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-- Ripping vinyl
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Okay so far I have ripped about 10 vinyl.

I am happy with the results but have one small discrepancy.

It has always been the case with my own mixer (and most other mixers I have used) that in stereo, there seems to be a slightly offset balance in favour of the right channel.
I recall having pondered this years ago but was advised that when the mixer is set to 'mono' the levels will always be equal.

I have never had anyone mention such a slight offset in channels before in respect of my mixes so I suspect it is barely noticeable (as a matter of fact, it isn't really)

That being said, I would be curious for an explanation as to why this does occur. One of those things I do find slightly annoying.

For the record, I did normalize the tracks.
I conducted several tests and found that the normalized tracks had more clarity at lower volumes in addition to sounding that bit 'sharper'

I appreciate everyone's opinions in this thread though. I always like to hear both sides of any debate.

normalizing can only degrade a signal. You are pretty much boosting the noise floor so it is essentially a pointless process not to say it doesn't have its place. It doesn't sound better, just louder which is what most people would call better but there are better ways to get the loudness by using less destructive processing.

First off, you have to understand that vinyl was mastered differently. Vinyl has much less bass and overall a different EQ profile. To rip vinyl , you essentially need to master the track for digital mediums.

There are some programs by Izotope that do this and have presets if you aren't too tech savy. Try to stay away from the normalize button.

quote:

Originally posted by A.B It has always been the case with my own mixer (and most other mixers I have used) that in stereo, there seems to be a slightly offset balance in favour of the right channel. I recall having pondered this years ago but was advised that when the mixer is set to 'mono' the levels will always be equal. I have never had anyone mention such a slight offset in channels before in respect of my mixes so I suspect it is barely noticeable (as a matter of fact, it isn't really)

the needle might set be a bit off-center on the tone arm.

quote:

Originally posted by A.B Okay so far I have ripped about 10 vinyl. I am happy with the results but have one small discrepancy. It has always been the case with my own mixer (and most other mixers I have used) that in stereo, there seems to be a slightly offset balance in favour of the right channel. I recall having pondered this years ago but was advised that when the mixer is set to 'mono' the levels will always be equal. I have never had anyone mention such a slight offset in channels before in respect of my mixes so I suspect it is barely noticeable (as a matter of fact, it isn't really) That being said, I would be curious for an explanation as to why this does occur. One of those things I do find slightly annoying. For the record, I did normalize the tracks. I conducted several tests and found that the normalized tracks had more clarity at lower volumes in addition to sounding that bit 'sharper' I appreciate everyone's opinions in this thread though. I always like to hear both sides of any debate.

Tonearm, cartridge and anti-skating settings all have an effect on the loudness differences of the left and right channels. I've got some vinyls where the other channel is noticeably louder than the other, even though other vinyls play just fine. One vinyl for example is a lot thicker than my other records. Not sure if that is the only explanation for its loudness differences or is it just a bad pressing. Anyway the problem is easily solved by adjusting your tonearm, cart and anti-skating properly and if you happen to have the odd vinyl every now and then that has another channel louder than the other, it's easy to normalize the channels separately to the same peak dB value (once you've removed all the pops and clicks that peak higher than any of the actual music on the record). This usually results in the channels having the same perceived volume, but not always. It can be easily visually inspected in your wave editor though. If your cart and tonearm are set up correctly, I'd try lowering the anti-skating.

Also switching the signal to mono from the mixer sums both channels together and feeds that same signal from both channels. As both of the channels have the exact same signal, there should be no volume differences, unless it's an issue with your mixer or sound card, which it most likely isn't.

Peak normalization is a completely nondestructive processing method if you stay at or below 0 dB. All it does, is raise the signal to the set dB value, ie makes things louder. Yes, it also boosts the noise floor as does a tweak of the volume knob but as it does not affect the dynamics at all, it does not do any harm.

