on your system, that surface noise  is there.  Why would anyone want a subpar recording just to try to mask the noise?  That's crazy talk!

My advice to OP is: Get a good transparent unit with a great SNR, record at 24/96 and try some of the great vinyl cleaning tools from: http://www.clickrepair.net/ If used in moderation, they do an exceptional job.

I do allot of needle drops with stuff not released on CD.  On occasion when a song is also on a greatest hits CD, everyone I did a side by side comparison with always like the vinyl rip better.

My workflow:
1) Capture @ 24/96 with my Fireface UC
2) Run the file through DenoiseLF which removes the inaudible low frequencies and rumble
3) Run the file through clickrepair on manual mode  (painfully long process but it's the only way to guarantee no musical data is accidentally removed)
4) Run the file through Denoise with a sample of noise between tracks (this mode only removes the noise between the tracks)
5) Run the file through Denoise again to remove white noise
6) Setup the album, by normalizing it for maximum volume and then removing signal between songs and doing fade ins or outs and export to single tracks.
7) Convert to 24/48 with r8Brain Pro.

2), 4), 5) have to be done in moderation, or you can remove stuff you don't want to remove.  Only if the vinyl is real dirty do you have to get more agressive, but then knowing the trade off for perfectly clean play back might be some very very minor removal of musical data.

I also do very very minimal limiting with Ozone, it's a personal thing.  Usually no more than -3db threshold, Intelligent II algorithm.


.02

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

You are using some sort of RIAA Phono EQ/Gain Stage between your Phonograph and the Audio Card's LINE INPUT - correct?

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8

8 (edited by Despotic-Mind 2010-06-21 23:34:22)

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Randyman... wrote:

You are using some sort of RIAA Phono EQ/Gain Stage between your Phonograph and the Audio Card's LINE INPUT - correct?

cool

Yes, i just use the Linn Linto, wich is a moving coil RIIA preamp, and my soundcard. This is why i'd like the amps of my soundcard to be good.



Eki77 wrote:

Actually, what you could also try first is to view your trasfers in your DAW software. If the discs are very worn, you might have clicks and cracles (from scratches) that are way louder than the music. If you don't do anything to those, your normalisation will end up being much more quiet than with "clean" music. Also check that you have removed the needle dropping sound from the beginning (before normalising), this is also much louder than music. I have only experience on Sound Forge and it's own "click and cracle removal" plugin, it works well enough if you are very conservative. There are also commercial, expensive and way better working plugins out there.


ps. Now that I think of it, if you have all your music on your computer in mp3 format, you could check out LAME encoder, it has some kind of mp3 metadata value for relative loudness of the track. That could be used to match the playback volume of your CD and LP tracks if your media player supports that system. It doesn't affect the audio data, it just tells the player how loud this track is. I've never used it but I saw it in the documentation, you could check that out. I might also remember (or have understood) wrongly.

Dr Tone wrote:

My advice to OP is: Get a good transparent unit with a great SNR, record at 24/96 and try some of the great vinyl cleaning tools from: http://www.clickrepair.net/ If used in moderation, they do an exceptional job.

I do allot of needle drops with stuff not released on CD.  On occasion when a song is also on a greatest hits CD, everyone I did a side by side comparison with always like the vinyl rip better.

My workflow:
1) Capture @ 24/96 with my Fireface UC
2) Run the file through DenoiseLF which removes the inaudible low frequencies and rumble
3) Run the file through clickrepair on manual mode  (painfully long process but it's the only way to guarantee no musical data is accidentally removed)
4) Run the file through Denoise with a sample of noise between tracks (this mode only removes the noise between the tracks)
5) Run the file through Denoise again to remove white noise
6) Setup the album, by normalizing it for maximum volume and then removing signal between songs and doing fade ins or outs and export to single tracks.
7) Convert to 24/48 with r8Brain Pro.

2), 4), 5) have to be done in moderation, or you can remove stuff you don't want to remove.  Only if the vinyl is real dirty do you have to get more agressive, but then knowing the trade off for perfectly clean play back might be some very very minor removal of musical data.

I also do very very minimal limiting with Ozone, it's a personal thing.  Usually no more than -3db threshold, Intelligent II algorithm.


.02

Hi,

First of all, thanks for these precious informations and tips.

The "loudness war" was really interesting to study, this maybe explain why some vinyl rips sounded "flater'" that what i expected. Techno and house music i rip from 12'' are essentially pumpin' musics. I keep this question for the mastering part, with the use of a multiband compressor or a loudness maximizer vst (the harder is to find the good presets).   

Concerning the Lame encoder, i didn't find the "metadata value for relative loudness". But my Lame is an older version i use with dbpoweramp converter. Anyway, i keep all my files in 24 bits 48khz Wav. My volume problem remains even with the records (essentially mid to end '90s club 12''), even with denoizing + removing needle dropping sound before peak normalization, so it's not really important.

These last days i tested (again) various denoizing tools. I used Magix audiocleaning Lab (2005), but it didn't preserve the sound, even with a carefull use. With Cubase i used the Steinberg X-click, X-Crack, X-Hum, X-Denoize. Once again, the declicker is very destructive especially with low frequencies (kicks lost their brightness...).  But i have to highly recommand the "vinyl restoration" plugin' on soundforge 10 ! It runs better than the others, but there is almost a "repair" section in soundforge that can "replace" or "interpolate" a section of a sound wave. I now only use this "interpolation" tool to remove, manually and one by one, all the clicks and scratches. This is really perfect ! I maybe go try to do a test between 'clickrepair' and the 'soundforge 10 declicker'.

@Dr Tone:

Following your steps to record 12'', i have now my tracks unclicked, at leat all the clicks i could identify, but it remains some humming/little clicks/surface noise. I only hear these at very high volume. I took the Denoize & DenoizeLF.  Do you have a tutorial of maybe the accurate presets to remove "just what should be removed" ? I see many options : noise floor -50db, limit rediction to 12db, automatic , white , vinyl... And with denoizeLF, do i have to Run the file several time ? Default rumble, default hum, default vinyl noise... ?

For those interested, here is a recording in wav., denoized manually.with peak normalization. No problems about sharing it, it's a white label from a friend released in 1997.
'
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KQ6C6I6N

Feel free to tell me you feelings about the sound, if i have to add loudness, compression or denoizing...



Thanks a lot.

9 (edited by Dr Tone 2010-06-10 15:34:43)

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Little clicks are pretty hard to removed automatically.  I usually listen to my files afterwards with good noise cancelling buds and locate anything annoying and run them through clickrepair again.

Yes I run it through multiple times.

Rumble and surface noise between tracks or on quieter passages can be reduced using the sample noise function and then play with the noise floor and reduce the "limit reduction" to 8db or so.  If you get too agressive it can sound too weird.

Hiss should be removed using the white noise setting, again you have to play with the noise floor and limit db.  All you can do is listen to the source, the result and the actual noise being removed and see what sounds the best for you.

It's pretty hard for the white noise removal not to remove a little musical content, so you have the weigh the upside and downside.

10

Re: Wich RME interface to record vinyls? Is the FF 800 really better?

Check out Pure Vinyl and the $6899.00 Seta Professional Plus RIAA Preamp :-)