#217309 - 29/05/2004 09:42
Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
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stranger
Registered: 16/05/2004
Posts: 41
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What is the best way to make MP3s for playback on my RioCar from my album(vinyl) collection?
I'd like to use my turntable connected to my PC in order to remove the clicks, hiss, etc noise on the albums. I'd also like this program to do this automatically if possible.
Essentially, I am looking for the program which is the best and the easiest to use for this purpose. 
Thanks for your help and suggestions!
Take Care,
merc
PS - I searched in the FAQ but didn't find anything specific to recording LPs?
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Take Care,
merc
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#217310 - 29/05/2004 10:04
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: merc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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Greetings!
While not in the FAQ, this question has come up a few times. Check out this thread for some best practices.
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#217311 - 29/05/2004 11:09
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: pgrzelak]
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stranger
Registered: 16/05/2004
Posts: 41
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Thanks Paul.
I searched for turntable and MP3 but didn't see this thread.
Looks like AudioTools will do the trick.
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Take Care,
merc
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#217312 - 29/05/2004 11:41
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: merc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/05/2001
Posts: 2616
Loc: Bruges, Belgium
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I've always used CoolEdit for that purpose. Very cool program, and very easy to use. It isn't free though.
Note : I've only just found out now that Syntrillium (the company that made CoolEdit) has been bought by Adobe. It seems that the CoolEdit software bundle still exists, but that it's now called Adobe Audition 1.5.
http://www.adobe.com/special/products/audition/syntrillium.html
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Riocar 80gig S/N : 010101580 red
Riocar 80gig (010102106) - backup
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#217313 - 29/05/2004 13:12
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: BartDG]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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And, on that same thought, Sound Forge has been purchased by (shudder) Sony...
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Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs
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#217314 - 31/05/2004 23:36
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: merc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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What is the best way to make MP3s for playback on my RioCar from my album(vinyl) collection? Purchase them on CD.
I'm serious.
Remember that CDs have greater potential dynamic range and frequency response than LPs. Back when LPs were made, they knew the limitations of the playback equipment, and the LPs were mastered with those limitations in mind. So LPs are EQ'd and compressed a lot worse than a CD would be. An album that's been remastered specifically for CD will usually sound significantly better.
Also keep in mind that when a record company remasters an old recording for a CD, they are using the original master tapes going straight into a digital system at a multimillion dollar mastering facility. So there is much more direct sound reproduction without the pops, wow/flutter, overdrive distortion, level problems, etc., that you're going to run into when trying to grab an LP with your cheap $20.00 sound card. Not only that, but the mastering engineer doing the job is a professional who knows what he's doing and has many years of experience at it. You, on the other hand, had to ask on a BBS how to plug a record player into a computer. 
Weren't you the guy worried about the quality level of your MP3s? Surely you know the concept of garbage-in-garbage-out. You try to run your beloved LPs through a cheap PC sound card and you're not going to be happy with the results.
Note: Above discussion is moot when referring to an LP that isn't available in CD form. In this case, you can attempt soundcard sampling, but it's going to take a learning curve on your part before you can start to get something that sounds like what you want it to sound like.
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#217315 - 01/06/2004 07:46
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: tfabris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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Hmmm! Can't fault your reasoning, but I took a rather different approach:
Make quick, straight run, rough copies, using no filters and gizmos, but tag them properly, so that you have them in your MP3, or whatever, collection. This gives you the chance to see which ones you really want:
a. Why the hell did I ever like this?
b. That's really great, I haven't heard it in years.
Then, over a period of months, without getting bored by rushing in to wall to wall vinyl cleaning, you can decide which CD's to seek out and buy, and which to spend time editing. Then keep the rest just for reference purposes.
Saves a lot of time working on stuff you'll probably never listen to. In a lot of cases, I've just picked the odd track from an old album and really polished it up and left the rest alone.
........and you're never going to be satisfied with anything that you've been keeping on cassette, even if you used the best chrome tapes on a fantastic Nakiamachi CD deck!
