[Hear Clifford Brown]

Anyone using Vinyl Studio?  I have a question on setup.

When first starting VS it prompts you to create a collection and asks where you want to store it. Should that be on the HD where JRiver looks to find my music files? And is this new “Collection” the location I should tell JRiver to find the new digital files?

I have all my ripped CDs on an external HD and stream them to a PS Audio DirectStream DAC with BridgeII using JRiver and JRemote. I’ve started recording my LPs to digital files with a Tascam DA-3000 which puts the files on a CF card. From there they are transferred to the HD using the same directory structure as the CDs. For instance if I already have 3 Cannonball Addererley CDs in the artist folder with his name on it, that is where I’ll put the newly digitized LPs. I append the names of the LPs with (DSD) or (24 – 96) depending on which format was used.   So it would look like this on my HD:

Shared Music

    Cannonball Adderley

          In The Land Of HiFi

          Somethin’ Else

          Somethin’ Else (DSD)

          Things Are Getting Better

          Know What I Mean? (DSD)


The VS documentation has a drawing showing: VinylStudio – Collection: “My Albums.mcf” and says “Within a collection, VinylStudio stores your recordings as a list of albums. These are recorded a side at a time and these recordings are then split up into individual tracks. It is important to realize that VinylStudio is not an audio editor. That is to say, it does not directly edit your recordings or any audio files you might have imported. Instead, any changes you make within the program are stored (in My Albums.mcf) and then ‘overlayed’ onto the original audio when you save your tracks.”

[dB Cooper]

I have used VinylStudio (but it's been awhile). You can export them wherever you want (you'll probably want FLAC) after your project is done. The default folder is just for convenience while you're working on a particular project.

[Hear Clifford Brown]

Okay, so my raw DSD files go on the external HD in artist folders.  Then I use VS and it positions track breaks, adds track names, cleans up audio (if desired) and stores all that in a folder it creates called "Collection: My Albums.mcf".  And lets say I let that folder go to the default location on the internal drive.  Then I play the digitized LP with JRiver.  How does JRiver know where the track breaks are when they are not part of the DSD files on the HD?  I'm missing something which will probably become obvious once I use VS.

[dB Cooper]

Dunno about the DSD part of it (I thought DSD files were pretty much non-editable)(confirmed by VinylStudio's web site) but that mcf file is basically a catalog of the changes to the file. When you export you can choose location and format. It's been quite a while since I used it- haven't had occasion to- so I've forgotten some details. Looked at their site to see if they host a forum (they don't) but you might be well served by signing up at Computer Audiophile and seeing if there are users there who aren't "rusty" like me. And, hey yeah, Clifford Brown was great!

[dB Cooper]

Just opened VS and got a prompt that I had bought it for another computer (which means that it's been 2+ yrs since I used it, which is why my recollections are hazy). Under the 'Save Tracks' tab is where you choose output destination, format, IIRC.

However, if these tracks were digitized to DSD you will be limited in what you can do with them- you won't be able to remove subsonic trash via VinylStudio's subsonic filter or remove pops and clicks for example, which I would ordinarily recommend. I would suggest that DSD is not your best starting point and would recommend going to hi-sample-rate PCM for the digitizing phase at least.

Sorry I don't have more suggestions but as I mentioned earlier, I'd ask at Computer Audiophile. Good luck with your project.

[Hear Clifford Brown]

Thanks a lot for checking.  Yeah I read somewhere about inability to cleanup audio on DSD with Vinyl Studio.  I'm still experimenting and may end up recording to PCM 24-96.  Have been recording single tracks at a time at varying settings and listening to them.

[dB Cooper]

I used 16/48 (the limits of the sound card I had) and got very good results. Vinyl has the equivalent of about 10 bits dynamic range, and thats at the outside of the disc. Even if you go higher than 44.1 I think the only thing you get going to 24 bits is larger file sizes. As one audio blogger put it, putting a steak on a bigger plate doesn't make it a bigger steak. Your choice though.

BTW the inability to 'clean up' DSD files is a characteristic of the format, not a limitation of VinylStudio.

[boneman]

I use VinylStudio for ripping vinyl and JRM for playback.  I recently ripped 2,200 lps at 192/24, a process that took 285 ten hour days to complete so I've learned a bit about VinylStudio.  That was the rock/jazz/blues segment of my collection.  Continuing now on the classical stuff.

VS saves your recorded (data) files to any drive you designate.  Each recorded side=one recorded file although there may be 1-20 (pick any number) separate tracks per side.

After you have split the tracks, clicks removed, added cover art, etc., the recorded files and metadata/track splitting plus sound processing files are converted into one file/recorded track. 

This is where your one file per side becomes the number of tracks on each side=the number of processed file plus one file for your cover art.

These are saved to any drive you designate into a folder of the artist/recording.

I would not recommend saving your initial recordings onto the same file as your processed and completed files.  Also, if you rip a lot of lps at hi frequency/rates you will use a lot of disk space both in recorded files and processed files.

My current setup has two 3tb drives for recording, one is full and the other just beginning to use.

I save my tracks on a NAS which is in a hybrid RAID 5 setup with 4 drives so I can suffer a one drive failure and still not lose data after the rebuild.

Hope this helps

[Hear Clifford Brown]

Very helpful boneman.  Thanks.

[dB Cooper]

Thanks boneman. It had been awhile so the details were a little hazy. VS is a very capable app but not exactly the most Mac like interface or intuitive workflow you'll ever see.

I did not use Vinylstudio for the actual recording. I used mostly AudioHijack and imported the resulting file into it. Reason being VS allowed no control over input levels from the usb sound card I used. For whatever reason, AudioHijack did. If your feed is coming out of an analog preamp, coming out of the main outputs rather than tape outs would allow level setting also.

I do suggest the subsonic filter, it's on the bottom toolbar under 'Adjust filter settings' IIRC. Good luck again.