I appreciate the time and effort you spent composing this tutorial. I too, am a storyteller, but instruction is the point. I know I can't or refuse to carry my turntable around. We all know that preserving our most loved vinyl music is paramount. What I was expecting was detailed focused instruction on transferring to Vinyl Studio as well as explaining the options available to maintain the origins while enhancing for compressed digital. Only an observation. Not a condemnation. I do give you credit for sharing your expertise with Vinyl Studio.
Thanks for sitting through it, even though it wasn't exactly what you were looking for. I may have to consider putting together a step by step guide in the future.
I realize I’m late to the party, but I very recently caught the virus and dove into Vinyl Studio. It works great, and I CANNOT BELIEVE how good some of my records sound. Thanks for a few solid tips on how to expedite the process!
Sorry for the late reply markvandenberg4606. I am glad to hear there is another Vinyl Studio user out there and I continue to use it to this day. It's just so hard to find some of this music digitally and I find this to be a god send.
Thank you! I just got a turntable that will connect to my computer, and the rest of the process was a mystery. This is such a huge help, seeing a workflow and hearing about available options. I haven’t heard most of my LPs in over 30 years, so this should be fun.
Good luck Linda! To me it's really nice to be able to listen to things that are not available digitally. At least not yet and I kind of hope it remains that way. Sort of like having your own buried treasure. Have fun ripping!
Hi Paul, thank you for sharing your method here, and indeed your history of ripping, hardware and software over the years. I think you point out in the video there are many approaches and indeed solutions people can take, but the way you step us through your setup in this video makes it sound easily achievable for folks who want to start the process. For folks already doing it you may not convert them exactly to your method (as you point out with your FLAC/MP3 rips example - we are creatures of necessity and habit!) but you open things up here to a wider discourse. There has to be some vinylstudio features there that would save others tons of time - the linking with discogs for both naming and track splitting was the big wow factor here. So obvious it should almost be a standard. I have to say I enjoyed seeing your notes in discogs on each release - you had plating/mastering details there as a quick reminder which is a great idea. You did also have 240 unread messages!! ;-) Anyway thank you for this one, you always do a great job of exploring the perimeters of record collecting, but making those outer limits easily accessible to the average joe like myself. Fantastic production quality as usual too, that time and effort is always greatly appreciated. Best wishes for a happy new year to you! Cheers- Dean
He he! Hello Dean. You have an eagle eye my friend. I am terrible about managing my Discogs Inbox ;) I really need to clean the whole thing out since a lot of it gets replicated in my real e-mail inbox. As for the notes, you're right. I have been plotting out th production of more Tales From The Deadwax videos but I wanted to record what I was noting in the deadwax of the records for future reference. For all the new pressing plants, I got most of 'em covered but there are still a couple of minor ones I can comment on. I just really started to load my vinyl into Discogs this year and I have a long ways to go! So without a complete reference frame, future episodes of that series are a bit challenging. I guess if there is one con to the VinylStudio, the User Interface is a bit dated. It feels like it was programmed in the last decade. That's only a minor gripe though. All in all, I am happy it didn't take me that long to master the functionality and I was surprised there wasn't more here about it on UA-cam. VinylStudio did a few instructional videos that you can find but they're not the greatest. As always, thanks for being a loyal follower and watcher! I hope you had a nice warm Christmas.
@@BarakaPDub haha, discogs messages are mostly unnecessary unless selling. they definitely put more into the functionality than the interface, but still does everything you want! Actually a cool Christmas here, can't complain though. Hope yours was relaxing!
I used to record all my vinyl to mini disc when I was in the Navy to take all my music underway. This was 1998-2004 and I was based out of Japan where mini discs were very available. That worked really well.
Love the Mini Disc comment! I had a couple I used for bootlegging concerts back in the same timeframe because a portable tape DAC was just too far out of my price range at the time.
Great video Paul. I purchased Vinyl Studio in 2009 and it has constantly been updates and improved with new features over the years. I too love the integration with Discogs. I have upgraded both of my PC’s that are near turntables with sound cards that can do true 96/24 recording. There is definitely the desire to re-do old recordings when you find something to improve the process.
Wow! I didn't know that VinylStudio had been around that long. I agree with trying to capture things at 96/24 or higher if you can. It's cool that you have a PC near your turntable. I would love to have my desktop near a turntable but it's not in the current deck of cards. Happy New Year my friend!
It was something David Lynch mentioned regarding The Straight Story that has has stuck with me: no chapters in the DVD or blu-ray -- watch the movie from beginning to end as the artist intended. I agree with that regarding music; all my digitized albums are single streams and I listen from beginning to end. I use Audacity to digitize my music and ClickRepair software (DeNoiseLF to minimize Rumble and Hum, ClickRepair for clicks and pops). ClickRepair is not available anymore as the owner is or was sick and he shut down his business a while ago.
Cool video! Always enjoy watching and knowing that others also rip their vinyl. Using Audacity myself, ripping to hires and then doing all postwork in Adobe Audition. Love the process, very relaxing and I also can compare when I upgrade TT or cartridge with previous rips. I never get to listen back to my rips unfortunately due to time, but I still love doing it. Maybe someday.
So I have Adobe Audition but I've never used it for post production. Does it work well? I know if I upgrade my cart, I am going to be tempted to rip a bunch of things over again. Thanks for watching and commenting Bjoern.
That Discogs feature seems handy. I'm old school and I do everything manually using Adobe Audition and a Tascam audio interface. I'm not a fan of noise reduction, and I don't normalize the audio either, I adjust the recording levels on the analogue potentiometers of the audio interface, usually I make a small test beforehand to assess the loudest parts of the song. I record as loud as I can without reaching the 0db mark, instead of normalizing afterwards.
I agree with trying to burn as hot as you can without clipping. I try it with a song but I don't have the patience for an entire side so I am probably a bit on the conservative side. The less you can do to alter the original content is really what's best. What are your thoughts on Audition? I have it through my Adobe subscription but other than touch ups for video, I haven't used it much at all.
Hi. That sounds like Best Practice to me. The less "post production" or interference with the signal the better in my opinion. The art is to get the recording as good as you possibly can first time out rather than attempting to "fix it in the mix" later. Certainly the dynamic range can never be better than the source and "normalisation" is the first step on the slippery slope to the Loudness Wars. All the best for the New Year my friend
@@BarakaPDub Audition it's not the ideal tool to label your tracks, even Audacity has more resources to make that kind of work, although, as you said, you must do everything manually. I confess that I don't use portable devices very often, so it's very rare for me to rip an entire album, but in your case I agree that Vinyl Studio is probably the best tool. But for the sake of audio quality, even with Vinyl Studio I would avoid any type of post-production that changes the dynamics and tone of the original recording, but... I understand that you are ripping an entire album, so adjusting the levels of each individual track is not very practical. On the other hand, when I copy a vinyl track I'm trying to make it sound as close to the original as possible, so I prefer a "purist" approach. Different tools for different jobs! 😏
@@russputin6294 In my efforts to preserve the audio quality, I even connect the output of my phono preamp directly into the audio interface without using the more convenient "Tape out" output of my amp, but hey, I have the word "obsessive" in my UA-cam name. 😋
@@MrVinylObsessive I take my hat off to you, sir! I can't do that because my phono section is integrated with my Naim preamplifier but it's certainly the way to go if you have a stand-alone phono stage. If you want to be really O.C.D. it's a good idea to clean the stylus individually for every separate track; or as a minimum at least once about half-way through an l.p. side. Also all pick-up cartridges have an optimum operating temperature as the compliant stylus pivot material becomes less so when cold. Try keeping a desk spotlamp, with a low-wattage bulb, permanently switched on, close to and pointing at, the pickup, to keep it warm; slightly above a comfortable room temperature is about right. Switch it off when actually playing so there's no chance of warping any vinyl or low-level hum induction from the lamp cable. I wouldn't bother when just "listening" but, hey, we're preserving for posterity here! All the best for the New Year my friend ;0)
Loved this topic Paul. I have been thinking of ripping some of my collection so this is great info. I've also considered getting dj tables back and if so would consider Serato as an option to not destroy some of that precious vinyl. I loved the details you shared, and it did seem very user friendly. Thanks for sharing this topic, and the deeper dive into the software.
I hear you on the DJ'ing! If I ever went back into it, I would go strictly digital. One thing you could do is run a split signal and rip while you listen. This is something I have considered but I've been too lazy to set it up. I hope you and your family have a good New Year Tim!
We're getting spoiled with more videos from you lately! Makes me sad that you're not able to listen to your vinyl more during the pandemic, but I guess that's how it goes for now. Has Audacity been around for a few decades now? I think I remember hearing about it a while ago. VinylStudio FTW! Loved the samples. Wish I could chime in more here, but I don't consider myself patient and savvy enough to try all this! Super informative yet simplified video, as always. Really enjoyed it! :-) Really looking forward to your favorites of 2020 video next after you get a break from the screen!
So I spent the better part of the day working on the 2020 video ;) The hard part is done...the needle drops. All forty of 'em. I just need to film the meat of it now and I hope I can get it out by the 31st. Audacity has been around for a long time and it's nice that it's free. It takes a little bit to master but there are several guides on UA-cam which help. Vinyl Studio doesn't have much here which is kind of a shame. Thanks for watching Hanna and fingers crossed I can crank out the rest of the 2020 vid yah!
Timing for this is perfect. For years, I did a lot of vinyl conversions, mainly to save the cost of buying a CD, or as a favor for friends. They might have their High School band concert on vinyl, etc. I used Ganymede's Wave Corrector with click and pop removal and ripped to CD. I still have the software, but as you might guess, it is real time+, labor intensive. One lesson I learned the hard way is to never use the stick on CD labels, as most became problematic in different players, and I lost a lot of recordings as a result. Recently, I've been thinking of starting the project back up, mainly for HD streaming and the convenience advantages you speak of. I have a Brennan B2B with 700+ CD collection ripped to FLAC, all on a SSD which works pretty well when I don't have the time for the "steak dinner" all analog vinyl experience which is confined to my music listening room. I'll give the Vinyl Studio software a go, mainly for the Discogs connection. Thanks for the thorough, and as usual, detailed review!
Ha! I had the same experience with stick on CD labels back in the day. I was dumb enough at one point to load one into a car CD player...but that's another story for another time. Another reason I do this, and the main one I failed to mention, is because I live in hurricane alley. Doing a FLAC rip gives me a little peace of mind that a bit of my vinyl collection would be preserved if, god forbid, my house became severely damaged or flooded.
@@BarakaPDub I bought the VinylStudio Pro software after my 5 album free trial. I do like the Discogs connection, saves a ton of time. Also, it saves to FLAC, so that's exactly what I want. I also bought a zoom H5, handy recorder I saw in another video ($279 on Amazon). This thing is small, light weight and with mini input jack hooked to the RCA outs on my "audiophile" system upstairs, I can get a great .wav copy off the LP. It is then a simple matter to bring it downstairs and load it into VinylStudio via USB for any audio cleanup needed, Discogs treatment, and saved as a FLAC file. I was going to set up a 2nd turntable downstairs for conversions, not as good as the one upstairs, but no longer have that need. Thanks for the leads, Paul!
A few years ago I had a turntable that I could hook my I Pod up to. The recordings were awful. I have never ripped anything but people have shared their files with me. This was interesting to hear your thoughts. You made this very simple that even people like me could figure it out. Thank you for doing this Paul. I hope you have a Happy New Year. Steve
Thanks Steve and I need to catch your latest ;) Happy New Year to you as well. I've always been curious as to if there was a clean way to do this with an Apple app. If not, maybe there's a market for an app to be developed.