Oh, and I have a back catalogue rule, never spend more than £5.00 a CD, if it's not in this clearout, leave it on your list and come back for the next one: If it's twenty years since you heard it on vinyl, six months to a year isn't going to hurt!!!!
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#217316 - 01/06/2004 07:51
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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> your cheap $20.00 sound card.
Keeping things in perspective.. that "cheap" sound card is likely to be at least as good as the original recording equipment was for LPs of the 60s or 70s..
Cheers
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#217317 - 01/06/2004 09:55
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: mlord]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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The quality issues aside, the LP to soundcard route also means that you'll be splitting .wav files into tracks by hand (not much fun) and typing in all your tag information instead of merely error-checking the data downloaded from CDDB et. al. by your ripping/encoding software. If you have a lot of time and enjoy doing this sort of thing, great, but it is time consuming.
-Zeke
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WWFSMD?
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#217318 - 01/06/2004 10:51
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Keeping things in perspective.. that "cheap" sound card is likely to be at least as good as the original recording equipment was for LPs of the 60s or 70s.. I respectfully disagree. Sure a PC sound card is more technologically advanced than the mixing equipment they used at the time, but its analog stages are not necessarily higher quality.
Recording engineers from 30 or 40 years ago were not cavemen. They knew what THD means, they knew what a noise floor was, they knew how to make good clean recordings with what they had. And so did the people making the equipment. They knew how to build the equipment to provide the best recordings with the least amount of noise possible. Most PC sound cards don't have those kinds of specs. Ask anyone in the business of home recording. You shouldn't do home recording with a soundblaster (although I've done it in a pinch, I'm embarrassed to admit).
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#217319 - 01/06/2004 11:26
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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I agree, some of the best sounding kit I've heard is at least 20 years old if not more. I have a Studer A807 Mk II tape machine at home which is still my reference recorder.
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#217320 - 02/06/2004 01:54
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: Ezekiel]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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you'll be splitting .wav files into tracks by hand
Audiotools splits your analog recording into tracks, it's not perfect, but very near, if you do a little adjusting first to match the background noise level on your set up.
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#217321 - 02/06/2004 01:55
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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I agree, some of the best sounding kit I've heard is at least 20 years old if not more
Oh no, you've started me off on the, must have a Revox line of thinking again!
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Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#217322 - 02/06/2004 09:08
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: Ezekiel]
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old hand
Registered: 20/03/2002
Posts: 729
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
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Assuming the LP recording isn't much different time-wise from the CD version, you could also use a .cue file for the album to cut up the tracks with a reasonable mp3 splitter.
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- trs
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#217323 - 02/06/2004 11:21
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: trs24]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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Where do you get the .cue files? I've only split up a few files - and these were ~30 minute .mp3's. I used the tools available in Nero (as that's what I've got) to modify the files into songs & commentary (it was an old radio show of swing tunes for my grandmother) and broke out the tracks that way before burning to Audio CD. It wasn't much fun, but Grandma deserves good CD's!
So, say I have a lot of these old radio show .mp3's (I do, perhaps 20), what tools automate this process, and do some of them work w/o decoding to WAV and then back to mp3?
-Zeke
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WWFSMD?
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#217324 - 02/06/2004 13:01
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: Ezekiel]
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old hand
Registered: 20/03/2002
Posts: 729
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
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FreeDB Easy Navigator is great for creating cue files. You can use it to find the album you're interested in and then save the track info out to a cue sheet. Or you can make the cue files yourself. The format is very simple. Once you create one with Easy Navigator, you can see what the format is.
As far as splitters go, there are a ton out there. A google search for wav splitter gave me CD Wave which looks like it's perfect for the job. I've only ever split mp3s, though. I've used MP3 Splitter & Joiner in the past with success.
Edit: Ah, I didn't read your post very carefully. You weren't interested in splitting WAVs, so MP3 Splitter & Joiner is exactly what you'll want. CD Wave looks pretty cool, too, though.
