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