This is incredibly helpful. I definitely have some "only on vinyl" records I would love to rip at some point, but I've always been intimated by all the hardware and software requirements to do it right.
Michael, I think you'll like the software. I found it really straightforward to use and it took me about an hour of playing around with it to truly master it, without any guidance. Audacity, on the other hand, took a lot more time to figure out and the track labeling just became too tedious for me. If you end up trying it, let me know. I am sure there is a plethora of classical recordings that have never been digitized.
Thanks Lis! I wish you a very Happy New Year and thank you for watching as always. I got my best of 2020 being uploaded now as I respond to comments ;)
Thanks for a detailed video on transferring vinyl to digital. I recently transferred a 4 vinyl record box set to digital using Vinyl Studio (VS) and it was quite a task, mainly because I'm new to VS. You know, newbie mistakes. I noticed in your video that you use a portable recording device that is a step up from what I used: Behringer USB audio interface. I find it a bit cumbersome to have long cords connecting your amplifier to the USB audio interface and then from the USB device to your laptop. I was intrigued with using a portable recording device for a couple of reasons to eliminate the chord clutter my wife hates. I have 1 comment, or more correctly, an update since you originally published this video. As of June 2023, the "standard" version of Vinyl Studio now supports retrieving track information from discogs; you don't need to upgrade to the Pro version for that capability. And let me tell you, when you have 50 tracks, this really comes in handy! Now for a few questions. 1) Do you have the Mixpre-3 or 3ii? [Strike this. I just looked at the video again and discovered you are using the 3ii] 2) Is there an option with the Mixpre to stop recording after "needle up" at the end of the record? Or do you have to "baby-sit" the recording to avoid long silence after the needle lifts? 3) Which input do you use with the Mixpre: Aux/Mic In or XLR input? [Just like in #1, in the video it is clear you are using the XLR inputs. Have you ever tried using the Aux/Mic input to rip vinyl?]
Sorry for the delayed reply.. To answer your questions. 2.) Yeah, that's the downside, you do need to baby-sit it but really, if you put in a 64 GB flash card, it will run for hours. 3.) So I am using my Parasound 3+ with the XLR connects. I realize that most folks don't have this but the mic jack works just fine. The one Pro to the stereo mic jack is that you don't have to fiddle with the individual channel levels. There are some other options out there for recording thought that might be cheaper that the MixPre. I know some people have been using Zoom recorders and I used to use a TASCAM but with that I couldn't directly control the levels and had to buy attenuators to lower the input.
@@BarakaPDub Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and purchased a used MixPre, for several reasons, including favorable reviews when it came to recording. I checked an my phono preamp (simaudio Moon LP5.3) and it has XLR outputs. I've searched and searched the web for information on RCA vs XLR interconnects, and it seems the only advantage of the XLR jack is when you have long runs, which I don't have. Any thoughts on using the mini-jack the record versus using RCA to XLR interconnect versus XLR to XLR connection. Thanks for any advice.👏👏👏
I've used both and it's true XLRs are better for long runs. Personally, I like them for the more secure connection. I have used both before and the minijack RCAs make it easy a little easier on the stereo separation.
Great tutorial video Paul. Love Vinyl Studio and have been using it for almost 6 years now, not just for my vinyl ripping but also as a process for my grading. It's worked well for me. Though I must say, I really don't do anything with the rips as of yet (other than using them for vinyl grading); I run into the same problem... doing all this work to split tracks and make individual files and port them to iTunes (and then an iPod or iPhone) only to upgrade a component (better cartridge or phono stage) and needing to do the process over again (not just for one but ALL haha!). It's a little much. I usually only put that work into albums that I cannot find in streaming... I also create mixtapes for VC friends every now & then and I pull exclusively from vinyl > recording it using my Allen & Heath ZED10FX mixer to Vinyl Studio; doing final editing there and outputting to tape or CD. This little program does a lot and I love how it can make it easy; yet it can dive into the complicated with you if you want to go there. I really don't have the equipment for that (yet); but I'm glad to know it's there. Again, great job! Oh, and forgot to say in the last comment, hope you had a happy holiday season and Happy New Year! Glad to see you making more videos! I'm working at that as well - New Year's resolutions. 😀
Brad, first of all great to hear from you. You are definitely missed and one of a handful of guys on my must watch list. That said, I wouldn't force it and only make the videos when you're feeling motivated. This should be a fun thing and not feel like a chore. Regardless, I am happy you're still out there my friend. 6 years?!? Wow. I wish I would have bought this program much earlier. I was doing everything through Audacity and a lot of it was trial and error with the program. Now I am just delighted I can do things, especially the labelling in an automated fashion. I didn't think about doing it as a grading tool but if you get right down to it. It's probably the best tool out there to grade since it can tell you how many errors it finds. It's so cool you're making mixtapes with vinyl. That's such a great idea!
Audacity, Numark TTUSB and an old HP laptop running Windows 7. Works for me, as does 128 kbps mp3 files (and before anyone says anything I never will claim myself to be an audiophile! I just hear no difference over that particular bitrate.) Rubbing alcohol and a sock for cleaning - a clean sock, D'OH - and when doing albums, record BOTH sides (or all sides, depending upon how many LP's in the set), click removal, noise reduction IF REQUIRED and normalizing. However, I use the album's record label and catalog number for the album name...as I do an onlie program that I'm the DJ/host and programming person for...also, last name fitst (Ono, Yoko for example).
I Rip a lot, everything that I have to put it in my cell phone. that way during lunch time or in my way home. I enjoy my albums. your process is very similar to mine. this is a very good video ! :)
Very nice demo, Paul. At this point, I listen almost exclusively digital due to time constraints - I actually have a goal in 2021 to digitize a bunch of stuff to make sure I can listen to it - opposed to goals in the past where I wanted to digitize stuff so I could offload it but still "have it"... now I want to digitize stuff I want to keep but at least have access to. My process hasn't changed since I made that video years ago with the digital rip of the album I had sent you... BUT the tagging software I have now will pull from discogs as well as grab cover art in two clicks - I still manually break up the recordings myself - but the declicking/normalize process are all command-line batch things I do for a bunch of recordings all at once so I don't have to muck with it.
I didn't mention it in the video but living under the risk of losing everything to a hurricane every year, I want to have a good solid copy of something that I can take with me on the run. There is no way I could pack up all my vinyl and go. The TASCAM I bought was actually influenced by you when you did that video on your set up several years ago. I am curious to see how you're tagging and declicking things now. Happy New Year to you and Marissa!
This was great Paul. Although I’ll never convert my records to digital I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. But I think it helps me in other ways. And BTW you look great in that yellow dress in your car. 🤓😎🥺. But I do have over three TB of mostly lossless digital music.
Hello Mazzy! Thanks...I love my Yellow Dress and I am glad you caught that funny bit. Sometimes, I like to see how many people are really listening or just flipping to the next video ;) With your setup and situation, I don't think I would have a reason to do this ;) Have a Happy New Year my friend.
I am planning on running a Fluance RT 81 through a Cosmos E1DA at 32bit 192khz. This will be my primary way of listening to vinyl because I have an existing digital studio setup with high end Neumaan monitors that I want to utilize. I am hoping this setup will sound as pristine as possible. It's a shame there's so little information on doing high quality vinyl ripping online. I didn't think it would be this niche of a hobby.
I hear you on the hobby being a niche. I really wish more people would put out something. I would really love to hear other people's techniques because I am always looking to improve the sound of the needle drops.
Thanks for this. I purchased a Behringer UFO-202 a while ago with the intention of doing some recording, but so far I've only used it as a budget DAC. Hopefully I can get some recording done soon.
My pleasure Dan! Everyone has to start somewhere and the Behringer should work fine for capturing the recording. VinylStudio has some tools which should help clean up the sound. While I didn't go over all the features, it does have functions to dehum, dehiss, equalize, and patch sections of the audio together. Let me know if you end up trying it out.
There is one option not mentioned here but it works amazing, specially if you are a vintage record collector but you don´t have more than a typical phono preamp. This program have the ability to modify the EQ curves, if you listen mostly stereo record you can be quite sure that RIAA curve has been used, but if you have a Columbia ML from 1948 to 1954 aprox, you have to playback with the COL curve, the same with british Columbia, Decca, Philips, DGG, Capitol, Westminster, Mercury, etc. The option is in "Check Volume", there you can define the curve, and the good part is that you don´t need to dub your record to do so, you can listen through you PC line out or as I do, through my U-Phoria UMC204HD output. Oh, one more thing, I do not recomend recording at so low level, yes, at 24 bits you have around 144dB of dynamic range, but that doesn´t mean that you can record at -40dB peak because when you make the normalization, the noise floor will rise with the music. I leave about 6dB for an accidental peak, but if you knew the record, you will know the highest peaks and you can set the gain to rise to a secure area without sacrificing quality.
Excellent comment Pablo! This is another one of those nice points that I didn't get into here. I don't have many records pre-1954 but knowing that capability exists is very useful. I think leaving 6 dB of headroom is sound advice. With my TASCAM, I would try and get it as hot as I could with the first song and cross my fingers I didn't peak for the rest of the LP.
My turntable is my preferred source, but not when I have had a couple of beers! I use Roon most of the time. I am looking at ripping my vinyl, i have the same Tascam portable device you have. I have three programs to try, Vinyl Studio, Audacity, and Adobe Audition. In the computer world there is a term "Garbage In Garbage Out", you really need the best quality record deck you can. I have had all my LP's professionally cleaned. My front end is a Pink Triangle PT1 turntable, Rega RB300 arm (upgraded by Audio Origami) and a Dynavector 10x5 cartridge.
Another thing, I'm old school, I make my dubs with Vinyl Studio, but all the restoration process is doing almost at iZotope RX8, because I like to be very carefully with the declicker in order to not to leave unremoved thumps, the same with decrackle and denoising, always done with the minimun amount of process to keep the records as clean as possible without loose musical content. Later I return to VinylStudio to tag the files and prepare them to burn a CD. Yes, I still use a CD player.
I may have to look at the iZotope RX8. On the declickers and the denoisers, your right! I try and avoid them as much as possible. With newer LPs, like the Charlie Parker, there is no need since the vinyl is pretty much pristine but with older, used LPs, sometimes, it's unavoidable. The less the better though.
Hey Paul, I rip vinyl for the same reasons you do. My method is kind of old school, however, I use a Teac CD recorder. It's time consuming because it is real time, but I get a CD that is easy to import and I can give the CD to friends, or listen to it in the car.
Nice! I've always been curious to see one of the Teac CD Recorders in action. Back in the day, when they first dropped them, I was just drooling to get one. I still get a kick out of burning CDs for my car.
Great video ! I'm looking to start converting now as my vinyl library is small. How are you listening to your FLAC files? DAP? Or do you have a MAC setup for audio?
Sorry for the delayed response. I like listening through my PC DAC and I can stream but the size of my library makes it difficult to scan through things. You really need to know what you want to listen to. I am looking for another set up to make it a bit easier. For me FLACs are essential for getting a good back up for all my music. I live in hurricane alley and packing the collection up would be down right impossible.
I too convert my vinyl to FLAC. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where convenience is king! I have an ATLP120x connected to my Sound Blaster AE5. I record LP at 24/96 WAV and 45s / 78s at 24/48 WAV. I do it all through Adobe Audition. I have been using it for so long (since it was Cool Edit back in the early 2000s). The workflow is just second nature to me at this point. After recording and trimming, click pop elimination, etc, I tag everything manually with MP3 Tag and/or the tag editor in dbPowerAmp. Scanning the labels and tagging are a pain, though. After it’s all done, I convert the file to FLAC using the same bit and sample rates as the original files. I have all the vinyl Lps, 45s and 78s I like nicely saved in FLAC format, loaded in my PC music library and on 1 TB micro SD cards in my 2 Sony HiRes walkmans for on the go listening. I have backups of everything as well.
