Recommendations for digitizing vinyl

[Mr. Swordfish]

Audacity has been through a bunch of updates in the past year. v3.7.5 is current. Which version do you use?

I'm not sure what version I have. But I am sure that if I'm going to try it again I'll start with the latest version. No good reason to hang on to an old one.

Thanks for the tips. Cutting a file into segments is not exactly rocket surgery. We used to be able to do it with only razor blades and adhesive tape.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

Audacity has been through a bunch of updates in the past year. v3.7.5 is current. Which version do you use?

If this is where you are hitting a snag (i.e., after you've added your labels where the file will be split, makins sure there's one at the very beginning) :


Click on File > Export > Export Multiple....


It's because the new version is a few layers deeper:

Click on File > Export Audio>Export to computer > select 'Multiple Files' >Export

(on that last screen you also have options for file format , file naming, destination folder etc. The important thing is to select 'Multiple Files')

Thanks. It appears they re-arranged the menu options without updating the docs. I was able to make this work. Whether Audacity is the best choice for doing this remains to be seen, but at least it works.

 

[krabapple]

Software that splits on silences sounds nifty, though it could be a problem when the track actually contains silence.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

Software that splits on silences sounds nifty, though it could be a problem when the track actually contains silence.

That's true. But depending on your collection it might not affect any records you are digitizing. And even if it does, a spurious track split is not exactly the end of the world.

My best guess is that I have a lot more LPs that contain multiple "movements" with no silence between the tracks than records with silences that aren't supposed to mark the transition from one "track" to the next.

So far, all the track splitting I've done is for live recordings where there's no silence between songs, so I've been placing the markers/labels by hand. Once I get to the vinyl material, I'm assuming that the auto split will work almost all the time.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

Just downloaded and installed Vinyl Studio. Splitting the tracks based on silence is quite straightforward, although the default settings may find "silences" that are part of the performance, as it did with the first .wav file I tried. But it was easy to remove the spurious track delimiters, and there are a bunch of settings to specify levels and duration when it looks for "silences" so I'd say it works quite well. I'm unaware of any way to do this automatically with Audacity. Thanks to all who recommended VinylStudio.

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

Monitoring (the AT-LP120XUSB) is a minor issue since my preferred method is to monitor the line out of the turntable preamp, instead of listening to the USB after it's gone through a round trip of A-D-A. AT engineers did a poor job of isolating signals since connecting both the line out and the USB results in a high pitched whine. This is probably a non-issue for most people since you can do the monitoring via Windows settings, and it's probably fixable with a pair of isolation transformers.

Adding a Radio Design Labs AV HK1 isolation transformer in between the line out of the turntable and the mixer eliminated the whine. Probably cheaper options out there, and since this bit of gear is not in the actual signal chain it probably doesn't matter what transformer you use.

 

[ChefBrunch]

the sound really is all in the phono amp. I do a good bit of Vinyl Digitizing and uploading to YT.

here is my most recent upload comparing the AT-XP3 to the Denon Dl-110 , The AT-XP3 IMO is the most under rated cart and the XP series is better then the vmn-95 IMO. just bigger richer sound, maybe not as detailed on some , but with more authority and lush less fatigue in the highs, but with enough shimmer and dazzle

was my first time running the direct chop up comparison. ,but you can check out any of my other vinyl uploads for sound quality.

 

[krabapple]

If the sound is really 'all in the phono (pre)amp', why are you comparing carts?

 

[DVDdoug]

just bigger richer sound, maybe not as detailed on some , but with more authority and lush less fatigue in the highs, but with enough shimmer and dazzle

Those words aren't really defined except fatigue which is of course is in your mind and different people will be fatigued by different sounds or different music, or maybe not at all.

See Audiophoolery for the REAL characteristics of "sound quality".

The sound of a cartridge is mostly frequency response, but the frequency response will also be affected by the capacitance load (the capacitance of the turntable wiring, connecting cables and preamp input capacitance) and the preamp's RIAA EQ accuracy. The "frequency balance" of records varies too.