Edited by trs24 (02/06/2004 13:05)
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- trs
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#217325 - 04/06/2004 06:32
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: merc]
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new poster
Registered: 12/04/2002
Posts: 7
Loc: Woking, UK
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Audiograbber ( http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/) has the ability to record from the soundcard to mp3, detects track start/end etc. I've used it to encode a CD that had a particulally nasty copy protection I couldn't rip directly
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Rio Mk2a 40Gb
Karma
iPod
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#217326 - 15/05/2007 10:48
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: paulw]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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Hi Everyone. I've just discovered the Empeg devices and this wonderful forum and have already received help from members here.
I too am here because I want to transcribe my vinyl collection for listening in the car.
But I can't read some of the comments above without saying something.
There seems to be an assumption that anything old is inferior - 60s tape machines and vinyl. Well I listen to vinyl at home out of preference to CD or MP3. Whatever technical arguments you throw at me, it just sounds better to my ears - more detailed, more 'realistic' and natural. Yes, there is hiss, pops, clicks etc and I understand anyone weaned in a digital era might find this alarming but I grew up with LPs and my brain filters these out. I also know that *some* recordings were manipulated to fit the technical limitations of LP but the underlying quality to me sounds better. This opinion has been formed from over 20 years listening to (home) hi-fi systems, some of them (often unjustifiably) costing huge amounts of money, but also some of the best kit out there.
I don't want to get into a technical debate - I am quite open to the possibility that vinyl's 'superiority' is some kind of 'nice' distortion. In fact, when I record vinyl to digital, the recording often sounds better to me than an original CD of the same music. My own opinion is that both systems have flaws but vinyl’s are easier on the ear.
If this makes you recoil with laughter, can I suggest trying some of my WAV files rather than starting a technical debate.
I hope this won't make all you nice people shy away from helping me!
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#217327 - 15/05/2007 12:32
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Out of curiosity, do you find this to be true with all music, or just a certain set, or do you only listen to one kind of music, or what?
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Bitt Faulk
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#217328 - 15/05/2007 13:27
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: wfaulk]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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In general, it applies accross the board but there are variations from title to title. I don't listen to a lot of classical and many people who do say the noise on vinyl is a showstopper which I can understand. Also, a lot of music especially pop sounds bad on any medium to me. Interestingly, some of the worst sounding vinyl comes from the early 80s when CD was becoming popular.
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#217329 - 15/05/2007 13:28
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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I agree with tfabris when he says garbage in, garbage out just not what is garbage!
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#217330 - 15/05/2007 16:20
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
I agree with tfabris when he says garbage in, garbage out just not what is garbage!
I understand what you mean about how good an LP sounds when it's well mastered and played back on a good system. Recordings engineered for an LP are going to sound better when played back from an LP. I don't think that part of it is garbage at all.
I know that we disagree on whether CDs are garbage or not. That's fine, we can just agree to disagree on that point. But that's not exactly why I suggested buying the CDs in my old post above.
Instead, I think what I meant in my old post above was:
Trying to make a homemade digital "capture" of an analog LP isn't going to sound better than a professionally mastered CD. Your home capturing equipment just won't be up to that task.
Anything you sample off of an LP might sound a bit more "LP-like" than a CD would, but it's not going to sound better in ways you're going to like.
Instead, what the home capturing equipment is going to do is take that LP sound and do all of the things to it that you dislike about digital CD recordings in the first place. But it won't have the benefit of having done it with the original multitrack mix tapes, and it won't have the benefit of the expensive high quality equipment to have done it with. Instead, it's going to be your consumer record player going through god-knows-what analog stages into a cheap consumer-grade DAC, and the levels will be all wrong, etc., etc., so what you get is simply a muffled digital sample of the LP.
Sure you can do it, and there are software and hardware packages out there that let you do it, including some new packages where it's all self-contained and you just plug your ipod into a plug on the turntable and it's all automatic. But I really don't think that's going to make your audiophile ear happy. The things that make you prefer LPs in the first place will all be ruined by the low-grade equipment involved. And the things you specifically dislike about CDs will be magnified.