I started collecting vinyls maybe about 3 or 4 years ago... I ripped one album with audacity but I never touched my collection since... the reason? I'm like you said the work behind ripping with audacity, i kept putting it off... Also it's a lot of work to do things like declick and noise reduction and still preserve the original recording... Importing from discogs definitely will help Vinyl studio advertises that all edits are non destructive. I was just uncomfortable purchasing without seeing a review or someone use it. Thanks for this video! Why haven't I touched my collection just to listen? I'm deafly afraid of damaging my records before I do a digital rip. so yeah. vinyl studio will definitely allow me to enjoy my collection on the go, and my actual records knowing i have a safe digital copy.
I think if you arm and stylus is set correctly, then you shouldn't worry too much about damaging your vinyl. Even people that own Crosleys shouldn't be too afraid. If you did end up picking up the software, I would be curious to hear your impressions. Thanks for watching TheBlueArcher.
Hi, very interesting video and I would like to add one use case scenario for digitising vinyl: there are cd reissues from e.g. the 70s where the marketing chief decided to lower the audio quality to something young/inexperienced people would think it has been at this time. I was able to open their eyes on this... If you need some information on how to set up mp4/aac/m4a to a very good quality for mobile devices let me know, I did a lot of tests with mp3 and mp4, the good thing is that it saves up to 50% of the space needed... Seen how fast digitising vinyl is now I will give it a chance again... In Germany a private copy is not illegal until you are not breaking any copy protection, which vinyl has not by default, private means that you are not distributing or selling it, like a copy on a tape or cassette like we did it in the 80s to listen music on our Walkman... Hope to hear from you soon Best
Hello Enrico! You're right about the sound quality and some CD's that used suspect source material. It's funny you mention this because there was a guy in Europe that went under the moniker Dr. Ebbets. He used to produce CDs made from his vinyl rips that sounded superior to their commercial variants. I didn't know about the law in Germany. It sounds very similar to the way it is here and there were a number of challenges that went to the upper courts in the 80's when dual cassette players came into vogue. Thanks for providing such interesting comments.
Thanks Paul. My experience is only with Audacity, so far but the VinylStudio looked interesting. The tie-in to Discogs looked very useful. I don't typically rip my actual albums, but look for already ripped version. Some of them need editing, such as splitting tracks, or trimming. - Chris
Thanks for watching Christopher! I am curious, do you have a place where you're going for your rips? The splitting and the naming just became too much of a chore for me with Audacity.
This is all good info about workflow and methodology, but you left out one important aspect-- The ability to correct off-center pressings! If the tonearm is dancing back and forth with each revolution, that affects pitch and, in turn, can affect the rip. Some lp's, new and vintage pressings, may exhibit this defect. It is absolutely essential to have a rig that has a removable spindle or other method for dealing with eccentric groove pitch distortion. Some people are more sensitive to pitch distortion than others, so some might hear an off-center press and not notice anything, while others (like me) find the "wow" effect irritating at best.
I use audacity, ripped almost all my collection including MOFI to 24 bit( 96 khz or 192 khz-overkill!!) Flac or DSD, then i play those from the usb output of my phone (USB pro player app) to a stand alone DAC. the sound is as warm as the vinyl version with no digital brightness or harshness....i seldom play Vinyl due to inconvenience. , I am more into the Vinyl sound than Vinyl itself. very good info Paul
Thanks Rolling Stone! Yeah, in this age of COVID, even being home constantly, I haven't had time for vinyl due to having my family in the home with me all of the time as well. Their musical tastes are much...narrower than mine. I never messed with DSD and Audacity but perhaps I should try it one of these days. Happy New Year my friend!
Yup,. I remember getting first the Numark PT01 and then later the Ion TTUSB back in the 2000s, and ewww the combi of built-in converters + Audacity was atrocious. I mean you know, conversion was simply a bonus feature on those decks and I actually used them more for just regular playback. Besides, all the music I want to listen to are by now available in some digital form or another, so I really have no need to transfer from LP and 7". Happy New Year, Paul! - Red
Happy New Year Red! Wow! You got into vinyl much earlier than I did. I didn't jump back into vinyl until 2010 and at the time I had considered getting a Numark for the bonus feature but a Music Direct catalog swayed me to my Rega.
Hi Paul. Very interesting topic. I never did rip vinyl so I can't share any experience. I however am looking for to do, hopefully sometimes next year, the opposite : digital to analog by ripping hi-rez digital audio and transfer it to reel tape. Not wanting to or simply can't buying everyrthing on vinyl is the reason I wish to walk that path. Plus there are lots of digitally released stuff that has no physical conterpart or some CD's that had not been pressed on vinyl (Michael Nyman's OST's anyone ?). Also R2R is pretty damned cool too Now your video gave me lots of clues on how to manage and tweak, if need be, the data. Thank you. Merry holidays. Peace- Pat
Very interesting thought on ripping Hi-Rez digital to tape. If you get around to it, I would be very curious to hear about your results so please keep me posted. You're absolutely right about Michael Nyman! There are several soundtrack composers that have little to know output on vinyl. I hope you have a Happy New Year my friend!
I ripped Maserati’s first EP because the cd is rare like the sighting of a unicorn. Used Crosley Software of all things and it worked great. I was surprised.
I'm using a korg ds dac 10r connected to the tape loop of my receiver. Very handy to be able to monitor the record through the speakers. Korg audiogate works well, but I want the simple declick filters shown here.
I am sure a Korg DAC will work well. Korg, in general, makes great stuff but for me the declick is why I picked this software up. As much as I clean my old records, it's hard to avoid the occasional pop or click.
The benefit of COVID for me is that I've been working from home since March, so I have been spinning vinyl pretty much non-stop. I'm really not looking forward to going back to the office.
It's been weird for me. Like you, I have been at home since March but having to take care of my daughter on the side. With the family constantly home and work feeling like a never ending teleconference, I have had very little time to play records. Less so than any other year so it's been really frustrating to a certain degree. Glad your experience has been the complete opposite.
That was very helpful, Paul. I had looked into that software in the past but might pull the trigger on it knowing that you've had good results. Now I apologise in advance for opening up this can of worms, and I know the reasons for your rips are portability, but... side by side, FLAC rip versus clean vinyl... can you tell the difference? Cheers! Tom
Good question Tom. There is a very slight difference. Is it huge? No but you can hear it's been processed just a hair...at least to my ears. Likely because it's been amplified by a different device and of course the normalization changes things a bit.
I've been recording records with Adobe Audition for years but since I upgraded my pc, I can no longer use it, I'm trying to find something that works as well. Not impressed with Audacity. I've learned all the ins and outs of Adobe, so it sucks to have to learn to use another software all over again, because I refuse to "rent" software. Curious, can you reverse the track, like Prince's "Darling Nikki" to hear the backward recording forward again?
Weird that you can't use Audition at all?? I wonder if you can download one of the earlier releases from Adobe to see it will work. I have Audition too but I am pretty lazy with using the limited tool set in Premiere and/or After Effects. VinylStudio is a far more limiting in that type of post processing and it barely has a fraction of what Audition has. VinylStudio does have the tagging and interface with Discogs which you won't get with Audition so theirs Pros/Cons with it. Audacity is great for a free tool but it's manually intensive.
I started burning my somewhat obscure roots reggae vinyl directly to Real Player installed on my PC in 2000. That gave me 1411 kbps WAV files which I thought might be superior or equal to CD quality. Recently a friend said he uses VinylStudio to record to 1536 kbps flac files. I first thought I was missing something compared to his method as I lack tech savvy in this. We will get together soon to compare notes although I've had it with Real Player and will resume recording soon and desire the best audio quality even though I suffered incurable sudden one sided deafness 4 yrs.ago. And yet it is still debated if vinyl sound is better than CD?
I am not an analog purist by any means and I think digital can be done well. To me, it's all in the bit depth of the audio and the A to D and D to A converters that are used. Moreover, I like that I can put my collection on a hard drive and always have it with me versus a room full of vinyl which is a pain in the bottom to move.
Do you go out from your Turntable into the ADC or out from your phono Pre into the ADC? Phono Pre I assume, but just checking. I have a Rega as well. Thanks!
Good question! You have to go through the Phono Pre Amp, otherwise, the line signal is just too weak to be picked up by the ADC. Hope this helps. Thanks for watching and commenting.
If you are planning to save your digitized file In AIFF format can you add the album art before you save it and when you save it does it embed the artwork. I have read that with AIFF you cannot include the artwork.
Interesting. I wish I could offer something up but I don't have any experience with the AIFF format. Do you like it? I have been sticking with FLACs and it would be too much of a time investment to try anything else at this point.
Yes. You can use Audacity to create a WAV, or another format, and port it over to Vinyl Studio. When I rip, I bring things in as a hi-res FLAC file or WAV, then I port it over to Vinyl Studio rather than record directly into it. I hope tht helps.
Sounds like a pretty great program for anyone wanting to convert their vinyl to digital Paul. Doesn't look that difficult either. Now for someone like myself to say that it has to be easy to understand. {smile} Now the tough questions. Working two jobs and taking care of my mom limits the time I have to listen to my records. So I usually spin at night. Every night to be exact. Television has become non-existent. Which is not a bad thing providing I am not missing Big Brother. Thank heavens for my DVR. So my question would be. Would it take me a long time to convert my collection? Or are you just doing the rarer ones that you want to preserve? Thank you brother Paul. You are brilliant with audio components of all kinds. I would love to produce an VC audio components show and have you and Kris from Dixieland Farms hosting it for the first year~ Rob/Boston
Hello Rob. So tackling all of my record collection would be quite the endeavor and I really target the things I can't get digitally through other means. Thankfully, a lot of the newer LPs I buy all have digital downloads. Most of them through Bandcamp which is a godsend. I mainly focus on older recordings where I don't want to spend a ton of cash on a CD, since they can be pretty rare too, or there just isn't a good digital copy out there. I didn't mention it in the video but I also do the digital rips as a bit of an insurance policy since I live in a hurricane prone area. If a bad hurricane comes my way, I just won't be able to take my record collection with me but a digital copy, that's easy! Sorry to hear about your Mom and the jobs. That's got to take up all of your day! I do appreciate you taking the time to comment as much as you do. And not just on my videos either. One suggestion for you, you could split the signal and record as you listen. Once you get the hang on the ripping, it only takes about five minutes once you've mastered the process. On Kris...he gave me a lot of ideas several years ago and inspired me to buy my Tascam.
Just to say, you have pictures of the Sony PS-HX500 in the section talking about cheap ad converters. That turntable has one of the best DAC’s built onto it, ripping vinyl into DSD format. I have it. Playing from the rip either in DSD or WAV is pretty much indistinguishable from the original vinyl record.
Wow! I didn't know the Sony PS-HX500 could do that! That's really cool. My comment was really aimed at those cheap Ion or Audio Technica turntables you can buy for under $200.
Wow, this was great Paul. Honestly this is something I haven't given much thought. I think having a hi-res download also could be used for archival purposes. I liked the examples you mentioned for wanting to do this. Speaking of streaming, just out of personal curiosity, do you listen with headphones or just straight out of the laptop. I stream at work when I can but at low volume and out of the computer speakers. It's not the best listening experience but it's great to be able to play music while working. Thanks for your videos. They are always informative and well worth watching. I hope to catch up with your 20 albums soon! Happy New Year to you and yours! Best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe new year!
