[Lyndon]

Alright,
My Illinois friend wants to start converting a LOT of his LP's to digital format, probably with an aim of running a
Squeezebox Duet down the road.
I was thinking something like this little box:
Behringer UCA202 U-Control Audio Interface
between the TT and his desktop, but I didn't know what kind of software to manage the conversion, say, for an
older LP that has more "noise" in the background.  And perhaps a management program for the music, as he might as well do that while he is ripping.  I have not done the conversion, but for my cd's, I have been ripping in FLAC with MediaMonkey.
Suggestions?
Thanks, and a happy new year to all AC members.
Lyndon

[rollo]

If I remember correctly Mike Fremer wrote an article on the subjec in Sterophile. Cannot recall what he used but I heard the results at the Show and the quality was excellent. Look it up it may be of interest to you.


charles

[Lyndon]

Thanks, Rollo
I'll look, but I also thought there was an older thread on AC dealing with this and I just can't seem to locate it.  I thought some of our discless members may lead the way.

[Mike Dzurko]

I'd be interested as well . . .

[Mike B.]

There is a turntable on the market that has a USB out. I have seen them on ebay. Not very expensive. Perhaps a better cartridge could be installed and yield decent sound?

[mshan]

Don't know if it is any good, but some edition of Cakewalk Pyro was bundled with the Audio Technica usb turntable:  http://www.cakewalk.com/Products/AudioCreator/record.asp

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ is free, but I don't know if it has any noise reduction features built in.

If you run an Apple computer, you could see what features are available in Garage Band.

I remember Michael Fremer reviewed the Alesis Masterlink 9600 for digitization of lps:  http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/605/#

Hagerman Tech makes a neat little LP ripper too:  http://www.hagtech.com/ripper.html

[mitch stl]

Over the past 8 or 9 years, I've converted about 2,000 LPs and perhaps 500 open reel tapes to digital format which I store on a music server for my two Squeezebox based systems. (This is in addition to ripping my CD collection. The total song count is now in excess of 44,000.)

There are a lot of primers for this subject on the internet, but in summary, I use my turntable and cartridge. This hooks into my phono preamp which feeds to the line input of my desktop computer.

The turntable and associated equipment can be as fancy or pedestrian as you like.

I use Adobe Audition software to record the albums. Depending on the condition of the original LP or tape, I can then do whatever click & pop removal is necessary for the more obvious problems and make any adjustments I want to the volume.

At that point, I divvy up the album into the separate tracks and save them in digital format (usually FLAC.) At that point they get tagged, the album art scanned or downloaded, and the files are moved to the music server and my two backup drives.

Overall I've been very pleased with the process. It has allowed me to save some music that isn't available on CD (I even had some open reel copies of unreleased albums), and allowed me to hang on to some music that I probably wouldn't buy if I had to purchase a CD.

That said, there have been a number of albums where the remastered, current version is much better than the original LP and I've bought the CD version. That isn't always the case, though. A number of the remastered CDs have picked up the loudness wars virus and the original LP versions are better. It is really a case-by-case situation.

If nothing else, converting your LPs to digital is certainly an excellent way to refamiliarize yourself with your music collection!

[Recorder]

Lyndon,

If you use a Mac, SoundSoap, from Bias-Inc, does a good job of removing pops and crackles with little  or no effect on the sound of the recording.  It also can remove background noise, but also has a tendency to filter out hall reverberations, especially in soft passages. 

I use Peak LE, from the same company, for capturing and editing  the new music file.  I like the fact that it has a recording timer, so that I can start recording an LP without worrying about the file taking over my hard drive if I am delayed in getting back to stop the recording.  I just set it to stop after 25 or 30 minutes and later I trim off several minutes' recording of the needle going around the center groove.  It also has a pencil tool, which provides a tedious, but effective, method for removing a few serious pops or transient distortions by free-hand redrawing of distorted samples.  By drawing something consistent with the surrounding wave forms, it lets you correct some problems that SoundSoap can't handle. 

Bill

[goldlizsts]

Alright,
My Illinois friend wants to start converting a LOT of his LP's to digital format, probably with an aim of running a
Squeezebox Duet down the road.
I was thinking something like this little box:
Behringer UCA202 U-Control Audio Interface
between the TT and his desktop, but I didn't know what kind of software to manage the conversion, say, for an
older LP that has more "noise" in the background.  And perhaps a management program for the music, as he might as well do that while he is ripping.  I have not done the conversion, but for my cd's, I have been ripping in FLAC with MediaMonkey.
Suggestions?
Thanks, and a happy new year to all AC members.
Lyndon

May be you'll find this useful? 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/117810/rip_your_records.html

I'm sure there are other software out there.