In fact, even if high quality studio equipment is used to take an LP master and convert it to digital, it still doesn't sound right. This is the way that they made the very first CDs to hit the market. They just took the (what used to be great-sounding) LP masters and sampled them. Sure they used high quality equipment to do the job, but audiophiles still complained. The recordings sounded harsh and/or muffled. Only after they started mastering specifically for CD did they start to sound good.
In other words, if you want the LP sound, I think you're going to have to be content with sitting in your living room with the real LP.
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#217331 - 16/05/2007 06:03
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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Quote:
Instead, what the home capturing equipment is going to do is take that LP sound and do all of the things to it that you dislike about digital CD recordings in the first place.
I think there are two things going on here:
1. When you digitise the signal, there is some degradation as you say - but I find this is relatively benign - i.e. there is something missing but it's not hurting my ears.
2. With commercial CDs, however, many have a harsh zingy quality which is very obvious in the car and makes me want to switch off after a few minutes. Home burned CDs from either vinyl transfers or downloaded MP3s don't seem to have this problem. When commercial CDs were the only digital source available, I blamed 16/44 digitisation but the above experience doesn't bear this out. Now I suspect it's something to do with the way CDs are manufactured (don't ask me what). It does seem that throwing lots of money at the CD player can help as I've heard some very expensive units which don't show the problem but since only about 5% of my music is on CD I'm not prepared to spend the money buying one. Some people explain this by jitter (small variations in the timing of the digital stream caused by the physical mechanism of the transport causing the DAC to output the wrong result) but if this is so, why do home produced and some commercial disks sound OK ? Maybe it's just me.
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#217332 - 16/05/2007 11:14
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
When commercial CDs were the only digital source available, I blamed 16/44 digitisation but the above experience doesn't bear this out. Now I suspect it's something to do with the way CDs are manufactured (don't ask me what). It does seem that throwing lots of money at the CD player can help as I've heard some very expensive units which don't show the problem but since only about 5% of my music is on CD I'm not prepared to spend the money buying one. Some people explain this by jitter (small variations in the timing of the digital stream caused by the physical mechanism of the transport causing the DAC to output the wrong result) but if this is so, why do home produced and some commercial disks sound OK ? Maybe it's just me.
You've been reading too many suc^H^H^Haudiophile zines. Digital encoding is generally immune to any such imaginations. Sure a crappy mechanism could, in theory, screw it up, but I really doubt there are any decks that crappy in existence, since it's pretty easy to get it right with a digital signal.
-ml
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#217333 - 16/05/2007 11:32
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: mlord]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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Quote:
You've been reading too many suc^H^H^Haudiophile zines.
Definitely regards jitter but the sound of commercial CDs is my own experience. Honestly, I would rather go back to tape.
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#217334 - 16/05/2007 12:15
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
I would rather go back to tape.
You must have very unique hearing if you prefer the sound of tape to CDs.
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#217335 - 16/05/2007 12:33
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: mlord]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
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Has anyone seen that show "How It's Made?" They had a segment about how LPs are made, from the lacquer blanks, to the record lathe and on to the actual pressing. It was very interesting to watch. It seems that at least at that facility, that the lacquer master was being produced from a digital source.
Stu
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If you want it to break, buy Sony!
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#217336 - 16/05/2007 12:48
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: maczrool]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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This is an interesting article on CD reproduction of high-frequency noise, especially the graph. I hadn't realized that the approximation was that far off.
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Bitt Faulk
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#217337 - 16/05/2007 13:23
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/01/2002
Posts: 1649
Loc: Louisiana, USA
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Quote:
This is an interesting article on CD reproduction of high-frequency noise, especially the graph. I hadn't realized that the approximation was that far off.
They exagerate the problem with digital audio and leave out problems of LPs. For one, speakers do not reproduce square waves, so even if the analog signal they received contained square waves, you would not hear them as square waves. Also the digital to analog circuitry can output sine waves. For example, it is possible to reproduce a perfect 1 kHz sine wave even though the digital data has gaps. From what I gather from records, the needle can only move so far and so fast and given that they try to fit a certain minimum playtime on to the record, compromises are made in how much bandwidth is actually present as well as separation and other qualities.