You know, I have my own office which is a nice thing but the walls are paper thin so I have to resort to headphones when I do have the time for it. At home, with COVID, headphone listening is the best I can do since my family doesn't share 90% or more of my musical tastes. Some of these, wouldn't be appropriate to play around children anyway. I do like having the ability to take some digitized vinyl with me to work and have the opportunity to fully digest an album when it isn't available via streaming. Thanks for taking the time to watch this one Bill. Other than Kris, dixielandfarm, I hadn't really seen anyone cover this ground so I thought it would make for an interesting video.
Hei, Paul! 1st of all you delivered another interesting video. I have an old (I think it's from 2008) external USB "soundcard" by Creative. I have used that together with Audacity software. It gets the job done. Because I'm not too much into getting the best audio quality out of those "transfers" I can't really comment about it too deeply but I think it's OK. My LENCO L-90 turntable has a USB connection. Though I've already has it for 5 years I've never tried tried it. Maybe I should... 🤔 Let's keep on rippin' Jarkko/MyVinylBar
Hello Jarko and Happy New Year! I thought about putting in a high grade A to D converter in my desktop but it was too much of pain to move my turntable around so I gave up on the idea. I would be curious to know how the LENCO sounds if you ever try it out.
Thanks for sharing Paul, Ive wanted to rip for a while now but have had issues preventing me from doing so. Theres some bug in the system that just cuts the bass whenever I plug my amp into an ADC, might have to get change the system before I can do any ripping sadly.
@@BarakaPDub Not sure, the thing is it also kills the main systems bass. I can hear the bass go as soon as I plug the cable into my ADC, even though Im playing from the vinyl system, I havnt been able to figure it out.
@@leon9021 Are your speaker cones doing anything strange when you hook up the ADC? I'm wondering if the woofer cones show signs of a DC bias when you connect it?
I'm about to cross this bridge of making my records digital,so thanks for sharing your process. I do own a zoom recorder so I'm going to try that. This seems like a lot of work but im sure once you get it set up and going its not that hard, at the end of the day my goal is to OWN my music and to pay for it ONCE lol..
I agree with your goal ;) Your Zoom recorder should work fine and I am betting you'll be able to capture things quite well with it. As for the VinylStudio, I promise it doesn't take long to get a handle on it. Audacity on the other hand, took a lot of trial and error; especially with the declicker but there are some good guides for it on UA-cam.
Great video. I normally don't like background music however yours was an appropriate choice. Too loud though and distracting. Take it down a few notches and you'll nail it!
There are many different ways to achieve that . Some higher end units to look into ,recorders such as Korg MR2000S DSD , Tascam DA3000 , Denon DN700R, converters such as Apogee Rosetta 200, Furutech ADL GT40a, turntables such as Sony PS-HX500 usb, Audio Technica AT-LP1240 usb, Stanton ST-150....... Cheers - George
Thanks for the great comment George. If I can ever afford a really good one, I would like to see what a rack mounted, studio style A to D convert could do. Have a Happy New Year!
@@BarakaPDub Hi ,thanks for your response . I actually own all the equipment I listed with the exception of the Tascam unit .Also forgot to add one other the ART usb phono plus, this is priced more reasonable but limited to 16/44.1 resolution.I love vinyl ,have seen many of your videos and particularly enjoyed your turntable tweeks. Happy New Year to you....George
Hey thanks man! I’ve been using audacity for a while and now using a SugarCube sc2 plus… but want to just use that with vinyl studio and see how it goes. I need it be steamlined. But I think I’ll still do my edits in izotope rx8 as it seems to be the only software that doesn’t mess up the sound. It’s like performing surgery on audio with precision. I’m excited to try vinyl studio pro. Had it for 4-5 months while wait for the sc2 plus and forgot I had it.
I am curious how it will mix with the SugarCube and how well it's tick and pop removal would compare. The SugarCube has really good reviews on it's abilities.
@@BarakaPDub it’s fantastic. I tend to use 4/10 or 5/10 for click removal. And don’t use the surface noise removal option as I have mixed feelings about it. I recommend the sc1 mini!!! It’s what I had before and does very well. But doesn’t have all the extra stuff.
Help- Vinylstudio experts, try this: I have been using the pro version of the software, but have run up against an issue that I cannot seem to solve. I cannot record in stereo.. right now im getting a "false mono" meaning that I hear just one channel of stereo, but in both ears, and not just on the recording, but in the monitor window prior to recording. I somehow stumbled onto the fix and was able to rip two LPs in stereo before it reverted back to square one, what gives?
Hello Elliot. That's a strange one and I've never encountered that one before but then again, I haven't been using the software that long. I looked at all of the software settings and the only thing I can think of is that it might be a cabling issue? Sometimes the software has some stuff that's imbedded deep down in the options but even I am bit perplexed on that one.
The most impressive part is the automatic click repair. The thing I dislike the most about re-releases of old recordings is how they "re-mix' the whole thing. NO, Giles Martins re-mixes of The Beatles are NOT better than the originals!!! I recorded "Strawberry Fields Forever" from the Magical Mystery Tour album (American) I bought when I was 8 (yes, in the '60's). The original mix with the hiss and pops removed with this software is FAR superior to anything ever released on C.D. It sounds absolutely magical! Or how about those ZZ Top re-mixes where the drums sound like they were recorded in a giant echo chamber? Give me my old records brought back to life with Vinyl Studio every time!
I think a lot of it is getting used to the way a particular album sounds. There is something magically about the original representation of the record but when it becomes too squeaky clean, it's not going to sound right to a lot of folks. I love a lot of recordings from the 50s and some of those remasters just don't sound right.
Interesting software and workflow. Personally i would never normalize the recording, because this might cause a drop in the dynamics of the recording. I use a Sony PCM-M10 Linear PCM Recorder connected to the output of my Denon amplifier with integrated phono amp. Next, i download the WAV files into my PC and import into Adobe Audition. I adjust the volume, add fade in and out if necessary and then split the tracks manually. Automating this proces has let to disappointing results way to often. If you take care of your records and you wet clean before recording, then there won’t be any clicks. And if there are you better restore manually, to keep full control over the recording. Adding metadata to digital recording is also something that i would rather do myself, but i can see the benefit if you are in a hurry. I guess i like to work slow but precise :)
Normalizing doesn’t change the dynamics of the audio, it just boosts the overall volume of the file to the loudest possible, keeping all audio boosted at the same db amount. Hard limiting is what ruins audio dynamics as it raises softer portions to match the louder portions. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_normalization#:~:text=Loudness%20normalization%20adjusts%20the%20recording,value%20across%20the%20entire%20recording.
thanks paul very helpful!! but don"t say you are not a audio purist!! YOU ARE! cause after all you are the owner of one of the best cartridges out there namely: KISEKI PURPLEHEART! no one would ever buy this if you are not a audio purist!! ha,ha,thanks again paul! keep em coming!!
Thumbs up and I'm out Paul. I don't like to rip records, it's just too much trouble and brings out all the flaws. When I have to, I just hook up the receiver directly to the PC and use Sony Vegas for editing. I have a Schitt Mani but haven't ripped with it yet. Looks like vinyl studio has some nice features, I like the speed option. Happy New Year! ~Corey
Thanks for watching Corey ;) You're right about the flaws. I've a couple of well loved LPs that I couldn't make anything sound good so I gave up. That was with Audacity though. I haven't tried with Vinyl Studio. Audacity took me a little while to get a handle on and there was a lot of trial and error with it. The labelling just bugged the hell out of me and if it wasn't for the VinylStudio, I would have given up at this point. Happy New Year to you as well my friend!
So I am 'hearting' that you commented Ken but not that your house got broken into! Losing 25k in stuff really does suck! I hope anything that was taken can be reasonably replaced.
Back to basics; the source is the single most important aspect of any archiving project. Ensure you have the very best copy of the record available to you and make sure it's absolutely pristine clean. Use the best turntable, arm and cartridge available to you and double-check alignment, tracking forces etc. Make sure all your connections are clean and tight using good quality cable and plugs. Tip: Connecting the "tape out" from your amplifier to the input of your laptop / recorder is an easy way to make the connection and ensures the signal benefits from the R.I.A.A. equalisation from your phono stage. Ensure the stylus is absolutely clean for every recording. It's a little pedantic, but worthwhile, to ensure the stylus is cleaned for every individual track; remember the stylus gradually clogs as it traverses it's way across an album. Monitor on headphones with your speakers at zero volume; not only are headphones more analytical (so you're more likely not notice any faults or problems) it will also prevent acoustic feedback to the turntable which could be an issue with some setups. Once you've got the connection leads and software it can be used, of course, for any audio archiving including old tapes and, copyright permitting, radio broadcasts (although the Discogs function won't be much use here!). For a "toe in the water" a suitable. basic. lead can be obtained from Amazon or E-Bay for a couple of quid (bucks!) and Audacity is a free download so there's no excuse not to try it out for yourself. Hope this proves of some value; good luck and take care ;0)
You bring up some good points that I didn't delve into but your right about having everything clean. I make sure my stylus has been cleaned well prior to any rip. Thanks for the additional adds Rassputin.
@@BarakaPDub Hi. Thanks for that; I'll show this comment to Mrs Russputin to prove that I was actually once right about something!! ;0) All the best for the New Year; stay safe and sane my friend
I purchased a NAD DAC through Crutchfield with the impression I could get The basic version of Vinyl Studio free. Turns out I get a trial version only. Limited to 5 LP's
I think it's worth it and nothing Alpine soft did. I just won't buy another NAD product ever and crutchfield should know more about the products they sell
I plan to buy vinyl studio will it also allow me to simply play a DVD? My new laptop with external drive does not allow me to play. I used the various downloadable free trial one's but my free has run out.
This is a great piece of software - I bought it a few years back. For me, I record the LP externally to .WAV on a tascam hardware recorder. Then move the SD card to the PC and copy to my HD. (I convert to FLAC before opening in Vinyl Studio). In regards to normalizing, I generally do a quick de-click first, then normalize allowing it to set different levels per channel. This gives me reasonable levels to work on the LP while I do further cleanup. Then do a final normalizing before exporting.
Thanks Ron. I hadn't thought to approach it this way. Have you seen any difference in de-clicking first and then normalizing? In a sense, that makes more sense since you likely amplifying more problems.
@@BarakaPDub For me it's main purpose is knock out any large pops/clicks, bring the channels up to "full volume" so I can better hear any areas that might need a closer listen to for correction. I suppose it could work either way, but I tend to record a bit on the low side to avoid distortion. Play around see what works best for you. I needed to level out the R vs L channels (sometimes off a db or 2 depending on the LP) and not get caught if there was a pop only in 1 channel when I normalized.
No thank you! I got back into vinyl to get away from software management of rips on my NAS, and streaming was a life saver. I buy and listen to a lot of vinyl, I stream a lot of Tidal MQA and I reserve CDs for albums I don't want to afford on vinyl (too expensive.) As far as I'm concerned, there is plenty of music to enjoy in several different formats.... While there are times I can't hear 'exactly' the album I want to, I can always find something to enjoy. Ripping, vinyl or cds, is just not for me.
It's definitely a fair point Joe and perhaps I am a bit too greedy, wanting everything to be digitized :) It is a bit a labor of love to do this and it may not be worth the investment for everyone. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment though.
I hear you Charles. Apple, Tidal, Spotify all have a lot of content to be happy with but I would say about 15% of my collection isn't on those services at all. Maybe I should just be content with what's out there?
@@BarakaPDub BTW, my Sony TA-E9000ES just died. Thinking about a Stereo Preamp with recording output , phono input, and bass management, like the Parasound P6, to get bass to my passive sub. Any experience with that stereo preamp?
