There are a lot of old LPs in my collection and they have gone untouched for many a moon but it is time to rummage through them and select the best for transcription. One problem was finding a suitable turntable and I dug out of storage my AR turntable which has served me well since 1964 but it was in dire need of a tuneup.
This turntable is fairly easy to work on and I cleaned the bearings, oiled them, removed the non-functional tone arm damping mechanism, replaced the stylus in the Shure M91 cartridge, and set the stylus force to a modest 1 1/2 grams. The turntable and the records came to life and WOW what a nice sound! Even to this day the AR turntable is considered to be one of the best available and my results support this claim.
Transcribing the LPs to WAV files was done by the use of the NERO Waveform Editor V12 which can be downloaded for free. This is a comprehensive editor and I used it to record to WAV from the records. Post recording editing was done to get the queues just right and processing to declick, decrackle, and apply noise reduction further improved the sound. The recordings turned out great with no pops or noise and they have that nice "vinyl sound". The results are very pleasing, to me at least.
Check out the NERO editor if you have audio to process. The learning curve is a bit steep but they provide good help instructions.
Now, I must be off to enjoy some Beethoven.
Neil
Nice, useful post! I've used Adobe Cool Edit and tried Sound Forge (I think it's from Sony) on a friend's computer, and another called Coyote, supposedly just for recording LPs. I remember spending nights doing lots of LP transcribing, running pop and click filters over the files.
I've changed my mind about click and pop filtering though, after the files sounded clean, but duller, because it's a practice you seem to have to do just right. There are lots of vinyl recordings on line where someone used way too much noise reduction, and they sound weak and lifeless.
Lately what I've been doing is cleaning the record well, then recording it straight, chopping the songs apart, and just applying rumble filter, fade in and fade out, only manually removing the big pops. I also record it in 44,100/24 bit as well, so I can have headroom, remove any big pops and normalize peaks closer to the top. Then the file is converted as 44/16-bit and saved to wav or Flac, depending on the next use.
The method all depends on what you're plans are, I suppose.
Thanks for all that info, Neil! Ahead of me *someday* is to do the same: get my vinyl flipped over to wav. Your experience gives me some great ideas.
Yes, overdoing processing can be a problem. I haven't noticed any problem with the declick/decracle step and some of the records with a few clicks were cleaned manually with the waveform editor.
Though the turntable rumble was below the -35 dB level it was still audible using headphones so I applied the noise reduction to this. This is done by using a noise analyzer on the signal from the lead-in groove to set the filter parameters and I found that the correction has to be set by trial and error. Too much and there is an effect on the fast transitions from loud to soft passages and too little and the rumble is still there.
It is interesting that some ambient sounds can be heard on some of the recordings. In one case a truck passing can be heard, and in another the conductor can be heard singing along with the chorus. There is also a remarkable difference in quality between record brands with the best being Columbia Masterworks and the worst being RCA Red Label (at least in my collection).
I am be no means an audio purist but I like to get the best technical results without going crazy trying to do so.
Neil
I chose to convert and save to .WAV because I can hear a difference between this format and .MP3. Storage is cheap these days and it is worth keeping the .WAV format in my opinion.
Neil
For what it is worth, I use Roxio's easy vhs to dvd software that comes with sound editor and a USB video/audio dongle.
I do have Nero 9 which also comes with capture and record software, I just have not played with it for recording physical media.
90% of my music is on vinyl records, 9% on cassette tapes and 1% on CD disc which I totally dispise beyond words..AAAUUUGGGG!
I have two Lineartech BD1600 Phase II turntables that are the Techniques SL1200 clones, one very important item you need to prevent turntable rumble is a turntable mat, they are available where most vinyl record assessories are sold, including Ebay. I suggest you invest in one, they don't cost that much and some come with some cool images printed on them.
Bruce.
Quote: God I hate this keyboard! Has a mind of it's own sometimes. 😉 Thank God for the edit post within 30 minutes option.
Good suggestion. The mat I use is not the original since that one disintegrated and the one I use is supposed to be anti-static and damping for rumble but it is rather old and probably is no longer up to snuff.
Neil
Years ago I had the cassette version of the self titled album Led Zeppelin, one of the songs that i enjoyed was I Can't Quit You Baby. It's a blue cover from Otis Rush with a slow heavy beat and deep bass, the guitar riff's were remincant of most blues tunes at the time.
Anyway, that song and another titled Since Ive Been Loving You both were well engineered.
If i am not mistaken, in both songs you can hear the kick drum (bass drum) pedal squeak each time John Bonham hit the pedal. It stuck with me for years as being a well recorded and engineered album.
Fast foward to recent times and that tell tale squeak seems to be gone.
I don't know if it is the product of remastering or compression but i feel this takes away from my own personal listening pleasure, maybe my hearing is much worse now than it was back then.
Take a listen to either the album or cassette version of those songs and let me know what you think. We can easily get caught up in the ease of digital recording and forget that there are dynamics of old recordings that made those songs special to us.
I mentioned earlier that I had to remove the tone arm damping mechanism because the Delrin sleeve which is part of this is warped. The tone arm is free to move vertically with gravity.
It got away from me and crashed into the metal base plate. No biggie, I thought, since this has happened before but not without the damping. The next record I tried to play wouldn't track and sounded terrible. Inspection under a microscope revealed that the diamond was completely gone from the stylus arm. ARRRRGGGGHHHH.
Fortunately for me I was able to install my original cartridge, an Empire 880PE, to get running again. I hadn't used this in many years and had forgotten how good it sounds, maybe a little smoother than the Shure 91E. The 880 specs are actually better than the 91E specs.
The 880 has many play hours on it but a microscope inspection of the diamond revealed no problems. To prevent another disaster before I can repair the damping (need to turn a new cylinder from brass) I have placed a rubber pad on the base plate where the needle can make contact so there will be some shock absorbing if I goof up again.
A replacement stylus is available for the M91 but since I am about finished with the transcription I may not bother with this.
Neil