Stu
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If you want it to break, buy Sony!
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#217338 - 16/05/2007 13:56
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
This is an interesting article on CD reproduction of high-frequency noise, especially the graph. I hadn't realized that the approximation was that far off.
The CD reproduction depicted in that graph is indistinguishable from the original. The tone is 10KHz, and the CD reproduction clearly has a very strong 10KHz component. The difference between the CD reproduction and the original tone consists entirely of frequencies too high to hear. The people who chose the sampling frequency of CD audio were not idiots, they were audio engineers. The subsequent people who chose a higher frequency for DVD audio were also not idiots, but they were marketers. 192KHz audio is snake oil. AFAIK no human listener has ever distinguished 44.1KHz audio from 192KHz audio in a double-blind test.
Peter
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#217339 - 16/05/2007 15:09
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: maczrool]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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To be clear, I'm not defending vinyl, just pointing out the inaccurate approximation of high-frequency waves encoded at 44.1kHz PCM. Quote:
For example, it is possible to reproduce a perfect 1 kHz sine wave even though the digital data has gaps.
That's all well and good, but 1kHz is somewhere in the neighborhood of two octaves above middle C. I'm not in any way arguing about CD's ability to reproduce sound in this range, but there is a lot of data in the very high frequencies that are byproducts and overtones of instruments that some people can hear, and which are improperly reproduced by the CD format. This is the brittleness of digital audio that some people claim to be able to hear.
All that said, the people that can hear those things are probably far, far, less common than the people that claim they can hear them. It also doesn't speak to the terrible noise floor with vinyl. I would be very interested to hear the playback of complete silence recorded onto vinyl and see what the dB level is.
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Bitt Faulk
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#217340 - 16/05/2007 15:56
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote:
You've been reading too many suc^H^H^Haudiophile zines. Digital encoding is generally immune to any such imaginations. Sure a crappy mechanism could, in theory, screw it up, but I really doubt there are any decks that crappy in existence, since it's pretty easy to get it right with a digital signal.
Sssh. I was just about to try and sell him a volume knob that would have solved the problem...
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#217341 - 16/05/2007 19:05
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Quote:
Quote:
I would rather go back to tape.
You must have very unique hearing if you prefer the sound of tape to CDs.
It depends, if he's talking about 1/4inch reel to reel on a good recorder at 15 or 30 IPS then it is a 'very' close call compared to CD or DAT. I only wish I could retrieve my Studer from under the stairs!
However if it's compact cassette then I agree with you!
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#217342 - 16/05/2007 20:51
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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With commercial CDs, however, many have a harsh zingy quality which is very obvious in the car and makes me want to switch off after a few minutes. Home burned CDs from either vinyl transfers or downloaded MP3s don't seem to have this problem.
That sounds like something that could easily be solved with a little EQ. Painstakingly re-ripping a bunch of vinyl records sounds like going the long way around to me. But suit yourself. If you've already found some vinyl rips and you like their sound, then by all means carry on! 
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#217343 - 17/05/2007 06:19
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: tfabris]
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new poster
Registered: 12/05/2007
Posts: 10
Loc: Essex, UK
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It seems that at least at that facility, that the lacquer master was being produced from a digital source.
This is true of most modern LPs. The thing is that some sounds require a wider groove than others and if you recorded the whole record allowing for the maximum dynamic range, you would get a short playing side. In the old days, you would either get someone very skilled adjusting groove width manually or if they were being lazy, they would just compress the whole thing. These days, they record the master through a digital delay which analyses the sigal and determines the reqired groove width and controls the cutting lathe accordingly. I belive these system operate at higher thean 16/44 though - probably 24/96.
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I would rather go back to tape.
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You must have very unique hearing if you prefer the sound of tape to CDs.
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It depends, if he's talking about 1/4inch reel to reel on a good recorder at 15 or 30 IPS then it is a 'very' close call compared to CD or DAT. I only wish I could retrieve my Studer from under the stairs!
However if it's compact cassette then I agree with you!