I appreciate the time and effort you spent composing this tutorial. I too, am a storyteller, but instruction is the point. I know I can't or refuse to carry my turntable around. We all know that preserving our most loved vinyl music is paramount. What I was expecting was detailed focused instruction on transferring to Vinyl Studio as well as explaining the options available to maintain the origins while enhancing for compressed digital. Only an observation. Not a condemnation. I do give you credit for sharing your expertise with Vinyl Studio.
Thanks for sitting through it, even though it wasn't exactly what you were looking for. I may have to consider putting together a step by step guide in the future.
I realize I’m late to the party, but I very recently caught the virus and dove into Vinyl Studio. It works great, and I CANNOT BELIEVE how good some of my records sound. Thanks for a few solid tips on how to expedite the process!
Sorry for the late reply markvandenberg4606. I am glad to hear there is another Vinyl Studio user out there and I continue to use it to this day. It's just so hard to find some of this music digitally and I find this to be a god send.
Thank you! I just got a turntable that will connect to my computer, and the rest of the process was a mystery. This is such a huge help, seeing a workflow and hearing about available options.
I haven’t heard most of my LPs in over 30 years, so this should be fun.
Good luck Linda! To me it's really nice to be able to listen to things that are not available digitally. At least not yet and I kind of hope it remains that way. Sort of like having your own buried treasure. Have fun ripping!
Hi Paul, thank you for sharing your method here, and indeed your history of ripping, hardware and software over the years. I think you point out in the video there are many approaches and indeed solutions people can take, but the way you step us through your setup in this video makes it sound easily achievable for folks who want to start the process. For folks already doing it you may not convert them exactly to your method (as you point out with your FLAC/MP3 rips example - we are creatures of necessity and habit!) but you open things up here to a wider discourse.
There has to be some vinylstudio features there that would save others tons of time - the linking with discogs for both naming and track splitting was the big wow factor here. So obvious it should almost be a standard. I have to say I enjoyed seeing your notes in discogs on each release - you had plating/mastering details there as a quick reminder which is a great idea. You did also have 240 unread messages!! ;-)
Anyway thank you for this one, you always do a great job of exploring the perimeters of record collecting, but making those outer limits easily accessible to the average joe like myself. Fantastic production quality as usual too, that time and effort is always greatly appreciated. Best wishes for a happy new year to you! Cheers- Dean
He he! Hello Dean. You have an eagle eye my friend. I am terrible about managing my Discogs Inbox ;) I really need to clean the whole thing out since a lot of it gets replicated in my real e-mail inbox. As for the notes, you're right. I have been plotting out th production of more Tales From The Deadwax videos but I wanted to record what I was noting in the deadwax of the records for future reference. For all the new pressing plants, I got most of 'em covered but there are still a couple of minor ones I can comment on. I just really started to load my vinyl into Discogs this year and I have a long ways to go! So without a complete reference frame, future episodes of that series are a bit challenging.
I guess if there is one con to the VinylStudio, the User Interface is a bit dated. It feels like it was programmed in the last decade. That's only a minor gripe though. All in all, I am happy it didn't take me that long to master the functionality and I was surprised there wasn't more here about it on UA-cam. VinylStudio did a few instructional videos that you can find but they're not the greatest.
As always, thanks for being a loyal follower and watcher! I hope you had a nice warm Christmas.
@@BarakaPDub haha, discogs messages are mostly unnecessary unless selling. they definitely put more into the functionality than the interface, but still does everything you want! Actually a cool Christmas here, can't complain though. Hope yours was relaxing!
I used to record all my vinyl to mini disc when I was in the Navy to take all my music underway. This was 1998-2004 and I was based out of Japan where mini discs were very available. That worked really well.
Love the Mini Disc comment! I had a couple I used for bootlegging concerts back in the same timeframe because a portable tape DAC was just too far out of my price range at the time.
Great video Paul. I purchased Vinyl Studio in 2009 and it has constantly been updates and improved with new features over the years. I too love the integration with Discogs. I have upgraded both of my PC’s that are near turntables with sound cards that can do true 96/24 recording. There is definitely the desire to re-do old recordings when you find something to improve the process.
Wow! I didn't know that VinylStudio had been around that long. I agree with trying to capture things at 96/24 or higher if you can. It's cool that you have a PC near your turntable. I would love to have my desktop near a turntable but it's not in the current deck of cards. Happy New Year my friend!
I've ripped all my cds to flac and now I'm about to embark on my lp collection. Thanks for this.
It can get addictive but even with the software, it can take a little bit of time. I am just so thankful for the Discogs interface.
It was something David Lynch mentioned regarding The Straight Story that has has stuck with me: no chapters in the DVD or blu-ray -- watch the movie from beginning to end as the artist intended. I agree with that regarding music; all my digitized albums are single streams and I listen from beginning to end. I use Audacity to digitize my music and ClickRepair software (DeNoiseLF to minimize Rumble and Hum, ClickRepair for clicks and pops). ClickRepair is not available anymore as the owner is or was sick and he shut down his business a while ago.
That's a shame. I think ClickRepair was a great option and used to use it many years ago. I didn't know that the owner folded up shop.
I used to use ClickRepair too, but Vinyl Studio does the same thing.
Cool video! Always enjoy watching and knowing that others also rip their vinyl. Using Audacity myself, ripping to hires and then doing all postwork in Adobe Audition. Love the process, very relaxing and I also can compare when I upgrade TT or cartridge with previous rips. I never get to listen back to my rips unfortunately due to time, but I still love doing it. Maybe someday.
So I have Adobe Audition but I've never used it for post production. Does it work well? I know if I upgrade my cart, I am going to be tempted to rip a bunch of things over again. Thanks for watching and commenting Bjoern.
That Discogs feature seems handy. I'm old school and I do everything manually using Adobe Audition and a Tascam audio interface. I'm not a fan of noise reduction, and I don't normalize the audio either, I adjust the recording levels on the analogue potentiometers of the audio interface, usually I make a small test beforehand to assess the loudest parts of the song. I record as loud as I can without reaching the 0db mark, instead of normalizing afterwards.
I agree with trying to burn as hot as you can without clipping. I try it with a song but I don't have the patience for an entire side so I am probably a bit on the conservative side. The less you can do to alter the original content is really what's best. What are your thoughts on Audition? I have it through my Adobe subscription but other than touch ups for video, I haven't used it much at all.
Hi. That sounds like Best Practice to me. The less "post production" or interference with the signal the better in my opinion. The art is to get the recording as good as you possibly can first time out rather than attempting to "fix it in the mix" later. Certainly the dynamic range can never be better than the source and "normalisation" is the first step on the slippery slope to the Loudness Wars. All the best for the New Year my friend
@@BarakaPDub Audition it's not the ideal tool to label your tracks, even Audacity has more resources to make that kind of work, although, as you said, you must do everything manually.
I confess that I don't use portable devices very often, so it's very rare for me to rip an entire album, but in your case I agree that Vinyl Studio is probably the best tool. But for the sake of audio quality, even with Vinyl Studio I would avoid any type of post-production that changes the dynamics and tone of the original recording, but... I understand that you are ripping an entire album, so adjusting the levels of each individual track is not very practical.
On the other hand, when I copy a vinyl track I'm trying to make it sound as close to the original as possible, so I prefer a "purist" approach. Different tools for different jobs! 😏
@@russputin6294 In my efforts to preserve the audio quality, I even connect the output of my phono preamp directly into the audio interface without using the more convenient "Tape out" output of my amp, but hey, I have the word "obsessive" in my UA-cam name. 😋
@@MrVinylObsessive I take my hat off to you, sir! I can't do that because my phono section is integrated with my Naim preamplifier but it's certainly the way to go if you have a stand-alone phono stage. If you want to be really O.C.D. it's a good idea to clean the stylus individually for every separate track; or as a minimum at least once about half-way through an l.p. side. Also all pick-up cartridges have an optimum operating temperature as the compliant stylus pivot material becomes less so when cold. Try keeping a desk spotlamp, with a low-wattage bulb, permanently switched on, close to and pointing at, the pickup, to keep it warm; slightly above a comfortable room temperature is about right. Switch it off when actually playing so there's no chance of warping any vinyl or low-level hum induction from the lamp cable. I wouldn't bother when just "listening" but, hey, we're preserving for posterity here! All the best for the New Year my friend ;0)
Loved this topic Paul. I have been thinking of ripping some of my collection so this is great info. I've also considered getting dj tables back and if so would consider Serato as an option to not destroy some of that precious vinyl. I loved the details you shared, and it did seem very user friendly. Thanks for sharing this topic, and the deeper dive into the software.
I hear you on the DJ'ing! If I ever went back into it, I would go strictly digital. One thing you could do is run a split signal and rip while you listen. This is something I have considered but I've been too lazy to set it up. I hope you and your family have a good New Year Tim!
We're getting spoiled with more videos from you lately! Makes me sad that you're not able to listen to your vinyl more during the pandemic, but I guess that's how it goes for now. Has Audacity been around for a few decades now? I think I remember hearing about it a while ago. VinylStudio FTW! Loved the samples. Wish I could chime in more here, but I don't consider myself patient and savvy enough to try all this! Super informative yet simplified video, as always. Really enjoyed it! :-) Really looking forward to your favorites of 2020 video next after you get a break from the screen!
So I spent the better part of the day working on the 2020 video ;) The hard part is done...the needle drops. All forty of 'em. I just need to film the meat of it now and I hope I can get it out by the 31st. Audacity has been around for a long time and it's nice that it's free. It takes a little bit to master but there are several guides on UA-cam which help. Vinyl Studio doesn't have much here which is kind of a shame. Thanks for watching Hanna and fingers crossed I can crank out the rest of the 2020 vid yah!
Timing for this is perfect. For years, I did a lot of vinyl conversions, mainly to save the cost of buying a CD, or as a favor for friends. They might have their High School band concert on vinyl, etc. I used Ganymede's Wave Corrector with click and pop removal and ripped to CD. I still have the software, but as you might guess, it is real time+, labor intensive. One lesson I learned the hard way is to never use the stick on CD labels, as most became problematic in different players, and I lost a lot of recordings as a result.
Recently, I've been thinking of starting the project back up, mainly for HD streaming and the convenience advantages you speak of. I have a Brennan B2B with 700+ CD collection ripped to FLAC, all on a SSD which works pretty well when I don't have the time for the "steak dinner" all analog vinyl experience which is confined to my music listening room. I'll give the Vinyl Studio software a go, mainly for the Discogs connection. Thanks for the thorough, and as usual, detailed review!
Ha! I had the same experience with stick on CD labels back in the day. I was dumb enough at one point to load one into a car CD player...but that's another story for another time. Another reason I do this, and the main one I failed to mention, is because I live in hurricane alley. Doing a FLAC rip gives me a little peace of mind that a bit of my vinyl collection would be preserved if, god forbid, my house became severely damaged or flooded.
@@BarakaPDub I bought the VinylStudio Pro software after my 5 album free trial. I do like the Discogs connection, saves a ton of time. Also, it saves to FLAC, so that's exactly what I want. I also bought a zoom H5, handy recorder I saw in another video ($279 on Amazon). This thing is small, light weight and with mini input jack hooked to the RCA outs on my "audiophile" system upstairs, I can get a great .wav copy off the LP. It is then a simple matter to bring it downstairs and load it into VinylStudio via USB for any audio cleanup needed, Discogs treatment, and saved as a FLAC file. I was going to set up a 2nd turntable downstairs for conversions, not as good as the one upstairs, but no longer have that need. Thanks for the leads, Paul!
