Check the production studio - it comes up on a daily basis.

You could use it for recording live but unless you either know the house engineer and he's set up for live recording or are prepared to lug around large kit yourself, you're out of luck.

What I've done is as follows:-

1) Tonearm Weight - Make sure the weight on the tonearm is correctly set for the particular stylus & cart you use (look on google). What I did was turn back the weight until the tonearm would float in the air instead of rising all the way up or rising up and falling back down. When it is floating perfectly, turn the black dial part (with the numbers) so its set to 0, and then turn the weight round until its set to whatever it should be for your cart/stylus setup (for my ortofon concorde its set to 3 (3 grams).

2) Tonearm Height - Make sure the tonearm height is set correctly for the type of cart & stylus you use (a good way to do this is measure the height in mm (milimetres) with a ruler from one end of the tonearm (near the cart & stylus) and then take a measurement from the tonearm base (where you can adjust the tonearm height). The 2 measurements should be within 2mm of each other otherwise you have the tonearm set too high or too low, which can damage your records as the needle doesnt sit in perfectly in

3) Anti-skate - Set the correct anti-skate for your turntables. To do this I got a 1 sided vinyl, turned it over and put the needle on the ungrooved vinyl surface, and lifted the tonearm up and adjusted the anti-skate until it sits on the ungrooved vinyl without moving inwards or outwards. Then as a double check I span the record backwards and forwards with my hand to check that the tonearm didnt move at all. You know then when it is set correctly.

4) Record Input Level on Computer - I went into my vista setup and made sure that I set the auxiliary (I use aux input rather than line in) to 100% (slid it all the way to the right). If you need more info on how to set this let me know (PM me)

5) Channel level on mixer - I set the channel levels on my mixer to 10 (all the way to the top!)

6) EQ settings on mixer - I always leave this at default when ripping vinyls but as you mix you'll be adjusting them probably. But always try to set them back to default is my advice

6) Gain levels - What I do is when I am ripping (this will apply to you when your mixing though) I play through various parts of the vinyl and adjust the gain until the monitor level display on the mixer shows a MAXIMUM of one red bar (anything more than 1 red bar will create clipping/distortion) on your recording. Obviously every track will need an adjustment on the gain level and its a pain in the arse but since I've been doing this my rips when I have been digitizing my vinyls has been spot on! And it also means that a similar volume level will remain throughout your mix, rather than some tracks being a lot quieter than others.

7) Recording software - I recommend using Adobe Audition, Audacity or Soundforge to record your mixes, they work really well!

8) Normalizing the mix after recording - What I normally do when ripping vinyls is normalize the .wav file after to -0.5dB, I cant find the words to explain this in more detail at the moment (it is late!) but I'd recommend normalizing the recording level down slightly like this.

9) Cables - Make sure you get a half decent cable (RCA to Line Jack) or RCA to RCA. For ripping vinyls I use RCA to RCA and use the RCA inputs on the front input/output channel of my sound card (but not everyone has this obviously) so buy a decent RCA to Line In Jack cable and make sure you plug it in the line in on the back of your soundcard! ;-)

Hope this is of use

Within Audacity, what setting do you guys set the Input Volume at?
The default is 1.0

Should I set it lower than this? And whats the benefit of doing this?

I ask because I set it to 0.8 the other day and my recording still clipped which meant that I still needed to keep the gains down on the mixer to prevent the clipping - so why set the Input Volume any lower than the default setting of 1.0 if careful gain use is still needed?

Cheers

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Afterward - July 2009 Mix

Yeah I set the record volume to 100% and just make sure the gain isnt too high on the mixer

quote:

Originally posted by Simcut Yeah I set the record volume to 100% and just make sure the gain isnt too high on the mixer

The record volume within Audacity? Or whatever software you use.

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Afterward - July 2009 Mix

what OS are you on? XP or Vista?

You need to go to the sound card mixer and set the record volume for the recording device (aux or line-in) to 100%, thats what I did, and then made sure the gain level was set correctly to stop clipping

Hmm that's strange... I'm using vista and at the moment I have to have the input level on the line in at about 10% so that it doesn't clip. This is with the gains set so that the channels don't go into red as well. If I was to raise the line in level any higher it just becomes total distortion.

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::::: DjTrig.Com :::::
Afterward - July 2009 Mix

Hmm that is odd :/ 10%? it should be more than that, very odd indeed :S