Normalizing should not provide any added clarity or sharpness. Only thing I can think of that would explain this is if you controlling the volume digitally and the recorded signal amplitude has been very low. Then you'd get rid of some of the noise by normalizing when setting the volume level to be the same from your receiver/whatever analogically. As digital volume control does nothing to change the noise floor of the hardware while with an analog volume control, the noise floor increases/decreases with volume adjustment, generally speaking at least. I doubt any of this would be noticeable though, unless you have a really bad sound card with loads of noise on the output. But with digital signals it's always better to have the signal at the maximum non-clipping level when it exits the outputs. The effects of this can be easily tested by playing something in iTunes for example with a crappy integrated sound card and lowering the volume from the iTunes slider to as low as you can and then adjusting the volume to be about the same on the receiver as it would be if the slider would be at the max position. You should be able to hear a lot more noise when the volume from iTunes has been adjust to the lowest possible setting.

Sorry for the long and incoherent rant. Just woke up and am in bit of a hurry.

Peak normalization is not non destructive. I understand how one would think this as the process seems rather transparent but it usually involves some process where rounding and quantization errors will occur. Does it matter ? Probably not. You won't ever catch a mastering engineer using that function as it serves no purpose. And if they do, they won't ever admit to it.

I suppose it all depends on your goal. If it is just for home use, sure normalize to your hearts content but if I were to run a mastering house and found an engineer normalizing material, he / she would be out of job.

So played out last night with a lot of these tracks I had ripped from vinyl....

The sound quality was absolutely fine on the sound system. Very happy with it.

Thanks again for all the advice folks.

quote:

Originally posted by skip Tonearm, cartridge and anti-skating settings all have an effect on the loudness differences of the left and right channels. I've got some vinyls where the other channel is noticeably louder than the other, even though other vinyls play just fine. One vinyl for example is a lot thicker than my other records. Not sure if that is the only explanation for its loudness differences or is it just a bad pressing. Anyway the problem is easily solved by adjusting your tonearm, cart and anti-skating properly and if you happen to have the odd vinyl every now and then that has another channel louder than the other, it's easy to normalize the channels separately to the same peak dB value (once you've removed all the pops and clicks that peak higher than any of the actual music on the record). This usually results in the channels having the same perceived volume, but not always. It can be easily visually inspected in your wave editor though. If your cart and tonearm are set up correctly, I'd try lowering the anti-skating. Also switching the signal to mono from the mixer sums both channels together and feeds that same signal from both channels. As both of the channels have the exact same signal, there should be no volume differences, unless it's an issue with your mixer or sound card, which it most likely isn't. Peak normalization is a completely nondestructive processing method if you stay at or below 0 dB. All it does, is raise the signal to the set dB value, ie makes things louder. Yes, it also boosts the noise floor as does a tweak of the volume knob but as it does not affect the dynamics at all, it does not do any harm. Normalizing should not provide any added clarity or sharpness. Only thing I can think of that would explain this is if you controlling the volume digitally and the recorded signal amplitude has been very low. Then you'd get rid of some of the noise by normalizing when setting the volume level to be the same from your receiver/whatever analogically. As digital volume control does nothing to change the noise floor of the hardware while with an analog volume control, the noise floor increases/decreases with volume adjustment, generally speaking at least. I doubt any of this would be noticeable though, unless you have a really bad sound card with loads of noise on the output. But with digital signals it's always better to have the signal at the maximum non-clipping level when it exits the outputs. The effects of this can be easily tested by playing something in iTunes for example with a crappy integrated sound card and lowering the volume from the iTunes slider to as low as you can and then adjusting the volume to be about the same on the receiver as it would be if the slider would be at the max position. You should be able to hear a lot more noise when the volume from iTunes has been adjust to the lowest possible setting. Sorry for the long and incoherent rant. Just woke up and am in bit of a hurry.

Just learn to use the GAINS knobs and forget the rest!