Well, I was talking about compact cassette but I was being a bit flippant to make the point. I agree that in most quantifiable ways, CD is superior to cassette but for all it's flaws, it is listenable. Sometimes, I find CDs unlistenable.
I would love a 1/4 tape in the car, but I can't find a DIN E model...(I am being flippant again in case anyone is wondering)
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But suit yourself. If you've already found some vinyl rips and you like their sound, then by all means carry on!
Sorry, I wasn't very clear about that. All the vinyl rips I have are self made and uncompressed.The MP3s I have tried and liked are not vinyl rips but downloaded from legit music sites but don't exhibit the zingy quality I am trying to avoid, so my problem is not with digital audio per se but some commercial CDs.
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#217344 - 17/05/2007 11:40
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: peter]
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old hand
Registered: 01/10/2002
Posts: 1039
Loc: Fullerton, Calif.
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The CD reproduction depicted in that graph is indistinguishable from the original. The tone is 10KHz, and the CD reproduction clearly has a very strong 10KHz component. The difference between the CD reproduction and the original tone consists entirely of frequencies too high to hear. The people who chose the sampling frequency of CD audio were not idiots, they were audio engineers. The subsequent people who chose a higher frequency for DVD audio were also not idiots, but they were marketers. 192KHz audio is snake oil. AFAIK no human listener has ever distinguished 44.1KHz audio from 192KHz audio in a double-blind test.
I would bet with the right source, one could.
Remember that with digital sampling, you have to limit the source to less than half the sampling rate to prevent aliasing, leaving only 22khz. 12khz sounds would be made of four level changes.
When CDs first came out, I was into classical big time, and I found the violins nasty sounding. Very distorted. This is really the only instrument that I could hear a difference on, but it was a big one.
Fairly quickly, the engineers did learn to manipulate the bits to get frequency response above 12khz without aliasing. Sony had a line of digital recorders with Super Bit Mapping (SBM) that did this. I bought one for encoding my classical LPs, since at that time nasty encodings of classical works was the norm. The Sony thing did work well, but I never use it any more. I still listen to those encoded LPs...
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#217345 - 17/05/2007 12:26
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: nortonl]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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The MP3s I have tried and liked are not vinyl rips but downloaded from legit music sites but don't exhibit the zingy quality I am trying to avoid, so my problem is not with digital audio per se but some commercial CDs.
I seriously doubt those MP3s were made from anything other than the original CDs.
I'm going to go out on a limb and bet that if you heard those original CDs, you'd hear the same "zingy" quality. I imagine that you're hearing the aliasing at high frequencies and the encoded MP3s have had a highpass filter applied that completely obliterates those frequencies.
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Bitt Faulk
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#217346 - 19/05/2007 13:12
Re: Best way to record albums/LPs to digital MP3s?
[Re: merc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/06/1999
Posts: 2993
Loc: Wareham, Dorset, UK
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You could not go far wrong than buy the current Numark TT-USB package, which is retailing about 110 quid (I think). This is a 33/45 RPM turntable with a decent tone arm and cartridge, with a USB interface. It digitises and uses a USB codec (on Windows/Mac) to record the data packets. Audacity is supplied with the package, so it's an all-in-one bargin. I bought one of these so my Dad could digitise his 1,000+ record collection (some dating back to the 20's) and put 'em on CD. He is not going to bother with MP3 data CDs as he doesn't have a suitable player: so in combination with a CD-burner package (free with his Dell) he's as happy as Larry recording his favourite albums. What impressed me about this (and not just 'cos I work for Numark ) - up an running in 15 minutes, recording a minute later, learning how to clean up the recording, label and split out tracks 30 mminutes after that, then listening to the finished CD - all inside one hour. Perfectly acceptable quality, even to my jaded ears. It's even possible to record an album at high speed (eg. LP at 45 RPM) and then get Audacity to speed adjust it for you: one shellac 10" 78 came out sounding as clear as a bell after noise processing and speed correction - genuinely astonishing! So I can highly recommend this as a solution with minimum effort and good value for money. Go for it!
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One of the few remaining Mk1 owners...  #00015
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