Vinyl recording and restoration

There's plenty of software for you to play with on the PC to accomplish the vinyl transfer. Personally I use Sony Sound Forge Audio Studio. It has a built in vinyl restoration capability that does the basics. You can download a fully functional trial version for 30 days so nothing to lose. The other obvious contender for me would be Steinberg's WaveLab but I do't think there is a trail version. Audacity is also a free package that's worth considering.

I'm using a firewire audio interface (Focusrite) and record at 96/24, the results are very good indeed.

The downside is that it's quite time consuming particularly if you want to pay a lot of time to restoration. There are some built in VST plugins with Sound Forge that help and there some free ones on the web that can also help with restoration.

I guess it depends how much time and money you want to put into the restoration aspects. The Waves Bundle is one of the leading packages in this area but expensive unless you are quite serious about it. I have also played with iZotope which is very good (a free trial download is also available).

You will also want to consider giving the vinyl a good clean before recording with your favourite cleaning machine.

Jack

I've found that the Audacity programme caters for all my needs, and I've transferred loads of vinyl over the years using it. Also as stated previously its free too!

I used to use Cakewalk Pyro but quite frankly theres no point spending money when Audacity does everything so well.


.

There are experts at restoring old recordings, who are far more proficient than anyone here.

They work for the companies that own the original master parts ...

The only reason to record from a vinyl like this is in the absence of a professionally made restoration and reissue, using the latest and best techniques that cost a great deal and require a huge amount of work.

On the other hand if you enjoy fiddling, then carry on, but the quality point is lost if you have to start applying any sort of home computer filtering and de-clicking.

To de-click a four-minute track can take 8 hours of skilled and professional work to do it properly.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
There are experts at restoring old recordings, who are far more proficient than anyone here.

They work for the companies that own the original master parts ...

The only reason to record from a vinyl like this is in the absence of a professionally made restoration and reissue, using the latest and best techniques that cost a great deal and require a huge amount of work.

On the other hand if you enjoy fiddling, then carry on, but the quality point is lost if you have to start applying any sort of home computer filtering and de-clicking.

To de-click a four-minute track can take 8 hours of skilled and professional work to do it properly.

ATB from George

Hi George -

Very interesting reply!

Few of my 500+ vinyl records are duplicated in CD or other silver disc, so have been considering some alternatives:

1) Do nothing with my vinyl (but duplicate some number of them with new CD's)
2) Upgrade my P3-24 to a P9 (or wait for the new high-end table Rega is supposedly working on), or
3) Convert the vinyl to 24/192 Flac.

I blame it all on the Naim DAC. The sound of ripped CD's has now leap frogged the sound of vinyl in my house. Still love everything about vinyl - the hunt for treasures, the cleaning, the cover art, inserts and liner notes. In many instances, it is not only the most fun, but also the most affordable way to buy new music. Am very lucky to have half a dozen great record stores close by.

Guess what I am really wondering is whether vinyl will become like CD (buy, rip and store away), or remain a daily playback alternative to the computer/DAC.

Oh well, there are certainly worse problems to have! Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Hook

OT - for Mac users, Steinberg's WaveLab 7 is now available on OS X.

Google this: PBTHAL.

He can advice you very very expertly.

Ken records directly into his Nagra VI and then will devide tracks and remove any major pops manually in Wavelab. Doing more is counter producive to the music.

Dear hook,

From the days when I had many, many LPs I kept the few that were not reissued in modern restorations, and was amazed that some real gems remained steadfastly locked in the vaults!

In 2005 I bought a Rega P3 with Super Elys cartridge on the standard Rega tone-arm. [The Elys II replaced both the Super Elys and the standard version, and was probably better than the Super by a small margin]. This TT fed the standard Naim moving magnet boards in my [then] 52, and got very fine replay for at the time about £500 for the entire LP set including the phono-pre-amp boards.

From the tape out I ran a Philips CD recorder, and after carefully washing the records and putting them in brand new sleeves to prevent any old dirty finding its way back onto these rare LPs, I set about transferring about 40 LPs. Painstaking work, with the tracking done in real time, listening via headphones to prevent any acoustic feedback from loudspeaker replay. This is surprisingly important as the feedback - however slight - becomes quite apparent on reviewing the recorded CDs.