And with hard-to-track records some cartridges may have less tracking distortion.

See Audiophoolery for the REAL characteristics of "sound quality".

 

[krabapple]

Question about TT rumble filtering:

I've read that rumble noise is basically from out-of-phase vertical tracking content, and thus can be 'correctly' eliminated by summing everything below, say, 100Hz (or some arbitrary frequency) to mono , thus cancelling itself out. And as LP music content is already typically summed to mono, this does not harm the music content.

Versus, say, a simple steep high pass filter at ~25 Hz, which would filter out low frequency rumble, without affecting actual music content on LP.

Anyone here have a take on this?

 

[somebodyelse]

Question about TT rumble filtering:

I've read that rumble noise is basically from out-of-phase vertical tracking content, and thus can be 'correctly' eliminated by summing everything below, say, 100Hz (or some arbitrary frequency) to mono , thus cancelling itself out. And as LP music content is already typically summed to mono, this does not harm the music content.

Versus, say, a simple steep high pass filter at ~25 Hz, which would filter out low frequency rumble, without affecting actual music content on LP.

Anyone here have a take on this?

It depends how you're defining things. Vertical content from warps etc. generates low frequency that's out of phase left and right so can be removed (mostly...) by summing to mono at LF - see Waxwing or Spartan 15 and up giving varying degrees of control over this. Other LF sources like lateral arm resonance or main bearing noise won't be removed by this so need a separate high pass filter, also available on the previously mentioned amps. Which is more of a problem depends on your turntable and arm, so you may want one, the other or both. Anything below ~2x the arm-cartridge resonance (10-15Hz or so) isn't really signal and will probably cause problems so should be removed one way or the other.

 

[JensA]

@Mr. Swordfish

I simply like vinyl, even though I am well aware of the shortcomings associated with the medium and the vast majority of my music library is “non-vinyl.”
Over the past 10 years, I have digitized several hundred vinyl records, Whenever I buy a new vinyl record I digitize it.
When digitizing vinyl, however, I believe that the “effort and reward” must be in reasonable proportion to each other, i.e., the entire process (excluding the recording/listening time itself, of course ) should take no more than 10, maximum 15 minutes per record.
Manually removing individual clicks or scratches is out of the question for me.

For many years, Vinylstudio ( https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/ ) has therefore been my go-to solution:

It's available for Windows and Mac. Despite its vintage "Windows 3.1" optics, Vinylstudio is extremely powerful and very easy to use (once you've understood it ). Excellent interface with Discogs and MusicBrainz for collecting the album details incl track names as well as album art It takes me usually not more than 7 to 10 minutes to convert rips into fully tagged and separate track files in flac HiRes format.

Although Vinylstudio is well capable of capturing/ripping vinyl I am now using Songcorder ( https://meraki-acoustic.com/songcorder/ ) for capturing vinyl (rest of the job remains with Vinylstudio).
Songcorder, however, requires a Linn DS(M) streamer, so it's no solution for everyone (especially in ASR forum)

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

For many years, Vinylstudio ( https://www.alpinesoft.co.uk/ ) has therefore been my go-to solution:

I've downloaded, installed, and paid for Vinylstudio. So far, I haven't used it for any vinyl, but it works great for easily breaking .wav files into tracks. Supposedly, Audacity does this too, but Vinylstudio seems to have the better UI for it (assuming you can get Audacity to work at all for this). Their model for file locations is a bit odd, but I can fix that up later.

I'm still transferring the hundreds of hours of live DAT recordings so I haven't done anything vinyl-wise other than a bit of testing.

You have to upgrade to get the ability to lookup album/track info. Is this worth it?

 

[JensA]

I've downloaded, installed, and paid for Vinylstudio. So far, I haven't used it for any vinyl, but it works great for easily breaking .wav files into tracks. Supposedly, Audacity does this too, but Vinylstudio seems to have the better UI for it (assuming you can get Audacity to work at all for this). Their model for file locations is a bit odd, but I can fix that up later.

