Members talljohn Posted February 16, 2007 Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 Help a forumite out!! I have finally decided to get off high center and convert, clean up, and catalog all of my 3000+ lps into digital format. Hoping that some audiophile here has done the same. What I need is obviously a system that will allow me to either hook directly up to a turntable or run through my home stero system and allow me to record onto my laptop (USB preferred). I would like the software to be smart enough to recognize the pauses between songs and have a pop/hiss/whatever removal capability. Can anyone help me out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lakesidedave Posted February 16, 2007 Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 Well, here's a simple solution: http://www.ion-audio.com/ittusb.php there are also several USB consumer soundcards that are designed just for this purpose, some of which include cleanup software. 3000 LPs? Hope you've got lots of time on your hands...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted February 16, 2007 Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 3000+ lps Huh, you will get a lifetime achievment award for that! I just recorded 3 LP's for my wife's brother. Took me four-and-a-half hour for the 3 LP's to burn on CD, and no cleaning or noise removing done, Will never do that again. Btw, I did it straight from the headphone OUT to the audio interface IN. Calibrated with an old test vinyl, never went over. . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members talljohn Posted February 16, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 Well, here's a simple solution: http://www.ion-audio.com/ittusb.php there are also several USB consumer soundcards that are designed just for this purpose, some of which include cleanup software. 3000 LPs? Hope you've got lots of time on your hands...... Thanx Dave. I'll probably be pretty selective about which ones I do right way....based on what I've read it probably takes about an hour+ to do each album....so I'm sure I'll age gracefully as I listen/record/digitize 3000+ lps. Most are from the golden age of rock (1965-75) so it will be fun to remember the craziness of those times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members talljohn Posted February 16, 2007 Author Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 3000+ lpsHuh, you will get a lifetime achievment award for that!I just recorded 3 LP's for my wife's brother. Took me four-and-a-half hour for the 3 LP's to burn on CD, and no cleaning or noise removing done, Will never do that again.Btw, I did it straight from the headphone OUT to the audio interface IN. Calibrated with an old test vinyl, never went over.. Angelo...I don't plan on making CDs out of them. Just want to get the individual tracks into mp3 or wave form on the 'puter. I know the cleanup time will add up as well. Take it step by step. Took a long time to collect them and most have probably never made it to CD....will be a labor of love I hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted February 16, 2007 Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 Here's what I do, hardly brain surgery, but it works for me: With a Radio Shack converter, I go from RCA L+R on the turntable to the Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted February 16, 2007 Members Share Posted February 16, 2007 When you transfer the album over, save a copy of the un-cleaned up version! That way if super whizbang clean up tools come along in the future, you're covered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted February 16, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted February 16, 2007 I have finally decided to get off high center and convert, clean up, and catalog all of my 3000+ lps into digital format. What I need is obviously a system that will allow me to either hook directly up to a turntable or run through my home stero system and allow me to record onto my laptop (USB preferred). I would like the software to be smart enough to recognize the pauses between songs and have a pop/hiss/whatever removal capability. No, what you need is more time than you think this will take you - lots more time. It will take you about an hour per disk by the time you take it out of the jacket, clean it, play it, save the file, back it up, and make some sort of journal entry about what you have (and back that up if you do it on computer). If you live an otherwise normal live, you might be able to do two a night (or day), at best ten a week. If you have 3000 of them, allowing for a vacation, that's six years. And, yes, you really need to be there while the record is playing, and listen to it. You'll need to know if it skips, and you don't want to leave it running in the leadout grooves for too long. And then you'll probably want to try to reduce the surface noise a bit. But if you really want to get into this, I'd suggest that you look into the Spin It Again program from Acoustica. It's tailor made for this application, it makes its best guess as to where to put the track marks (you can audition and edit them) and has a noise reduction tool that you can run. And it's pretty cheap. Of course the quality of the turntable and cartridge will be critical in how good your transfers are. A $100 USB turntable will spin the records. A $500 turntable and a $100 cartridge (together with a decent preamp and sound card) will do better. Consider how many times you'll be listening to your digital transfers. Maybe you'd do better to just pull out a record now and then and just sit back and enjoy it. Put your 50 favorite tunes on a few CDs and enjoy the rest of your life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 No, what you need is more time than you think this will take you - lots more time. It will take you about an hour per disk by the time you take it out of the jacket, clean it, play it, save the file, back it up, and make some sort of journal entry about what you have (and back that up if you do it on computer). > This was my finding also... I wanted to just record my LP's and cassettes on "autopilot"... just press "RECORD" and leave the room. But that didn't work (for me). There are a number of variables, as MikeRivers points out, that crop up during the whole prep-and-record-and-edit session. I now do all my archiving song-by-song. One problem is that, if you record a whole slew of tracks in one go, you'll have an enormous, unwieldy WAV file to manage as a result... now, my computer can handle it, and I'll bet yours can, too, but it's still a pain in the keester to make sense of that file later on, especially if the file needs some post-processing (DC offset, de-noise, de-pop, de-hum, some EQ, dithering, normalization) and also as you figure out just how you're going to burn it to CD. This is one of those "If you're going to do it at all, you may as well do it right" moments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 I've turned a few LPs into CDs with Pro Tools, and it's time-consuming. I'll do a song here and there, but I'm definitely not going to make a habit of doing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Han Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 Adobe Audition, record the whole LP, save it like Craig said. AA has a pop/crackle/hiss remover that works really well. The few leftover pops can be removed manually with 'repair transient'. Save the tweaked version, put it in Sony CD architect, put start ID's wherever you want them, burn CD, done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jackpine Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 There are a few keys here. One is to be sure that the whatever you plug your turntable into is set for PHONO. The Riaa curve must be applied or your conversion will sound like crap. I record directly into Wave lab and do one side at a time. Yeah its a big file, but computers these days can still process the pants off a 25 minute file in just a minute or so. I then just use Sony's noise reduction and vinyl restoration and viola. Fine tune if necessary. Ctl-insert the cd markers in and scorch it. But as every one else has said, I would give an hour for every album. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 My E-Mu 1820m interface has a turntable input, so that makes things relatively easy for me. I load Sonar, arm a track to record from the turntable input, and after cleaning the LP, I record one side at a time. I do a little editing of the recorded tracks. My old turntable sounds pretty good, but the right stereo track outputs about 2db lower than the left, so in Sonar I tweak the right track volume up to even it up. For really big pops I usually edit them out of the track -I just cut them out and rejoin the "split clips" in Sonar. Then I have to cut the track into individual songs and export the songs as WAV files, each named correctly. Then I burn the songs to a CD, in the right order. Then I rip the CD back into my PC, picking up all the song titles, composers, etc., off the internet. The CDs I mark with a sharpie, and stack them on old 100-CD spindles. Yeah, it's slow. But I have a lot of old vinyl (at least to me it's a lot) and I can do this while watching a ball game or doing some chore or other. It's a bit nostalgic, too, which is fun. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members temnov Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 I just did it for my friend, transferred Ultimate Elvin Jones Trio circa 1968. John Farrel's saxophone was so good! - as well as drums and bass, of course. I used Wavelab 6, one side at the time, too, removed some clicks and cracks and adjusted level for couple of db with UAD limiter. Also I left original tracks as it is, just in case, as Craig mentioned. The original sound was so good and fresh, I couldn't believe it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the stranger Posted February 17, 2007 Members Share Posted February 17, 2007 Great thread and tips, guys! I don't have a 3000 LP collection, but I do have a bunch of 7" grind/crust/etc that I would like to transfer. Some of the best grind/crust is only avaliable on 7". _~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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