Topic: Remove DC Offset?

Should I remove DC offset after I record my vinyl albums? I have that option in Izotope RX 7 Standard.

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Can you also check how much DC a recording has?

Vincent, Amsterdam
https://soundcloud.com/thesecretworld
Babyface pro fs, HDSP9652+ADI-8AE, HDSP9632

3 (edited by ning 2022-03-08 16:59:54)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Adi-2 has minimum level of DC because it’s ac coupled. The supplied software DC filter is also good. So you don’t need to do dc offset removal.

4 (edited by KaiS 2022-03-08 18:46:36)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

metal4ever wrote:

Should I remove DC offset after I record my vinyl albums? I have that option in Izotope RX 7 Standard.

No, there should be non, or extremely little only.
Small amounts of DC are of no concern.

But - depending on the transfer conditions - pickup/tonearm-tuning, discplayer, RIAA amp, disc condition - there can be significant amounts of subsonic noise.

Usual practice is, to lower subsonics with a 20 or 30 Hz HighPassFilter.
This filter should have a soft slope like 6 or 12 dB / Oct., to avoid audible bass smear caused by phase shift and filter ringing.
DON’T use so called Linear Phase Filters!
These have very unnatural pre-ringing.


The filter, as a side effect, removes possible DC too.

Re: Remove DC Offset?

OK thanks, I have the option for High Pass Filter. Frequency set at 20HZ and Filter Q set at 1.0 What is Filter Q?

KaiS wrote:
metal4ever wrote:

Should I remove DC offset after I record my vinyl albums? I have that option in Izotope RX 7 Standard.

No, there should be non, or extremely little only.
Small amounts of DC are of no concern.

But - depending on the transfer conditions - pickup/tonearm-tuning, discplayer, RIAA amp, disc condition - there can be significant amounts of subsonic noise.

Usual practice is, to lower subsonics with a 20 or 30 Hz HighPassFilter.
This filter should have a soft slope like 6 or 12 dB / Oct., to avoid audible bass smear caused by phase shift and filter ringing.
DON’T use so called Linear Phase Filters!
These have very unnatural pre-ringing.


The filter, as a side effect, removes possible DC too.

Re: Remove DC Offset?

metal4ever wrote:

OK thanks, I have the option for High Pass Filter. Frequency set at 20HZ and Filter Q set at 1.0 What is Filter Q?

Metal,

Q (Quality Factor) refers to the Width, or Selectivity of a Filter.   Ex:  A "Low Q" filter is quite broad in the range of affected frequencies, whereas a High Q filter is quite narrow, and affects a much smaller range.   Your Izotope's option of Q 1.0 is probably just fine for defeating subsonic content in your Vinyl Rips.

To give yourself a visual representation of "Q",  create a generic filter in your RME's EQ.   While looking at the Bode Plot display, adjust 'Q".   See how Q works?

Have fun!

Curt

Vintage 2018 ADI-2 DAC. "Classic AKM4490 Edition"
Cables:  Red, and White Ones.
Speakers:  Yes

Re: Remove DC Offset?

metal4ever wrote:

I have the option for High Pass Filter. Frequency set at 20HZ and Filter Q set at 1.0 What is Filter Q?

Q (Quality Factor) for a High-/ or LowPassFilter (HPF, LPF) characterizes the shape of the transition between Pass- and Stop-Band, soft or hard.

As suggested, look at ADI-2’s EQ-curve and vary the Q of a HPF, not a Bell Curve, to understand what happens.

Usually low Q-values sound more natural, Q=0.7 is a good starting point.
1st order filters (6 dB / Octave) don’t have an adjustable Q-factor, only higher order filters have.

Only use a filter if there is something audibly annoying to remove.
Your ears are the judge.

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Cool, thanks! Last question: I assume if I need to use high pass filter option I need to do this first before using something like Declick or Normalize?

Curt962 wrote:
metal4ever wrote:

OK thanks, I have the option for High Pass Filter. Frequency set at 20HZ and Filter Q set at 1.0 What is Filter Q?

Metal,

Q (Quality Factor) refers to the Width, or Selectivity of a Filter.   Ex:  A "Low Q" filter is quite broad in the range of affected frequencies, whereas a High Q filter is quite narrow, and affects a much smaller range.   Your Izotope's option of Q 1.0 is probably just fine for defeating subsonic content in your Vinyl Rips.

To give yourself a visual representation of "Q",  create a generic filter in your RME's EQ.   While looking at the Bode Plot display, adjust 'Q".   See how Q works?

Have fun!

Curt

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Metal,

With De-Click?  I suspect it doesn't matter.   With Vol. Normalization...keep in mind that LF trash (even if you don't actually hear it) DOES influence overall signal levels, and thus could give your Normalization some mis-cues.  I might ensure my LF filter was in place before any normalization.

Try it both ways, and see for yourself!

Curt

Vintage 2018 ADI-2 DAC. "Classic AKM4490 Edition"
Cables:  Red, and White Ones.
Speakers:  Yes

10 (edited by KaiS 2022-03-09 07:22:53)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

First declick.
Then decide to filter or not.
Normalize comes last.

Normalize the whole album with the same gain value, to preserve the original level relationships between the tracks.