A few years ago I had a turntable that I could hook my I Pod up to. The recordings were awful. I have never ripped anything but people have shared their files with me. This was interesting to hear your thoughts. You made this very simple that even people like me could figure it out. Thank you for doing this Paul. I hope you have a Happy New Year. Steve
Thanks Steve and I need to catch your latest ;) Happy New Year to you as well. I've always been curious as to if there was a clean way to do this with an Apple app. If not, maybe there's a market for an app to be developed.
This is incredibly helpful. I definitely have some "only on vinyl" records I would love to rip at some point, but I've always been intimated by all the hardware and software requirements to do it right.
Michael, I think you'll like the software. I found it really straightforward to use and it took me about an hour of playing around with it to truly master it, without any guidance. Audacity, on the other hand, took a lot more time to figure out and the track labeling just became too tedious for me. If you end up trying it, let me know. I am sure there is a plethora of classical recordings that have never been digitized.
Thanks for the demo. I just bought VinylStudio Pro to get my parents old LP's digitized on a Sony PS-LX300USB
I hope it all works out well for you. I did a transfer long ago for my parents.
Morning Paul☕️👋🏻.....interesting vid....happy new year 🎄🍾be safe - Lis
Thanks Lis! I wish you a very Happy New Year and thank you for watching as always. I got my best of 2020 being uploaded now as I respond to comments ;)
Thanks for a detailed video on transferring vinyl to digital.
I recently transferred a 4 vinyl record box set to digital using Vinyl Studio (VS) and it was quite a task, mainly because I'm new to VS. You know, newbie mistakes. I noticed in your video that you use a portable recording device that is a step up from what I used: Behringer USB audio interface. I find it a bit cumbersome to have long cords connecting your amplifier to the USB audio interface and then from the USB device to your laptop. I was intrigued with using a portable recording device for a couple of reasons to eliminate the chord clutter my wife hates.
I have 1 comment, or more correctly, an update since you originally published this video. As of June 2023, the "standard" version of Vinyl Studio now supports retrieving track information from discogs; you don't need to upgrade to the Pro version for that capability. And let me tell you, when you have 50 tracks, this really comes in handy!
Now for a few questions.
1) Do you have the Mixpre-3 or 3ii? [Strike this. I just looked at the video again and discovered you are using the 3ii]
2) Is there an option with the Mixpre to stop recording after "needle up" at the end of the record? Or do you have to "baby-sit" the recording to avoid long silence after the needle lifts?
3) Which input do you use with the Mixpre: Aux/Mic In or XLR input? [Just like in #1, in the video it is clear you are using the XLR inputs. Have you ever tried using the Aux/Mic input to rip vinyl?]
Sorry for the delayed reply..
To answer your questions. 2.) Yeah, that's the downside, you do need to baby-sit it but really, if you put in a 64 GB flash card, it will run for hours. 3.) So I am using my Parasound 3+ with the XLR connects. I realize that most folks don't have this but the mic jack works just fine. The one Pro to the stereo mic jack is that you don't have to fiddle with the individual channel levels.
There are some other options out there for recording thought that might be cheaper that the MixPre. I know some people have been using Zoom recorders and I used to use a TASCAM but with that I couldn't directly control the levels and had to buy attenuators to lower the input.
@@BarakaPDub Thanks for the reply.
I went ahead and purchased a used MixPre, for several reasons, including favorable reviews when it came to recording.
I checked an my phono preamp (simaudio Moon LP5.3) and it has XLR outputs. I've searched and searched the web for information on RCA vs XLR interconnects, and it seems the only advantage of the XLR jack is when you have long runs, which I don't have. Any thoughts on using the mini-jack the record versus using RCA to XLR interconnect versus XLR to XLR connection.
Thanks for any advice.👏👏👏
I've used both and it's true XLRs are better for long runs. Personally, I like them for the more secure connection. I have used both before and the minijack RCAs make it easy a little easier on the stereo separation.
This video was super helpful. Thank you!
Thank you Garett. I am glad it was helpful. I hadn't seen anyone else do a video on the software so I thought I would talk my experience.
Great tutorial video Paul. Love Vinyl Studio and have been using it for almost 6 years now, not just for my vinyl ripping but also as a process for my grading. It's worked well for me. Though I must say, I really don't do anything with the rips as of yet (other than using them for vinyl grading); I run into the same problem... doing all this work to split tracks and make individual files and port them to iTunes (and then an iPod or iPhone) only to upgrade a component (better cartridge or phono stage) and needing to do the process over again (not just for one but ALL haha!). It's a little much. I usually only put that work into albums that I cannot find in streaming... I also create mixtapes for VC friends every now & then and I pull exclusively from vinyl > recording it using my Allen & Heath ZED10FX mixer to Vinyl Studio; doing final editing there and outputting to tape or CD. This little program does a lot and I love how it can make it easy; yet it can dive into the complicated with you if you want to go there. I really don't have the equipment for that (yet); but I'm glad to know it's there. Again, great job! Oh, and forgot to say in the last comment, hope you had a happy holiday season and Happy New Year! Glad to see you making more videos! I'm working at that as well - New Year's resolutions. 😀
Brad, first of all great to hear from you. You are definitely missed and one of a handful of guys on my must watch list. That said, I wouldn't force it and only make the videos when you're feeling motivated. This should be a fun thing and not feel like a chore. Regardless, I am happy you're still out there my friend. 6 years?!? Wow. I wish I would have bought this program much earlier. I was doing everything through Audacity and a lot of it was trial and error with the program. Now I am just delighted I can do things, especially the labelling in an automated fashion. I didn't think about doing it as a grading tool but if you get right down to it. It's probably the best tool out there to grade since it can tell you how many errors it finds. It's so cool you're making mixtapes with vinyl. That's such a great idea!
Audacity, Numark TTUSB and an old HP laptop running Windows 7. Works for me, as does 128 kbps mp3 files (and before anyone says anything I never will claim myself to be an audiophile! I just hear no difference over that particular bitrate.) Rubbing alcohol and a sock for cleaning - a clean sock, D'OH - and when doing albums, record BOTH sides (or all sides, depending upon how many LP's in the set), click removal, noise reduction IF REQUIRED and normalizing. However, I use the album's record label and catalog number for the album name...as I do an onlie program that I'm the DJ/host and programming person for...also, last name fitst (Ono, Yoko for example).
Thanks for sharing your process. 128 kbps is quite fine for most people and it doesn't take up a lot of room either.
I Rip a lot, everything that I have to put it in my cell phone. that way during lunch time or in my way home. I enjoy my albums. your process is very similar to mine. this is a very good video ! :)
Thanks Christian. I love listening to LPs on the way to work and a good portion of what I do have has never been offered up digitally.
@@BarakaPDub same for me when I work out in the backyard.
Wow. Great video! I definitely need to buy the Pro version!
Thank you. I think the Pro Version is worth it if you rip often or have albums that have never made it to the digital realm.
Very nice demo, Paul. At this point, I listen almost exclusively digital due to time constraints - I actually have a goal in 2021 to digitize a bunch of stuff to make sure I can listen to it - opposed to goals in the past where I wanted to digitize stuff so I could offload it but still "have it"... now I want to digitize stuff I want to keep but at least have access to. My process hasn't changed since I made that video years ago with the digital rip of the album I had sent you... BUT the tagging software I have now will pull from discogs as well as grab cover art in two clicks - I still manually break up the recordings myself - but the declicking/normalize process are all command-line batch things I do for a bunch of recordings all at once so I don't have to muck with it.
I didn't mention it in the video but living under the risk of losing everything to a hurricane every year, I want to have a good solid copy of something that I can take with me on the run. There is no way I could pack up all my vinyl and go. The TASCAM I bought was actually influenced by you when you did that video on your set up several years ago. I am curious to see how you're tagging and declicking things now. Happy New Year to you and Marissa!
Great info here. Much appreciated. 👍
Glad it was helpful and thank you for watching Tyger Tyger!
This was great Paul. Although I’ll never convert my records to digital I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. But I think it helps me in other ways. And BTW you look great in that yellow dress in your car. 🤓😎🥺. But I do have over three TB of mostly lossless digital music.
Hello Mazzy! Thanks...I love my Yellow Dress and I am glad you caught that funny bit. Sometimes, I like to see how many people are really listening or just flipping to the next video ;) With your setup and situation, I don't think I would have a reason to do this ;) Have a Happy New Year my friend.
I am planning on running a Fluance RT 81 through a Cosmos E1DA at 32bit 192khz. This will be my primary way of listening to vinyl because I have an existing digital studio setup with high end Neumaan monitors that I want to utilize. I am hoping this setup will sound as pristine as possible. It's a shame there's so little information on doing high quality vinyl ripping online. I didn't think it would be this niche of a hobby.
I hear you on the hobby being a niche. I really wish more people would put out something. I would really love to hear other people's techniques because I am always looking to improve the sound of the needle drops.
Thanks for this. I purchased a Behringer UFO-202 a while ago with the intention of doing some recording, but so far I've only used it as a budget DAC. Hopefully I can get some recording done soon.
My pleasure Dan! Everyone has to start somewhere and the Behringer should work fine for capturing the recording. VinylStudio has some tools which should help clean up the sound. While I didn't go over all the features, it does have functions to dehum, dehiss, equalize, and patch sections of the audio together. Let me know if you end up trying it out.
There is one option not mentioned here but it works amazing, specially if you are a vintage record collector but you don´t have more than a typical phono preamp. This program have the ability to modify the EQ curves, if you listen mostly stereo record you can be quite sure that RIAA curve has been used, but if you have a Columbia ML from 1948 to 1954 aprox, you have to playback with the COL curve, the same with british Columbia, Decca, Philips, DGG, Capitol, Westminster, Mercury, etc. The option is in "Check Volume", there you can define the curve, and the good part is that you don´t need to dub your record to do so, you can listen through you PC line out or as I do, through my U-Phoria UMC204HD output. Oh, one more thing, I do not recomend recording at so low level, yes, at 24 bits you have around 144dB of dynamic range, but that doesn´t mean that you can record at -40dB peak because when you make the normalization, the noise floor will rise with the music. I leave about 6dB for an accidental peak, but if you knew the record, you will know the highest peaks and you can set the gain to rise to a secure area without sacrificing quality.
Excellent comment Pablo! This is another one of those nice points that I didn't get into here. I don't have many records pre-1954 but knowing that capability exists is very useful. I think leaving 6 dB of headroom is sound advice. With my TASCAM, I would try and get it as hot as I could with the first song and cross my fingers I didn't peak for the rest of the LP.
My turntable is my preferred source, but not when I have had a couple of beers! I use Roon most of the time. I am looking at ripping my vinyl, i have the same Tascam portable device you have. I have three programs to try, Vinyl Studio, Audacity, and Adobe Audition. In the computer world there is a term "Garbage In Garbage Out", you really need the best quality record deck you can. I have had all my LP's professionally cleaned. My front end is a Pink Triangle PT1 turntable, Rega RB300 arm (upgraded by Audio Origami) and a Dynavector 10x5 cartridge.
With that set up, you should get some pretty spectacular results and you're absolutely right with the garbage in/garbage out statement.
Another thing, I'm old school, I make my dubs with Vinyl Studio, but all the restoration process is doing almost at iZotope RX8, because I like to be very carefully with the declicker in order to not to leave unremoved thumps, the same with decrackle and denoising, always done with the minimun amount of process to keep the records as clean as possible without loose musical content. Later I return to VinylStudio to tag the files and prepare them to burn a CD. Yes, I still use a CD player.