Why don't turntables have 1/4" outs? It feels stupid having to run it through a mixer instead of just plugging the tables directly into the audio interface. RCA only because of the ground or something...?

it needs a RIAA anyway. phono/rca is the homeaudio standard. turntables are in most cases considered homeaudio. and how many dj-mixers have 1/4 inputs???? none of the ones ive had.

anyone notice that skip stopped posting? couldn't handle being so wrong?

amateurs.

quote:

Originally posted by clay it needs a RIAA anyway. phono/rca is the homeaudio standard. turntables are in most cases considered homeaudio. and how many dj-mixers have 1/4 inputs???? none of the ones ive had.

This should all be changed now. No one uses turntables anymore aside from DJ culture.

very small.. enough to base your entire market around? Fuck no.

http://m.voanews.com/english/Vinyl-...-129182088.html

now make a counter argument with something other than opinion meriter.

most of my interactions and purchases from people on discogs are from audiophiles and collectors...not djs. People that like indie also have been buying records again, and also not djs. People buying electronic music via this format might have more djs than other genres, but edm does not dominate record sales vs more mainstream genres that do not go hand in hand with dj culture. quite wrong you are meriter.

lol great article


you should just be able to wire a turntable directly into your audio interface with an adapter right?



something like this would work http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...0_Computer.html

Re: Ripping vinyl

quote:

Originally posted by A.B I should point out that the venue holds around 250 people

Why?

quote:

Originally posted by meriter This should all be changed now. No one uses turntables anymore aside from DJ culture.

yeah its changing to 1/8 stereo

even worse....

fucking capitalism ruins quality.

man up and post some proper arguments instead of stupid snide remarks.

**************
toronto seo

shutup, mike.

quote:

Originally posted by meriter shutup, mike.

Do it for the children.

quote:

Originally posted by EddieZilker Do it for the children.

Ripping them? You nasty!!

LOL^

I have the day off so imma rip some vinyls tonight. I do it like this.

1.- Clean my needles after every track.
2.- Use GruvGlide on every record.
3.- My 1200 is set on a solid table to prevent movement from people walking in the room. Turntables can pick up noise and needles can skip. Just tap a 1200 when it's playing and you can hear the noise on your speakers.
4.- CONNECTIONS: 1200 to DJM 800 (I wish I had an analogue mixer to record, but I don't, so this will do). DJM 800 to Audio 8. Audio 8 to Mac Pro. Again, I don't have a better sound card, so this will do.
5.- RECORDING: I use Sound Studio 4 to record because I like it. lol Very easy, straight forward yet powerful audio editor. Plus it lets me save in a bunch of different formats. I save all my tracks as AIFF.

When recording, I put all my levels as loud as possible without hitting the red. That way I can get the loudest volume without distortion. I have to adjust each track individually because sound levels vary greatly on vinyl.

I also like to record flat. So I set all my EQ's on my mixer to 0. When I first started I made the mistake of EQ'ing the tracks during the recording. I regret it. Now, if a track needs EQ'ing, I'll tweak it on Ableton.

I'd recommend the folowing:

Prepare the vinyl first by cleaning it using the wood glue method. I then listen to the vinyl using a 500AL cart and listen for any clicks pops still present. If there is I will wood glue it again and check again. If it is an amazing tune I might consider sending it off for cleaning on a moth machine (service available on ebay).

Setup your decks anti skating and weights correctly. ensure pitch at 0 is correct. Ensure height is correct. I clean out the connections on the tonearm with rubbing alcohol.

Also buy a proper ADC with at least 48Khz 16bit recording (96Khz 24 bit if you can). This ensures you are using the RIAA curve when recording into your software. I use cool edit.

Once I'm happy the medium is as clean as it can be I will wipe surface dust off with an anti static brush. I then put on my spare ortfon arkiv styli. I wipe this in the direction of the styli with the brush ortfon gave me.