[Mike Nomad]

~

[Lyndon]

Thanks for the ideas, guys.
I have been overwhelmed with teaching my third grade class this past week.  8 year olds love to tell you what they got over the holidays...and tell you again 5 minutes later.
I have an excellent audio card in my desktop, and I should try to rig up one of my TT's to it this weekend and try the Audessy?or Audacity software for it.  Shame on me for not pressing the point on my best friend, who had it all together for doing this on his PC.  He was killed in a freak horse accident around Thanksgiving.  Lost my best friend and a good music friend.  His wife is picking up the pieces, but she will be lucky if she can just figure out their finances from his computer.
Simply, I want to digitize my huge record and tape collection, using a program that will also organize the music, and eventually as some of you mentioned, use an interactive to find it on my hard drives and through my music system.  I like the Squeezebox Duet, but something down the road in a year (perhaps the iPod Touch, or the Zune HD) may be the new flavor on the block.
Huge project.
2nd New Year's resolution: Clean up an old Eico integrated receiver I found and get that playing in the computer room.
Lyndon

[SkyBlue]

I'm rediscovering LPs now and want to rip a couple to digital. I have a Bellari phonostage that has an headphone out. My tentative plan is to clean the record as best i can, and hook up a handheld digital recorder to the headphone out, (Tascam Dr-1, Olympus LS-10) and record straight to WAV or MP3 format onto the SD card on the recorder. Bring the SD card over to the Mac, then add/import into iTunes...at this point waiting for things to arrive..as for software to use, still researching that...

[mdconnelly]

I'm curious...  Is feeding analog to the line in of a PC soundcard (i.e. having the soundcard do the AtoD conversion) as potentially detrimental to sound quality as using a soundcard's DAC for output?  I was wondering if an external AtoD converter would be a far better idea...  And if so, how would you feed a digital signal to the PC (particularly if it's a laptop)?

[timind]

The Channel D pure vinyl lp ripping program was reviewed by Mikey Fremer in Mar 09. This product was a Stereophile "2009 Product Of The Year" runner-up in the accessories category this year.
http://www.channld.com/pure-vinyl.html

[WGH]

I was wondering if an external AtoD converter would be a far better idea...  And if so, how would you feed a digital signal to the PC (particularly if it's a laptop)?

The Hagerman Ripper mentioned earlier in this thread uses a USB cable to connect to the computer.

The Ripper is a phono pre-amp with USB output, it can also be built with line level inputs so you can use your current phono pre-amp. The DIY half-kit version ($99) consists of the blank circuit board with the surface mount PCM2906 and two 100nF capacitors pre-installed, a pre-cut and silkscreened chassis (complete!), and various screws and nuts.

[Hipper]

I put some of my LPs onto CD using WAV files.

I used my turntable, a phono amp and connected them to my PC's line in, using the PC's soundcard DAC to convert to digital. I used Nero Wave Editor (part of Nero 6) for this.

I then used Wave Repair for the repairs:

http://www.delback.co.uk/wavrep/

Using this, or Nero, you can automatically repair damage to some degree but with compromises. I prefered to use Wave Repair to locate individual damage and repair it. This is quite tedious work and can take between ten and twenty hours for one LP, but I found it worth it. You can solve almost all (but not always all) the noise problems in this way.

I then used EAC to burn to CD.

[Big Red Machine]

Roxio VHS to DVD software/hardware does this.

[firedog]

Try http://www.tracertek.com/ - they specialize in this. They can sell you any hardware you need - unless you want super high-end stuff, which they don't have. A phono preamp with USB out is a very convenient tool when digitizing LPs.

They also have online courses in audio forensics (digitizing and then treating audio recordings to sound better) and a unique method of recording vinyl to computer (without the RIAA curve, which is then added in after recording through a software RIAA curve - they claim the results are superior to adding the RIAA curve by preamp).

I've used dbpoweramp and DC7 for conversion of audio, forensics, and RIAA curve -the method works well and allows for some cool effects and forensics - such as adding in "tube" sound to a recording that sounds "digital",precisely getting rid of pops and clicks, etc

My own experience has been that if you have even a pretty good turntable and cartridge, you can get very good recordings in digital. To my ear, my digitized albums still have some of that "analog" sound often missing in digital media.