God what a f***ing nightmare!

I am using:

- iBook G4 1GB ram
- Technics 1200mk2 (with stanton 500II carts/stylus)
- Griffin iMic
- Griffin grounding wire (connects the turntable L & R audio plus grounding wire to the iMic)

Yet it keeps screwing up! I get gaps in the audio & little skips (which arent the needle) plus the final recording is quieter than say, the mp3s i have (payed) downloaded. What on earth is wrong?!!

Would I be better off doing it through the mixer? (I have a DXM06) I also have Audacity

Anyones help would be greatly appreciated!

PS: I have searched but couldnt find anything relavent

Last edited by Daniel Jay on May-25-2006 at 03:46

Do you have one of the new iMics that is designed to let you take the signal from a turntable? The old one weren't designed for that I think.

As a test you could also try going through your mixer as possibly it has better phono EQing and pre-amp than the iMic.

I have the latest iMic as far as I know, its the small white one.

By the way I am using final vinyl, which I set the eq to "connected to turntable" otherwise there is no bass & it comes out even quieter!

I have tried recording into Audacity, but the same happens, no bass, low volume

Right I have tried doing it through my mixer, with no problems. I read somewhere on here though I shouldnt do it through the mixer though because it detracts from the quality. Sounds ok to me though! I am converting my vinyls to mp3/CD with playing out in a club in mind, so I want them to be good quality...

Right now I am doing it this way:

Turtable > mixer (through grounded phono input obviously) > griffin iMic (from "record" output on my DXM06 mixer) > iBook (into Audacity, making sure the loudest part stays below 0db)

Does anyone see any problems with this? as it sounds good quality to me when I play it back...

I just did a direct comparisson between a couple of the tracks I had recorded and the original vinyl & theres too much of a difference seems I just wasted a whole day!

This is a f***ing nightmare! The original vinyl sounds far clearer than the recording of it, in particular the beat. The beat on the recorded version sounds somewhat muffled, and the high end "ts" are almost missing compared to the original vinyl, which seems to "penetrate" more (hope you understand what I mean) also the mids are perhaps louder or more distorted than they should be on the recorded version.

I know theres a slight difference between vinyl & CD playback. But this is not it, as I then tested an original CD single against the same track on vinyl, and there was virtually no difference. I also compared a track I downloaded in WAV format against a vinyl, and again there was virtually no difference.

Could someone please help me! Ive mentioned above what I have to work with. Surely some of you on here have been in the same situation before, when making the switch from vinyl to CD. I would very much appreciate it if I could get some good advice. (I have tried searching but like I said, there wasnt really anything relavent)

Thanks ppl,

Dan

Just keep the good old technics and play with both vinyl and mp3. Problem solved hooray!

The sound card input of the iBook might not be good enough. Generally notebook soundcards are OK for recording voice messages but they're not really audiophile quality. I know Macs do have better soundcards than most other laptops especially when outputting, but maybe the input quality is not good enough for what you're doing.

As a test I would try recording the analog output from a CD player (music similar to your vinyl), I'm not sure from your posts if you've tried that. If you can't record the CD in good quality then you won't be able to any better with vinyl. If the CD test is OK then that would indicate the iBook sound card is good enough.

Last edited by tvmann on May-27-2006 at 17:09

from what i understood the iMic doesn't have a real phono preamp, so that could be the source of the problem. i'd just record it straight from the mixer output to the computer/soundcard line input. if you haven't checked, check now that you're recording line input and not mic input.

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quote:

Originally posted by DJ Nickazz Just keep the good old technics and play with both vinyl and mp3. Problem solved hooray!

+1