I then use the tonearm raise/lower bar thing to put the styli on the record with the platter stopped. I press start and stand totally still. I then record several seconds of hum with the needle on the record (but the platter stopped). I keep this for removal later.

I then place the needle in the loudest part of the track and then take the record volume to around -6db absolute max. I will increase that later after I remove all the noise I can.

Now I go for a full rip. I put my good styli in, I press start, close the lid and i leave the room. That way there is no chance of any noise being picked up by myself.

I lift the needle off using the correct tonearm level thingy. I save this as the master wav. I create a copy to put into Izotope RX2.

From here I take samples of the noise at the beginning of the track. So first I remove the electrical hum when the platter was not moving. This is removed 100%.

I then sample the noise before the first few beats (but never two seconds before the first beat as some vinyls seem to have a real feint noise of the track here). I then live preview that using output noise only until I am happy that i'm losing very little music. Reality
is you will lose something but not really noticable if done right.

After that I remove click and pops using the output noise preview. What I look for here is clicks that make rhythms which is a sure sign the settings are too high. Izotope is real good at this part.

I save that and put it into cool edit and run another click pop removal using my own custom settings.

I then finally amplify as close to 0db as possible locking the left right channel so as not to disturb any deliberate volume / panning by the artist.

After that I keep my eyes peeled for any digital / CD copies so I can be sure of cleanness

Here are 2 examples of a VG+ vinyl I got on Discogs which using the above method I got to sound like the below.

Sample 1
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]


Sample 2
[[ LINK REMOVED ]]



Always try and buy Mint where possible to improve the chances of getting the holy grail CD sound rip!

quote:

Originally posted by Matt_Moor I'd recommend the folowing: Prepare the vinyl first by cleaning it using the wood glue method. I then listen to the vinyl using a 500AL cart and listen for any clicks pops still present. If there is I will wood glue it again and check again. If it is an amazing tune I might consider sending it off for cleaning on a moth machine (service available on ebay). Setup your decks anti skating and weights correctly. ensure pitch at 0 is correct. Ensure height is correct. I clean out the connections on the tonearm with rubbing alcohol. Also buy a proper ADC with at least 48Khz 16bit recording (96Khz 24 bit if you can). This ensures you are using the RIAA curve when recording into your software. I use cool edit. Once I'm happy the medium is as clean as it can be I will wipe surface dust off with an anti static brush. I then put on my spare ortfon arkiv styli. I wipe this in the direction of the styli with the brush ortfon gave me. I then use the tonearm raise/lower bar thing to put the styli on the record with the platter stopped. I press start and stand totally still. I then record several seconds of hum with the needle on the record (but the platter stopped). I keep this for removal later. I then place the needle in the loudest part of the track and then take the record volume to around -6db absolute max. I will increase that later after I remove all the noise I can. Now I go for a full rip. I put my good styli in, I press start, close the lid and i leave the room. That way there is no chance of any noise being picked up by myself. I lift the needle off using the correct tonearm level thingy. I save this as the master wav. I create a copy to put into Izotope RX2. From here I take samples of the noise at the beginning of the track. So first I remove the electrical hum when the platter was not moving. This is removed 100%. I then sample the noise before the first few beats (but never two seconds before the first beat as some vinyls seem to have a real feint noise of the track here). I then live preview that using output noise only until I am happy that i'm losing very little music. Reality is you will lose something but not really noticable if done right. After that I remove click and pops using the output noise preview. What I look for here is clicks that make rhythms which is a sure sign the settings are too high. Izotope is real good at this part. I save that and put it into cool edit and run another click pop removal using my own custom settings. I then finally amplify as close to 0db as possible locking the left right channel so as not to disturb any deliberate volume / panning by the artist. After that I keep my eyes peeled for any digital / CD copies so I can be sure of cleanness

Damn! You'r hella serious! But that Izotope RX2 program is way over the top for me regarding the price.

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