I'm still transferring the hundreds of hours of live DAT recordings so I haven't done anything vinyl-wise other than a bit of testing.

You have to upgrade to get the ability to lookup album/track info. Is this worth it?

I am confident that Audacity has all features required for digitizing vinyl but the Vinylstudio workflow is much easier, at least for me.
I have the Pro version and being able to lookup all album and trackinfo is really a killer feature

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

I've now finally gotten around to digitizing about a dozen LPs using Vinyl Studio and the Audio Technica LP-120XUSB. Some observations:

• The vinyl sounds pretty good. Some surface noise but otherwise at least these records were recorded well and are intact.
• None of the dozen I've processed so far* are available as digital download or on CD; most are available used on vinyl for $10 to $50 a pop, but buying a second vinyl copy doesn't help me.
• It doesn't take any more time to record the LP than it would to simply listen to it
• Post-production only takes a few minutes to top and tail (which VS should do automatically), use their click eliminator, split and name the tracks, save the results as .flac, and import into my library software.
• Pop/rock records with a dozen tracks, and especially compilation albums would take more time to manually enter the track names than the records I've transferred that are basically one or two pieces.
• VS seems to want you to keep everything in their app instead of simply using it as a tool to produce .flac or .wav files, so getting it to do what I wanted was a little counter-intuitive, but I figured it out eventually
• The click elimination algorithm works pretty well - I backed the settings off from the default a bit since I don't mind a few pops and clicks.
• VS by default allows you to monitor the audio, so there was no need for me to use the phono-pre out and buy an isolation transformer. The software I was using before (Wave Shop) does not automatically monitor the audio on record, which I suppose makes some sense if using the same device as A/D and D/A.
• One noticeable difference between the AT TT and the Technics 1200 is that the motor appears to be a lot weaker. The platter slows down when you apply a discwasher, which never happened with the tanks that were/are the 1200 and SP-15 TTs. Is this a problem? No, not at all.
• Overall, the project is a success so far. Thanks to everyone for their help

*various records by Penderecki, Xenakis, & Takemitsu

 

[Blantto]

@Mr. Swordfish I have been converting vinyl to digital for a bit more than 8 years. I listen to a lot of rock music. Most newer releases are usually double the dynamic range, or more, on vinyl than the digital versions. In my experience, on my system, this is very audible and therefore worth it to buy vinyl. I got Rage Against the Machine - Renegades on vinyl for Christmas. I own the Qobuz version, the recorded vinyl blows it out of the water sound quality wise. Any newer release I try to find vinyl because in my experience the vinyl sounds much better, to my ears. I capture the audio from a Technics SL-Q3 with an AT750SH, Project Phono box S2 into the line in of a Soundblaster AE-9 into Audacity and finally 24/96 flac (16/48 would likely be fine). I store these on a 4TB WD NAS with Tailscale for remote accessibility. I started with an AT LP60 USB. I recorded via the LP60 ADC and compared it to the Xonar Essence ST line in I had at the time. The Xonar was tremendously better. So this long winded story is to say that a dedicated box like a Motu M2 or decent soundcard would likely give you significantly better results AND I found that using the declicker in Audacity would create little 'dips' in the treble, for me anyway. I found using the Audacity Repair tool will get rid of clicks without affecting sound quality as much. Also I am certain to wash every vinyl, new or used, and record it as soon as possible. I do this and split into tracks sometimes not removing clicks until I have time to sit and work on it. I use Discogs to get cover art and track names. I use Dbpoweramp to edit track tags. I've been doing it for years and am faily fast, it doesn't take long to rip. If you have questions I'd be happy to share ideas. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium is a completely different experience on vinyl than CD. 3rd post here Steve Hoffman talks about it https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thre...eve-hoffman-fighting-the-loudness-war.685290/