I also discovered that one had to play the cartridge for one side before a transfer could be well started, as the cold sonic footprint was also obvious once one reviewed the recorded result.

Even resting or ten minutes between sides - especially where a piece of music covered more than a single LP side was immediately apparent in a change [general hardening of the tone] of the side break. Thus once I started a CD, I worked right through in one go, with the warmed up cartridge. I applied no further effort in processing at all, and relied on the records being fundamentally in good condition.

Even now with over 500 CDs transferred into iTunes the few remaining LP sides I transferred stand up rather well among the expert CD reissues. None are finer and inevitably suffer the usual complaint with LPs of a certain pitch instability. Not all sides were cut at exactly the same rotational speed, which results in slight pitch anomalies on times. Also an instrument like the harpsichord is rather revealing of shorter term pitch instability. The actual notes played on a harpsichord are absolutely without any waver at all, and this aspect is much better on CD. Often what appears a recording that might be thought of as good for its date, can even fifty years after be found in the best CD restorations to be fine even by the latest standards!

But there are musical performances that I am glad to have kept by me in with the LP to CD transfers I made.

As the recordings are reissued they are replaced with professional restorations as these address many issues, which no LP transfer can. I did re-adjust the pitch [playing speed] of some recordings, in some cases to correct a situation where a pair of tape recorders had been used in relay to capture live concerts longer than a single tape reel could accomodate, but the pitch once set for a section can not deal with any short term anomalies that are sorted out in the situation of a professional commercial restoration.

My advice would be to take the greatest care with optimally cleaning the records, and making sure that you carefully warm up the cartridge first, and you can at least get the best that LP can give [from what ever level of turntable that you are using].

The software that I used to adjust speed of replay and therefore pitch, was Sonic Foundry. Painstaking, and requiring huge patience and concentration. I also fixed some frightful edits, which are almost always redone so well in commercial restorations that one cannot notice them. Some of my re-splices were as fine, though sometimes the edit was rhythmically short, for which, without the original tape, or 78 masters, there is nothing that can be done to reduce the shock of a poor basic edit present in an old LP.

ATB from George

PS: At the time when I did this, I could find no really fine way of recording directly to a computer, or at least one that worked as well as the Philips CD recorder, but no doubt things have moved on, and there may be no reason to use a discrete machine over a computer nowadays. But getting a Philips would not be a waste of money as the results are splendid. I subesequently worked on pitch and edits in the digital domain on the computer and burned the edited files to CD at single speed in those days. This worked very well for the few cases where I did it. Of course the Philips recorders themselve run at single speed in real time!

Dear George - what an enjoyable and interesting reply. Thank you, even though I have no intention of doing anything with my vinyl other than very occasionally putting it on the turntable. Posts such as this are starting to get me ever so slightly addicted to this forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Thorsten_Lux:
Google this: PBTHAL.

He can advice you very very expertly.

Yes he certainly can. Expert.

Dear BLee,

I bought the Rega P3 for the sole purpose of transferring those 40 odd LPs to CD. Only about half a dozen of these transfers survive with me today. Because the music contained has either been replaced by CD reissues of the same recordings, or by other recordings of the same music, which I like better.

But even that aside, as I borrowed the Philips recorder, and sold the Rega for more than half of the new price fairly soon afterwards, that resulted in the actual cost [excluding my own time] coming out at about £6 or £7 per CD. Not uncompetitive with buying reissued CDs in reality.

One delight that I found among my iTunes was an old recording of Butterworth's Shropshire Lad with the Halle Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult, which I had transferred earlier from my old Turntable - Dual Three speed [33, 45, and 78] - onto TDK SA90 tape. Even this is rather good! I transferred about 100 SA 90 tapes of private recordings, live concerts, radio broadcasts, and so on onto CDs as well. But I had forgotten that this one snippet of my old LP replay set still existed!

It was all Sony based apart from the Dual in those long gone days. I transferred quite a few LPs to tape, to give the continuity that LPs sides did not for many pieces that were over 30 minutes, but less than about 47 minutes. TDK SA 90s often had a 48 minute playing side in practice, and not just 45 minutes you might expect by dividing 90 by two ...