I may have to look at the iZotope RX8. On the declickers and the denoisers, your right! I try and avoid them as much as possible. With newer LPs, like the Charlie Parker, there is no need since the vinyl is pretty much pristine but with older, used LPs, sometimes, it's unavoidable. The less the better though.
Hey Paul, I rip vinyl for the same reasons you do. My method is kind of old school, however, I use a Teac CD recorder. It's time consuming because it is real time, but I get a CD that is easy to import and I can give the CD to friends, or listen to it in the car.
Nice! I've always been curious to see one of the Teac CD Recorders in action. Back in the day, when they first dropped them, I was just drooling to get one. I still get a kick out of burning CDs for my car.
Great video ! I'm looking to start converting now as my vinyl library is small. How are you listening to your FLAC files? DAP? Or do you have a MAC setup for audio?
Sorry for the delayed response. I like listening through my PC DAC and I can stream but the size of my library makes it difficult to scan through things. You really need to know what you want to listen to. I am looking for another set up to make it a bit easier. For me FLACs are essential for getting a good back up for all my music. I live in hurricane alley and packing the collection up would be down right impossible.
I too convert my vinyl to FLAC. I’ve gotten to the point in my life where convenience is king! I have an ATLP120x connected to my Sound Blaster AE5. I record LP at 24/96 WAV and 45s / 78s at 24/48 WAV. I do it all through Adobe Audition. I have been using it for so long (since it was Cool Edit back in the early 2000s). The workflow is just second nature to me at this point.
After recording and trimming, click pop elimination, etc, I tag everything manually with MP3 Tag and/or the tag editor in dbPowerAmp. Scanning the labels and tagging are a pain, though. After it’s all done, I convert the file to FLAC using the same bit and sample rates as the original files.
I have all the vinyl Lps, 45s and 78s I like nicely saved in FLAC format, loaded in my PC music library and on 1 TB micro SD cards in my 2 Sony HiRes walkmans for on the go listening. I have backups of everything as well.
Thank You so much for this video...
And thank you for watching Aimless Endeavor!
I started collecting vinyls maybe about 3 or 4 years ago... I ripped one album with audacity but I never touched my collection since... the reason? I'm like you said the work behind ripping with audacity, i kept putting it off... Also it's a lot of work to do things like declick and noise reduction and still preserve the original recording... Importing from discogs definitely will help Vinyl studio advertises that all edits are non destructive. I was just uncomfortable purchasing without seeing a review or someone use it. Thanks for this video!
Why haven't I touched my collection just to listen? I'm deafly afraid of damaging my records before I do a digital rip. so yeah. vinyl studio will definitely allow me to enjoy my collection on the go, and my actual records knowing i have a safe digital copy.
I think if you arm and stylus is set correctly, then you shouldn't worry too much about damaging your vinyl. Even people that own Crosleys shouldn't be too afraid. If you did end up picking up the software, I would be curious to hear your impressions. Thanks for watching TheBlueArcher.
Hi, very interesting video and I would like to add one use case scenario for digitising vinyl: there are cd reissues from e.g. the 70s where the marketing chief decided to lower the audio quality to something young/inexperienced people would think it has been at this time. I was able to open their eyes on this...
If you need some information on how to set up mp4/aac/m4a to a very good quality for mobile devices let me know, I did a lot of tests with mp3 and mp4, the good thing is that it saves up to 50% of the space needed...
Seen how fast digitising vinyl is now I will give it a chance again...
In Germany a private copy is not illegal until you are not breaking any copy protection, which vinyl has not by default, private means that you are not distributing or selling it, like a copy on a tape or cassette like we did it in the 80s to listen music on our Walkman...
Hope to hear from you soon
Best
Hello Enrico! You're right about the sound quality and some CD's that used suspect source material. It's funny you mention this because there was a guy in Europe that went under the moniker Dr. Ebbets. He used to produce CDs made from his vinyl rips that sounded superior to their commercial variants. I didn't know about the law in Germany. It sounds very similar to the way it is here and there were a number of challenges that went to the upper courts in the 80's when dual cassette players came into vogue. Thanks for providing such interesting comments.
Thanks Paul. My experience is only with Audacity, so far but the VinylStudio looked interesting. The tie-in to Discogs looked very useful. I don't typically rip my actual albums, but look for already ripped version. Some of them need editing, such as splitting tracks, or trimming. - Chris
Thanks for watching Christopher! I am curious, do you have a place where you're going for your rips? The splitting and the naming just became too much of a chore for me with Audacity.
@@BarakaPDub Paul, no one particular place. I just have to search, and sometimes it still comes down to doing much of it manually.
This is all good info about workflow and methodology, but you left out one important aspect-- The ability to correct off-center pressings! If the tonearm is dancing back and forth with each revolution, that affects pitch and, in turn, can affect the rip. Some lp's, new and vintage pressings, may exhibit this defect. It is absolutely essential to have a rig that has a removable spindle or other method for dealing with eccentric groove pitch distortion. Some people are more sensitive to pitch distortion than others, so some might hear an off-center press and not notice anything, while others (like me) find the "wow" effect irritating at best.
Good point Robbie. I guess I have never tried this out. I do have some off center pressings that just bug the hell out of me. I should try that out.
I use audacity, ripped almost all my collection including MOFI to 24 bit( 96 khz or 192 khz-overkill!!) Flac or DSD, then i play those from the usb output of my phone (USB pro player app) to a stand alone DAC. the sound is as warm as the vinyl version with no digital brightness or harshness....i seldom play Vinyl due to inconvenience. , I am more into the Vinyl sound than Vinyl itself. very good info Paul
Thanks Rolling Stone! Yeah, in this age of COVID, even being home constantly, I haven't had time for vinyl due to having my family in the home with me all of the time as well. Their musical tastes are much...narrower than mine. I never messed with DSD and Audacity but perhaps I should try it one of these days. Happy New Year my friend!
Which audio interface/recorder do you use? Thx
Yup,. I remember getting first the Numark PT01 and then later the Ion TTUSB back in the 2000s, and ewww the combi of built-in converters + Audacity was atrocious. I mean you know, conversion was simply a bonus feature on those decks and I actually used them more for just regular playback. Besides, all the music I want to listen to are by now available in some digital form or another, so I really have no need to transfer from LP and 7". Happy New Year, Paul!
- Red
Happy New Year Red! Wow! You got into vinyl much earlier than I did. I didn't jump back into vinyl until 2010 and at the time I had considered getting a Numark for the bonus feature but a Music Direct catalog swayed me to my Rega.
Hi Paul. Very interesting topic. I never did rip vinyl so I can't share any experience. I however am looking for to do, hopefully sometimes next year, the opposite : digital to analog by ripping hi-rez digital audio and transfer it to reel tape. Not wanting to or simply can't buying everyrthing on vinyl is the reason I wish to walk that path. Plus there are lots of digitally released stuff that has no physical conterpart or some CD's that had not been pressed on vinyl (Michael Nyman's OST's anyone ?). Also R2R is pretty damned cool too Now your video gave me lots of clues on how to manage and tweak, if need be, the data. Thank you. Merry holidays. Peace- Pat
Very interesting thought on ripping Hi-Rez digital to tape. If you get around to it, I would be very curious to hear about your results so please keep me posted. You're absolutely right about Michael Nyman! There are several soundtrack composers that have little to know output on vinyl. I hope you have a Happy New Year my friend!
I ripped Maserati’s first EP because the cd is rare like the sighting of a unicorn. Used Crosley Software of all things and it worked great. I was surprised.
Wow! And for those that ding a Crosley. You would think that CDs would be cheaper with the vinyl revival but no.... Happy New Year Dave!
2020 has been a crap year, covid lockdowns, bushfires and floods here in Australia, can only get better. Have a happy 2021.
Thank you Peter. It has been much the same here and I wish you the best in this New Year which is likely hitting you as I type this.
I'm using a korg ds dac 10r connected to the tape loop of my receiver. Very handy to be able to monitor the record through the speakers. Korg audiogate works well, but I want the simple declick filters shown here.
I am sure a Korg DAC will work well. Korg, in general, makes great stuff but for me the declick is why I picked this software up. As much as I clean my old records, it's hard to avoid the occasional pop or click.
The benefit of COVID for me is that I've been working from home since March, so I have been spinning vinyl pretty much non-stop. I'm really not looking forward to going back to the office.
It's been weird for me. Like you, I have been at home since March but having to take care of my daughter on the side. With the family constantly home and work feeling like a never ending teleconference, I have had very little time to play records. Less so than any other year so it's been really frustrating to a certain degree. Glad your experience has been the complete opposite.
@@BarakaPDub Exactly the same here (less looking after a kid) - I'm so close to my records but have played them less than ever! Very frustrating.
@@BarakaPDub totally agreed!
That was very helpful, Paul. I had looked into that software in the past but might pull the trigger on it knowing that you've had good results. Now I apologise in advance for opening up this can of worms, and I know the reasons for your rips are portability, but... side by side, FLAC rip versus clean vinyl... can you tell the difference?
Cheers! Tom
Good question Tom. There is a very slight difference. Is it huge? No but you can hear it's been processed just a hair...at least to my ears. Likely because it's been amplified by a different device and of course the normalization changes things a bit.
I've been recording records with Adobe Audition for years but since I upgraded my pc, I can no longer use it, I'm trying to find something that works as well. Not impressed with Audacity. I've learned all the ins and outs of Adobe, so it sucks to have to learn to use another software all over again, because I refuse to "rent" software. Curious, can you reverse the track, like Prince's "Darling Nikki" to hear the backward recording forward again?
Weird that you can't use Audition at all?? I wonder if you can download one of the earlier releases from Adobe to see it will work. I have Audition too but I am pretty lazy with using the limited tool set in Premiere and/or After Effects. VinylStudio is a far more limiting in that type of post processing and it barely has a fraction of what Audition has. VinylStudio does have the tagging and interface with Discogs which you won't get with Audition so theirs Pros/Cons with it. Audacity is great for a free tool but it's manually intensive.
I started burning my somewhat obscure roots reggae vinyl directly to Real Player installed on my PC in 2000. That gave me 1411 kbps WAV files which I thought might be superior or equal to CD quality. Recently a friend said he uses VinylStudio to record to 1536 kbps flac files. I first thought I was missing something compared to his method as I lack tech savvy in this. We will get together soon to compare notes although I've had it with Real Player and will resume recording soon and desire the best audio quality even though I suffered incurable sudden one sided deafness 4 yrs.ago. And yet it is still debated if vinyl sound is better than CD?
I am not an analog purist by any means and I think digital can be done well. To me, it's all in the bit depth of the audio and the A to D and D to A converters that are used. Moreover, I like that I can put my collection on a hard drive and always have it with me versus a room full of vinyl which is a pain in the bottom to move.
Do you go out from your Turntable into the ADC or out from your phono Pre into the ADC? Phono Pre I assume, but just checking. I have a Rega as well. Thanks!
Good question! You have to go through the Phono Pre Amp, otherwise, the line signal is just too weak to be picked up by the ADC. Hope this helps. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Very helpful thanks
Glad it helped. Thanks for watching David.
If you are planning to save your digitized file In AIFF format can you add the album art before you save it and when you save it does it embed the artwork. I have read that with AIFF you cannot include the artwork.
Interesting. I wish I could offer something up but I don't have any experience with the AIFF format. Do you like it? I have been sticking with FLACs and it would be too much of a time investment to try anything else at this point.
Hi, this might be a funny question, if I use audacity, is it possible to have the saved project into the vinyl studio software.
Yes. You can use Audacity to create a WAV, or another format, and port it over to Vinyl Studio. When I rip, I bring things in as a hi-res FLAC file or WAV, then I port it over to Vinyl Studio rather than record directly into it. I hope tht helps.
