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-- Ripping My Vinyls, Need a Little Help
Ripping My Vinyls, Need a Little Help
Hey Guys and Girls, Well, Im a Newbie Ripping Vinyls, and now I want to sorte my little collection into mp3s, I Downloaded the Sound Forge software to do it, I have 1200 mk2, and a very old Crap Mixer, the Needles arent too great also.... Well, I Ripped Tranzy State of Mind to compare to the one I downloaded from TA, and The TA was Definetly a lot Better than the one I ripped, so... That could be the Mixer, The needle??, Can I hook my Turntable directly to my PC or do I need the MIxer??,... and about the Volume... where must be the Volume of My Mixer, the Master one, and the Fader??,.. and what about the EQs,.. The MIxer that I have doesnt has EQs, but my friend has one with EQs... so.. if I need it I he can borrow me, and about the Software : Do i need to do something Special: is in 44.100 mhz, 16 bit, Stereo.... Well... thats All... Thanks in Advance.
Carlos.
The quality of the turntable, needle / cartridge, mixer and soundcard will affect the quality. If you have an LED display on your mixer make sure the volume peaks at +0dB but nothing higher. Otherwise it will distort.
the basics:
a) mixer EQ's at +/- zero
b) set the level at the loudest point of the track so the mixer level indicates peaks just barely over 0 db level
c) adjust your soundcard line in level so the recording software indicates just a hair under zero db at the loudest point (alot of soundcards tend to distort at or above zero db level) [this can usually be done with the windows record mixer... run sndvol32 with the /r switch]
d) turntable pitch at zero
mixer is required - your soundcard will not take a phono-in signal.. unless your tables have standard line outs (like the stantons)
old needles will obviously reduce the sound quality all around. a cheap soundcard with a poor line in wont help either!
I use cooledit to record with - it's lighter, quicker, and much easier to deal with than soundforge IMHO. I then MP3 the file with lame.exe and then use WinAMP to set the ID3V2 tags on the file... then i use a batch renaming program to set all the filenames in my standard format.
it would be good to get a second set of styli for recording - i have extra styli that I use only when ripping vynil or spinning into a recording device...
i doubt your mixer is a problem.
if your mixer has a record out, use that to connect to your line in. otherwise use the main out.
channel fader all the way up, crossfader all the way over to the respective deck. master volume whereever the mixer level indicator peaks just over zero, only at the very loudest peaks.
-mer
Thank You Very Much Guys, now I know the right way to do it, and Btw
MERiDiAN5i2, what u mean when u say ´´batch renaming program to set all the filenames in my standard format´´??, u say that that will put the name to the file??.. that could help me a lot, couse i was wondering to put all those names, remixes can take a lot of time,... Please let me know about it... thanks.
later.
When recording, the goal is to try to retain the maximum amount of quality from the original source as possible. To do this you have to understand where the points of quality loss are and how much they affect the overall quality. First, you are playing the original source from a record. The player works by picking up vibrations from the needle, and hence anything that is not from the vinyl groove, is a source of extra noise (quality loss 1). I would have the player set on a very sturdy surface and not have the speakers on at all. You can wear headphones to monitor the track. If you do have the speakers on, then play them quietly and do not put them on the same surface as the turntable. From here you can go directly into your soundcard if you can input rca cables. If not, then then use your mixer. If you can bypass your mixer without spending more money (if you are being cost effective) then do so, otherwise use the mixer and all you will need is an inexpensive ($10-$15 for gold plated) cable to go from rca to 1/8" stereo jack that you can pick up at radio shack. The next source of quality loss (#2) is from the wires themselves. I wouldn't suggest going out and getting all new gold plated wires though because it's going to be quite costly and it won't improve sound THAT much. Next is the DAC/ADC (digital-to-analog converter/analog=to-digital converter) in your mixer. Hopefully you have a decent mixer and it is 24-bit or higher. If it is lower, you may wish to get a new soundcard that you can plug rca cables into. This will be the 2nd biggest source of quality loss. The same thing goes for your soundcard. You want to have at least a 24-bit DAC on your soundcard too for the same reason. The lower the bitrate on your DAC/ADC the lower the quality. Think of it like lines on a TV, cable is about 90/sec, VHS is about 120/sec, DVD is 600/sec and HDTV is like 900/sec I believe. Think about the difference in images you can see between cable and dvd, then make the analogy to a sound file!
From here you come to the biggest source of quality loss (#3), which is conversion into an MP3. Well, it may not be your biggest loss depending on your encoding bitrate, but it has the potential to kill all of your quality! First thing, I would record the track as a wave file, which is default in SoundForge anyway. Then you can listen to that and see if you are loosing the quality between your record and your harddrive or from your harddrive to your MP3. I wouldn't encode an MP3 any less than 128kbps, and I would suggest using at least 160kbps if you want to retain a good amount of quality while still being space effective. If you have unlimited space, or almost anyway, then I would jump up to 192kbps or 256kbps. After that point, chances are you aren't loosing a considerable amount from the original source anyway.
Anyway, so when you are all ready to record, then you want to make sure that you aren't overloading any of your parts. Make sure you use record out or master out on your mixer and NOT booth out. Also make sure that you don't overload the signal either. This is done by letting the song play out and making sure that the LEDs don't spike above -2Db or -4Db at the max. You can go over 0Db, but not by too much! You can always use the normalize function that SoundForge has to increase the total volume of the track without robbing any quality from it! Also, make sure that you are using your line in and NOT your mic in on your soundcard!!
I hope this helps, let me know if I can answer any other questions!
Very good explanation. 2 things to add though.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dj Flesch First, you are playing the original source from a record. .... From here you can go directly into your soundcard if you can input rca cables. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dj Flesch Next is the DAC/ADC (digital-to-analog converter/analog=to-digital converter) in your mixer. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MERiDiAN5i2 d) turntable pitch at zero |
true.. but it's a good practice to do rips of the vynil as it is - ie zero pitch and level at zero db.
then again, my MP3 player has pitch control, so i can change all this on the PC 
-mer
| quote: |
| Originally posted by j_spot I disagree w/ that. I find that songs usually sound best when in the +2 pitch range, so I find where I like em and rip em. I have some that are @ -7 and other @ +6 |
Thank you Guys... I really Appreciate your Help, Im not agree with Moving the pitch slider in the rip time since a want the ORIGINAL version of a rip Not a moderate one, Maybe for other proposes could work, but for sorte and share is best has the Original BPM of the song... Thanks.
Later.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by DJ-Energy well, i hope u dont rip for ripping groups then |
i have a question...would i be able to hook up my turntable to a reciever and from the reciever to the computer?...thnx in advance
.dJonE.
I guess it would depend on the outs that your receiver has
If all it has is speaker outs, then you can't.
mine ha a headphone out, and recorded out of that, works great.
most [decent] recievers will have at least one line out - just connect that to your soundcards line in and the turntable to the PHONO jack of the reciever.
-mer
| quote: |
| Originally posted by JohnSmith Very good explanation. 2 things to add though. No, you can't. your turntable puts out a phono signal, your soundcard isn't going to have a phono preamp on it.. not any that i know anyway. maybe i am mistaken? in any case a soundcard would be a lousy place to have your phono preamp anyway, with all the noise in your PC. why would you have a DAC/ADC on your mixer? it recieves analog, and sends analog out, there is no conversion. unless you are using a digital mixer.. which there aren't many that i know of. |
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