SA90 tape was rather good on a well-engineered Three-head Cassette recorder! Some of the radio relays are still truly amazing nearly thirty years on!

ATB from George

bump

Have been unable to start my vinyl recording experiments for lack of a cable! Need to connect my Nait XS's Tape Out port (5-pin DIN) to my RME 9632's 15-pin D-sub.

The RME 9632 included a cable that goes from the 15-pin D-sub to 6 connections: 4 x Female RCA Analog, 2 x MIDI and 1 x Phones. And I do have a 5-pin DIN to male RCA cable, so I could just connect the two together, except that RME warns that the unconnected cables need to be grounded in order to avoid noise. Did not know how to do that, so I've asked Redco to build me a dedicated cable and hopefully it will get delivered this week.

Given Mr. Underhill's recent report of excellent sound quality using his M-Audio device, I am very encouraged. Am committed to spending the time to learn how to do this well. All my vinyl has been cleaned using a Nitty Gritty system (vacuum cleaner with multiple types of fluids). If nothing else, I have managed to convince myself that I am sitting on a high-rez digital goldmine just waiting to happen!

We'll see....

Hook

The custom cable to connect the Nait XS A/V out to my RME 9632 card arrived, so I was able to perform some initial vinyl recording experiments last night.

Tried to use Audacity, but ran into some Windows 7 issues with their new beta release and gave up. Downloaded a trial copy of Goldwave and it worked well, but I've only managed to scratch the surface of its capabilities.

Recorded a song (Little Feat's "Lonesome Whistle") from a very clean record at 16/44.1, 24/96 and 24/192. Had to turn the volume knob on the Nait XS up past 1PM to get enough gain (but not clip). Kept the Nait XS on mute, but at that high a volume, ccould still hear some sound bleed through the speaker. This actually helped me to listen for end of track.

Found that playback through Goldwave did not sound very good, so saved the song versions as FLAC files, and did the playback through J River Media Center 14 (and its WASAPI plug-in). Much better sound!

Started with 16/44, and it sounded....good. Not great though. Nowhere near as smooth and rich and natural as the vinyl. Also sounded a bit flat. But could definitely hear more smoothness and soundstage depth at 24/96. Also more fine detail in the treble. Tried real hard, but could not hear much improvement by going up to 24/192.

My first impression is that 24 bit digital recordings are still not quite up to the original vinyl in sound quality, but they were reasonably close, and actually very comparable to an average commercial CD's sound.

The Goldwave manual is 120+ pages, so I suspect there are settings and filters, etc., that can be used to improve the sound. Will take some time to learn. But even if that is as good as the quality can get, then the 24/96 FLAC files will do just fine for me for archiving/consolidation purposes. And they would be very good sources for converting to 320kbps MP3 files for mobile listening on an iPod.

Am currently using a Rega P3-24/RRB301/Exact 2. Am hoping that the better the table, the better the recording. Am guessing that the original vinyl will always sound best, but the question in my mind has always been how close can you get with digital recordings. I believe that the RME 9632 card is very good on playback through a BNC connection to the DAC/XPS2. No clue how good it is at ADC. Am going to have to do more research to find out if it makes any sense to move up to a Benchmark ADC1 or the like.

Am very encouraged by these initial results. Found myself daydreaming about a Rega P9/Apheta/IOS today, and may just have to start one of those "Which Turntable is Right for Me?" threads!

Must say that I am totally spoiled by my Naim-centered sound system. A year ago, before my first Naim purchase, if I heard that first 16/44.1 recording I just made, am sure I would have confidently declared it to be the finest recording in the history of digital music. It is amazing to me to think how these Naim products have so elevated my perception of what constitutes great sound.

Hook

The old Philips CD recorders were super as recording devices, though less fine as replay machines. They are still to be found second hand for little money. Given a Naim Pre-amp output [via the Tape loop] you are unlikely to be disappointed by the results.


Try as might I never got a computer to do the Analogue to Digital conversion so well as the Philips.

