Cleaning Up Files Ripped from Vinyl

[rcarlberg]

Back in the old CoolEdit days I used to occasionally apply band-limited compression, just compressing the bass & drums to bring them forward in the mix. Not sure Audacity can even do that.

Not quite sure what your waveform example above is intended to illustrate -- yes, if you boost the file the noise will get louder too, of course. That's one good reason for zeroing out all the bits that aren't music.

[klothos]

-- yes, if you boost the file the noise will get louder too, of course. That's one good reason for zeroing out all the bits that aren't music.

i usually gate those although i have manually muted those in the past

the part the red arrow was pointing to is not noise but the song's abstract intro (an analog to your subtle guitar illustration). If overcompressed, it sounds louder because it actually is louder. Not a big deal for rock music but this can totally screw up a classical piece.....

Anyway, you already know what youre doing on the tech end, bro, so Im not sure what it is youre looking to hear as a response in this thread

Back in the old CoolEdit days I used to occasionally apply band-limited compression, just compressing the bass & drums to bring them forward in the mix. Not sure Audacity can even do that.

Audacity was mainly designed as a DAW, not as a mastering program......it has since mutated to kind of accomplish both due to its popularity but Cool Edit was a far superior program for mastering needs

[rcarlberg]

I probably need to look into Sound Forge 2. It's only $100 and the comments in the App Store say it is far more user friendly than Audacity. Frequency-targeted compression is even mentioned.

[klothos]

I probably need to look into Sound Forge 2. It's only $100 and the comments in the App Store say it is far more user friendly than Audacity. Frequency-targeted compression is even mentioned.

Yes sir...I strongly recommend it....Keep in mind I use the $199 version so Im not sure what the differences are....I do know that if you are familiar with Cool Edit you should be able to navigate it very quickly

[trurl]

Sound Forge is what I use. Pro 11.

[rcarlberg]

Maybe Santa will bring one

[klothos]

Sound Forge is what I use. Pro 11.

yup...thats what i got

[trurl]

Btw I would say you kind have to get rid of the clicks first. If they're loud it will wreck your normalization.

[klothos]

Btw I would say you kind have to get rid of the clicks first. If they're loud it will wreck your normalization.

From what I know of rcarlberg from the forum, he seems to be very meticulous: I have a feeling hes gonna be one of those guys that will painstakingly go through the entire file looking for errant noise, errant peaks, and anomolies. He will probably wind up with an excellent collection of very pristine ripped files.

[trurl]

Well, I guess what I'm saying is that normalizing/compressing/limiting has to happen last. It's useless unless you're normalizing the file in its finished state.

[rcarlberg]

Yes, but it can be done more than once.

[trurl]

Yes, but it can be done more than once.

But the only one that matters is the last one

[3LockBox]

When would one use compression? On analog sources?

[rcarlberg]

When would one use compression? On analog sources?

Rarely, for sure.

In the past, I did a couple of fusion albums which sounded more modern (and admittedly CD-like) by applying some subtle compression. It's a judgement call, and not everyone would agree with me on that for sure.

[spacefreak]

Is there enough interest to open a thread about making CD-Rs from LPs?
[*]Dub an LP, one side at a time, to the computer using whatever hardware & software you use
[*]preserve all volume differences.
[*]First step is to take the big side-long audio file and start cutting it into tracks. Find the end of the first track, copy the start of the file to there, and do a copy (Cntrl-C), create new file (Cntrl-N) and paste (Cntrl-V).
[*]Take your new first track file, find the beginning of the music, and take everything before that and silence the audio (zero the bits). Cut it to a comfortable half-second or so length.
[*]Go to the end of the file, find where the audio fades out, and silence everything after that. Cut it to a comfortable 2-second length or so. Use the "fade-out" tool to fade the final audio in a natural-sounding length as the original recording fades -- fast for a instant stop, slow for a mixing board fade.
[*]Now, look at your file for large clicks. Sharp peaks well above the normal audio should be zoomed in on, confirmed as clicks, and redrawn if confirmed. I do this by hand, because I've never found an automated process which does it cleanly. Play the audio file and stop and fix each click or pop. This can take a few minutes with a clean LP, or a few weeks for a dirty one.
[*]Save the track file to a new folder with the album name, and move to the next track.
[*]When all tracks are cleaned burn to a CD-R

I'm doing just these. I have a semi-professional sound card and I'm avoiding automatic denoise and any normalization / equalization like a plague.

[rcarlberg]

I'm avoiding automatic denoise and any normalization / equalization like a plague.

Yes, in my experience automated noise reduction always results in that weird "underwater bacon frying" sound.

EQ must be applied sparingly, if at all.

Normalization OTOH is merely matching peak volumes and has no deleterious effect.

[trurl]

Yes, in my experience automated noise reduction always results in that weird "underwater bacon frying" sound.

A high quality algorithmic NR applied carefully will not do that- but at that point neither will it get rid of all the noise; it will just decrease it somewhat. Also it will go after reverb trails and can pretty drastically alter the original sound of the mix so I use it very sparingly...

[rcarlberg]

... but at that point neither will it get rid of all the noise; it will just decrease it somewhat.

Yep, absolutely true. The bottom line, for me, in making over a thousand CD-Rs from LPs is this: You can substantially improve on the sound of the source vinyl. You can eliminate most of the noise, and if need be you can use expansion (the opposite of compression) to "open up" the sound a little bit. It's quite possible to make a very good sounding CD-R from vinyl.

It'll never be as good as a CD sourced from the master tape however.

[3LockBox]

It's quite possible to make a very good sounding CD-R from vinyl.

It'll never be as good as a CD sourced from the master tape however.

well, when there are so many great works that never made it to CD, a very good sounding CD-R is better than nothing. BTW, I still marvel at the CD-R of Steven Miller's Singing Whale Songs In A Low Voice. I wished I had his second album.

[rcarlberg]

BTW, I still marvel at the CD-R of Steven Miller's Singing Whale Songs In A Low Voice. I wished I had his second album.

Did I make that for you?

And what second album -- I'm not aware of a second one, and neither is Discogs.org.

[3LockBox]

Did I make that for you?

And what second album -- I'm not aware of a second one, and neither is Discogs.org.

yes, you did.

And according to AllMusicGuide there was a second one in the '90s called Subterranea.

[rcarlberg]

Huh, okay, seems legit. I have ordered a copy in for examination

[PeterG]

I don't understand why people want to copy music from vinyl to a digital source when nowadays so much stuff on vinyl is either available already on CD or to buy as digital files or to stream and play both on and offline. Please explain. Is it because these poeple only want to listen via PC or ipod or on SD card in their vehicle? Or some similar reason?

[Koreabruce]

Much of the music being converted is NOT available in CD form. This was mentioned several times throughout this thread.

[spacefreak]

I don't understand why people want to copy music from vinyl to a digital source when nowadays so much stuff on vinyl is either available already on CD or to buy as digital files or to stream and play both on and offline. Please explain. Is it because these poeple only want to listen via PC or ipod or on SD card in their vehicle? Or some similar reason?

For those us who are "collectors" of rarities there are some well justified reasons:

1. First, there are thousands of interesting to great records not yet on CD.
2. Second, digital files of these recordings (mostly available as "illegal" downloads due to their rarity) are mostly lower encodings than 320 CBR mp3s and do not exist as Flac files.
3. Third, there are also many landmark recordings of the DIY cassette tape culture of the 80s, that are into the picture of being converted to CDRs.