11 (edited by Curt962 2022-03-08 22:47:27)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Much Experience with Vinyl tells me...it depends on the "Click" wink

Not all "Clicks" are created equally!   Some are simple Clicks.  Others?   OHHH MY

Weapons Grade Military Ordnance detonations that we once accepted as "Clicks"

smile

Curt

Vintage 2018 ADI-2 DAC. "Classic AKM4490 Edition"
Cables:  Red, and White Ones.
Speakers:  Yes

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Got it, thanks for the quick responses

Re: Remove DC Offset?

I had another question about using High Pass Filter option in iZotope RX-7. The Base Frequency default setting is set to "Free" with options of 60 HZ or 50 HZ. Frequency [HZ] set at [1793] and Filter Q set at [1000]. Is this default setting ok if I need to use the High Pass Filter for recording vinyl?

14 (edited by KaiS 2022-04-01 17:27:58)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

metal4ever wrote:

I had another question about using High Pass Filter option in iZotope RX-7. The Base Frequency default setting is set to "Free" with options of 60 HZ or 50 HZ. Frequency [HZ] set at [1793] and Filter Q set at [1000]. Is this default setting ok if I need to use the High Pass Filter for recording vinyl?

In general, don’t use filters if you don’t have an according problem.
Every filter in the audio band reduces sound quality.


These mentioned figures, 1793 Hz and a Q of 1000, don‘t make any sense.
Please look again.

What might be meant is a Notch filter to remove mains induced hum, typically 60 Hz in USA and East-Japan, 50 Hz in Europe and almost all the rest of the world.
See this map:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/World_Map_of_Mains_Voltages_and_Frequencies%2C_Detailed.svg/2560px-World_Map_of_Mains_Voltages_and_Frequencies%2C_Detailed.svg.png

If you have mains hum it’s way better to remove the source for it, usually it’s a missing ground wire from the disk player to the RIAA amp.
A filter for this audibly reduces the sound quality.


Another filter that is to be taken into consideration:

The typical Vinyl rumble filter (High Pass Filter) is 30 Hz, 12 dB / Octave; or 30 Hz, Q: 0.7.
It‘s only needed if the disc is warped or your tonearm / pickup combination is wrong tuned, which unfortunately is quite often the case.

It‘s intended to reduce subsonics that origin from the typical vinyl’s mechanical imperfections.
You can see the visibly shaking woofers of your speakers at louder playback if those frequencies are present.

Very often RIAA amps have this filter built in, fixed or switchable.

15 (edited by Curt962 2022-04-01 17:48:28)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

I'm happy KaiS stopped in, as my first reaction to the Izotope's filter seemed absurd.

As already stated, a <30hz filter seems much more appropriate.   Where Tonearm-Cartridge Resonances are concerned, these would typically occur at a much lower freq (8-10hz)   This becomes problematic when the Compliance of the Cartridge, and Mass of the Arm are poorly matched.  Generally, a High Compliance Cartridge is better suited to a Low-Mass Arm, and vice versa.  You do NOT want such problems, but such issues may not be involved here, and are only mentioned as a means of completing the comments already stated.  Oh my!  The old "Test Records" intended to test such things could be so abusive!  You would not imagine the chaos! 

KaiS's 30hz filter seems Spot-On.   Do that!

Curt

Vintage 2018 ADI-2 DAC. "Classic AKM4490 Edition"
Cables:  Red, and White Ones.
Speakers:  Yes

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Thanks for responding, I want to figure out what the "Base Frequency" setting is. When I click on D-Hum it brings up filter options such as "Adaptive Mode" "Filter DC Offset" "Linear-Phase Filters" "High-Pass Filter" "Low-Pass Filter" and "Base Frequency"  The Base Frequency does not have a box to select or unselect, it just has selection of the hum-base frequency "Free" "50hz" and "60hz". The default setting was set at Free with Frequency hz 1793 and Filter Q  1000. I assume it is going to be used with the any of the selected options I choose.
I have the High Pass Filter set at Frequency [hz] 30 Filter Q 0.7

I haven't used any filters but just wanted to learn more about the filters incase I needed to use them. I think my set up for recording my albums is pretty good and my vinyl collection is in excellent condition.

17 (edited by KaiS 2022-04-02 17:37:48)

Re: Remove DC Offset?

Base - (not to misunderstand with “bass”- ) frequency is the mains power frequency that caused hum as described above.
Either during Vinyl to digital transfer -
Or the hum might even be present in the original music recording while it was done.

This frequency can be set:
• “Free” = Manually set,
• Selected from 50 or 60 Hz.
• ??? “Adaptive” = hum frequency to remove set automatically ???, derived from the audio signal ???
Adaptive might even mean it does filter the base frequency plus it’s harmonics, like for example 50 Hz, 100 Hz, 150 Hz, ...?
Consult the software‘s manual for an explanation, I cannot do this for you because it’s not publicly available.


Q-factor is the selectivity of a filter.
High Q means a narrow, selective band, more limiting the processing to a certain frequency.
Lower Q means a wider, courser bandwidth, that affects more audio signal outside the targeted one.
Q-factors above 10-20 tend to audibly resonate and should be avoided, 1000 is crazy.


Linear Phase Filter - as the name suggests, a filter topology that let’s the relative phase of the filtered signal portion untouched.
One could think this is a good thing, but this is not the case, as it comes at a price:
If used for low frequencies these filters are audibly pre-ringing, which is very unnatural in most cases.
You get a signal before it should happen, negatively affecting the timing of the music.
Sounds like if the musicians would play un-precise.


I can’t point it out enough: the best filter is no filter at all.
Every filtering has negative side effects.
It’s always a balance between what annoyance is there, and what the filter does compromise in the remaining audio.