Perhaps your experience is showing that PC A/D conversion has not really improved. The inside of any computer is not the most friendly place to have analogue signals being carried, I am sure. The Philips is a dedicated audio device where considerable attention to optimising the integrity of the analogue parts will ensure that the analogue input is well cared for before conversion to digital. IMO 16 bit 44 kHz sampling is more than fine enough to present music better than any LP replay can in a fine mastering, so no fear of much loss using the Philips, and so it transpires in my experience.

I found that well made transfers to digital [CD] on the Philips were indistinguishable from the original LP replay, and potentially finer [than average daily LP replay] if you follow my guidance based on experience posted earlier in this thread.

ATB from George

PS: Using the Philips digital CD recorder, you must use absolute care to never over-modulate the signal. Find the loudest part of the LP in question and set the recording level [working in the analogue domain on the built-in potentiometer] to avoid any digital clipping, which is devastatingly annoying.

The Philips is capable of very fine low level detail capture, and most of the time the level meter will be working at a level that would be alarmingly low on a tape cassette machine, while generating a superb quality of conversion to digital and resulting transfers, even in the quietest music.

I found that setting to "7" on the recording dial actually never overloaded on any LP using the Naim pre-amp tape loop out, and internal Naim phono boards on a 52.

But a small amount of experimentation will soon find the optimum in any specific arrangement.

One advantage of sticking to a single slightly safe setting is that the level between LPs is surprisingly consistent [at least on classical music] so that you are unlikely to produce a transfer that sticks out as too loud or quiet in the context of other ones or standard commercial CD issues.

Seriously, I do recommend you try this method. I think you are on a hiding to nothing using a PC for the D/A conversion, as you findings of clear losses seems to indicate already.

Perhaps converting to digital via a discrete D/A converter between the tape out and the computer might work well, but feeding a computer analogue signals seems fraught with problems to me at a basic level not associated with the software used or the file standard adopted. Such a D/A converter will be much more expensive than a Philips CD recorder, however, though it may give the chance to experiment with greater bit depths and sampling rates. Though somehow I doubt that this is worth the expense given the severe inherent problems involved in all LP replay …

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
PS: Using the Philips digital CD recorder, you must use absolute care to never over-modulate the signal. Find the loudest part of the LP in question and set the recording level [working in the analogue domain on the built-in potentiometer] to avoid any digital clipping, which is devastatingly annoying.

The Philips is capable of very fine low level detail capture, and most of the time the level meter will be working at a level that would be alarmingly low on a tape cassette machine, while generating a superb quality of conversion to digital and resulting transfers, even in the quietest music.

I found that setting to "7" on the recording dial actually never overloaded on any LP using the Naim pre-amp tape loop out, and internal Naim phono boards on a 52.

But a small amount of experimentation will soon find the optimum in any specific arrangement.

One advantage of sticking to a single slightly safe setting is that the level between LPs is surprisingly consistent [at least on classical music] so that you are unlikely to produce a transfer that sticks out as too loud or quiet in the context of other ones or standard commercial CD issues.

Seriously, I do recommend you try this method. I think you are on a hiding to nothing using a PC for the D/A conversion, as you findings of clear losses seems to indicate already.

Perhaps converting to digital via a discrete D/A converter between the tape out and the computer might work well, but feeding a computer analogue signals seems fraught with problems to me at a basic level not associated with the software used or the file standard adopted. Such a D/A converter will be much more expensive than a Philips CD recorder, however, though it may give the chance to experiment with greater bit depths and sampling rates. Though somehow I doubt that this is worth the expense given the severe inherent problems involved in all LP replay …

ATB from George

Hi George -

What you say makes a lot of sense. I do see lots of 700 and 800-series Phillips CD recorders for sale, so it is tempting to give this method a try. Which model do you use?

Hook

PS - I do very much enjoy reading your posts, but thank goodness for google, or I'd still be wondering what being on a hiding to nothing was all about!

The 760 was the one I think. Anyway make sure - if you go this way - that you get one with the variable recording level rotary control. Not the twin deck [player to recorder] with has a much less useful level setting device that steps in 3 dB jumps and optimising is less successful.

ATB from George

even better look for yahama cdr hd 1300

they will do pure dig copy cd/vinyl on slow burn. vinyl transfer is extremely good. you can store on its hard drive and track number very easy