Sounds like a pretty great program for anyone wanting to convert their vinyl to digital Paul. Doesn't look that difficult either. Now for someone like myself to say that it has to be easy to understand. {smile} Now the tough questions. Working two jobs and taking care of my mom limits the time I have to listen to my records. So I usually spin at night. Every night to be exact. Television has become non-existent. Which is not a bad thing providing I am not missing Big Brother. Thank heavens for my DVR. So my question would be. Would it take me a long time to convert my collection? Or are you just doing the rarer ones that you want to preserve? Thank you brother Paul. You are brilliant with audio components of all kinds. I would love to produce an VC audio components show and have you and Kris from Dixieland Farms hosting it for the first year~
Rob/Boston
Hello Rob. So tackling all of my record collection would be quite the endeavor and I really target the things I can't get digitally through other means. Thankfully, a lot of the newer LPs I buy all have digital downloads. Most of them through Bandcamp which is a godsend. I mainly focus on older recordings where I don't want to spend a ton of cash on a CD, since they can be pretty rare too, or there just isn't a good digital copy out there. I didn't mention it in the video but I also do the digital rips as a bit of an insurance policy since I live in a hurricane prone area. If a bad hurricane comes my way, I just won't be able to take my record collection with me but a digital copy, that's easy! Sorry to hear about your Mom and the jobs. That's got to take up all of your day! I do appreciate you taking the time to comment as much as you do. And not just on my videos either. One suggestion for you, you could split the signal and record as you listen. Once you get the hang on the ripping, it only takes about five minutes once you've mastered the process. On Kris...he gave me a lot of ideas several years ago and inspired me to buy my Tascam.
Just to say, you have pictures of the Sony PS-HX500 in the section talking about cheap ad converters. That turntable has one of the best DAC’s built onto it, ripping vinyl into DSD format. I have it. Playing from the rip either in DSD or WAV is pretty much indistinguishable from the original vinyl record.
Wow! I didn't know the Sony PS-HX500 could do that! That's really cool. My comment was really aimed at those cheap Ion or Audio Technica turntables you can buy for under $200.
@@BarakaPDub the VinylStudio software looks quality. Love the discogs integration. Thanks for a great video highlighting it :)
Wow, this was great Paul. Honestly this is something I haven't given much thought. I think having a hi-res download also could be used for archival purposes. I liked the examples you mentioned for wanting to do this. Speaking of streaming, just out of personal curiosity, do you listen with headphones or just straight out of the laptop. I stream at work when I can but at low volume and out of the computer speakers. It's not the best listening experience but it's great to be able to play music while working. Thanks for your videos. They are always informative and well worth watching. I hope to catch up with your 20 albums soon! Happy New Year to you and yours! Best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe new year!
You know, I have my own office which is a nice thing but the walls are paper thin so I have to resort to headphones when I do have the time for it. At home, with COVID, headphone listening is the best I can do since my family doesn't share 90% or more of my musical tastes. Some of these, wouldn't be appropriate to play around children anyway. I do like having the ability to take some digitized vinyl with me to work and have the opportunity to fully digest an album when it isn't available via streaming. Thanks for taking the time to watch this one Bill. Other than Kris, dixielandfarm, I hadn't really seen anyone cover this ground so I thought it would make for an interesting video.
Hei, Paul!
1st of all you delivered another interesting video.
I have an old (I think it's from 2008) external USB "soundcard" by Creative. I have used that together with Audacity software. It gets the job done. Because I'm not too much into getting the best audio quality out of those "transfers" I can't really comment about it too deeply but I think it's OK.
My LENCO L-90 turntable has a USB connection. Though I've already has it for 5 years I've never tried tried it. Maybe I should... 🤔
Let's keep on rippin'
Jarkko/MyVinylBar
Hello Jarko and Happy New Year! I thought about putting in a high grade A to D converter in my desktop but it was too much of pain to move my turntable around so I gave up on the idea. I would be curious to know how the LENCO sounds if you ever try it out.
Thanks for sharing Paul, Ive wanted to rip for a while now but have had issues preventing me from doing so. Theres some bug in the system that just cuts the bass whenever I plug my amp into an ADC, might have to get change the system before I can do any ripping sadly.
Ouch! Yeah, if you're losing bass, then that's would be a rip killer for me. That's weird though. I wonder if the problem is your ADC?
@@BarakaPDub Not sure, the thing is it also kills the main systems bass. I can hear the bass go as soon as I plug the cable into my ADC, even though Im playing from the vinyl system, I havnt been able to figure it out.
@@leon9021 Are your speaker cones doing anything strange when you hook up the ADC? I'm wondering if the woofer cones show signs of a DC bias when you connect it?
@@phishpot No idea, never looked at that.
Interesting theory.
I'm about to cross this bridge of making my records digital,so thanks for sharing your process. I do own a zoom recorder so I'm going to try that. This seems like a lot of work but im sure once you get it set up and going its not that hard, at the end of the day my goal is to OWN my music and to pay for it ONCE lol..
I agree with your goal ;) Your Zoom recorder should work fine and I am betting you'll be able to capture things quite well with it. As for the VinylStudio, I promise it doesn't take long to get a handle on it. Audacity on the other hand, took a lot of trial and error; especially with the declicker but there are some good guides for it on UA-cam.
BarakaPDub I’ll probably give vinyl studio a try. I’m bummed records don’t come with digital download anymore, it’s becoming a rear occasion
Great video. I normally don't like background music however yours was an appropriate choice. Too loud though and distracting. Take it down a few notches and you'll nail it!
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it and I am trying to find the right balance.
There are many different ways to achieve that . Some higher end units to look into ,recorders such as Korg MR2000S DSD , Tascam DA3000 , Denon DN700R, converters such as Apogee Rosetta 200, Furutech ADL GT40a, turntables such as Sony PS-HX500 usb, Audio Technica AT-LP1240 usb, Stanton ST-150....... Cheers - George
Thanks for the great comment George. If I can ever afford a really good one, I would like to see what a rack mounted, studio style A to D convert could do. Have a Happy New Year!
@@BarakaPDub Hi ,thanks for your response . I actually own all the equipment I listed with the exception of the Tascam unit .Also forgot to add one other the ART usb phono plus, this is priced more reasonable but limited to 16/44.1 resolution.I love vinyl ,have seen many of your videos and particularly enjoyed your turntable tweeks. Happy New Year to you....George
Hey thanks man! I’ve been using audacity for a while and now using a SugarCube sc2 plus… but want to just use that with vinyl studio and see how it goes. I need it be steamlined. But I think I’ll still do my edits in izotope rx8 as it seems to be the only software that doesn’t mess up the sound. It’s like performing surgery on audio with precision.
I’m excited to try vinyl studio pro. Had it for 4-5 months while wait for the sc2 plus and forgot I had it.
I am curious how it will mix with the SugarCube and how well it's tick and pop removal would compare. The SugarCube has really good reviews on it's abilities.
@@BarakaPDub it’s fantastic. I tend to use 4/10 or 5/10 for click removal. And don’t use the surface noise removal option as I have mixed feelings about it.
I recommend the sc1 mini!!! It’s what I had before and does very well. But doesn’t have all the extra stuff.
Help- Vinylstudio experts, try this: I have been using the pro version of the software, but have run up against an issue that I cannot seem to solve. I cannot record in stereo.. right now im getting a "false mono" meaning that I hear just one channel of stereo, but in both ears, and not just on the recording, but in the monitor window prior to recording. I somehow stumbled onto the fix and was able to rip two LPs in stereo before it reverted back to square one, what gives?
Hello Elliot. That's a strange one and I've never encountered that one before but then again, I haven't been using the software that long. I looked at all of the software settings and the only thing I can think of is that it might be a cabling issue? Sometimes the software has some stuff that's imbedded deep down in the options but even I am bit perplexed on that one.
I would think a cable issue also. Is the turntable connected to the correct input? Also check the computers audio settings.
Just one minute!!!!!
I agree whit you!!!!
Thank you tuneroneff!
The most impressive part is the automatic click repair. The thing I dislike the most about re-releases of old recordings is how they "re-mix' the whole thing. NO, Giles Martins re-mixes of The Beatles are NOT better than the originals!!! I recorded "Strawberry Fields Forever" from the Magical Mystery Tour album (American) I bought when I was 8 (yes, in the '60's). The original mix with the hiss and pops removed with this software is FAR superior to anything ever released on C.D. It sounds absolutely magical! Or how about those ZZ Top re-mixes where the drums sound like they were recorded in a giant echo chamber? Give me my old records brought back to life with Vinyl Studio every time!
I think a lot of it is getting used to the way a particular album sounds. There is something magically about the original representation of the record but when it becomes too squeaky clean, it's not going to sound right to a lot of folks. I love a lot of recordings from the 50s and some of those remasters just don't sound right.
Interesting software and workflow. Personally i would never normalize the recording, because this might cause a drop in the dynamics of the recording. I use a Sony PCM-M10 Linear PCM Recorder connected to the output of my Denon amplifier with integrated phono amp. Next, i download the WAV files into my PC and import into Adobe Audition. I adjust the volume, add fade in and out if necessary and then split the tracks manually. Automating this proces has let to disappointing results way to often. If you take care of your records and you wet clean before recording, then there won’t be any clicks. And if there are you better restore manually, to keep full control over the recording. Adding metadata to digital recording is also something that i would rather do myself, but i can see the benefit if you are in a hurry. I guess i like to work slow but precise :)
Normalizing doesn’t change the dynamics of the audio, it just boosts the overall volume of the file to the loudest possible, keeping all audio boosted at the same db amount.
Hard limiting is what ruins audio dynamics as it raises softer portions to match the louder portions.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_normalization#:~:text=Loudness%20normalization%20adjusts%20the%20recording,value%20across%20the%20entire%20recording.
01 chippe is correct. Normalizing should be non-destructive and is only a volume boost. Thanks for sharing your workflow thvsch8381
thanks paul very helpful!! but don"t say you are not a audio purist!! YOU ARE! cause after all you are the owner of one of the best cartridges out there namely: KISEKI PURPLEHEART! no one would ever buy this if you are not a audio purist!! ha,ha,thanks again paul! keep em coming!!
Fair point Frank. Fair point. I am thinking about expanding on this video to cover the needle drop process.
The voice of reason.
You're far too kind Pieter ;) Sometimes I can be the voice but if you'll ask my wife, she'll say the opposite ;) Have a Happy New Year!
@@BarakaPDub You too!
My comments weren't meant to be derogatory. Leave it just as it is. I did learn and now use Vinyl Studio because of your instructions. Sorry.
No worries. I honestly didn't take it badly at all as I know there are probably some that want a more detailed step by step guide.
Thumbs up and I'm out Paul. I don't like to rip records, it's just too much trouble and brings out all the flaws. When I have to, I just hook up the receiver directly to the PC and use Sony Vegas for editing. I have a Schitt Mani but haven't ripped with it yet.
Looks like vinyl studio has some nice features, I like the speed option.
Happy New Year! ~Corey
Thanks for watching Corey ;) You're right about the flaws. I've a couple of well loved LPs that I couldn't make anything sound good so I gave up. That was with Audacity though. I haven't tried with Vinyl Studio. Audacity took me a little while to get a handle on and there was a lot of trial and error with it. The labelling just bugged the hell out of me and if it wasn't for the VinylStudio, I would have given up at this point. Happy New Year to you as well my friend!
I am using audacity to rip to my QNAP Nas drive. Naim Uniti, focal aria 2s , Rega planer 3. Chord epic . 👍
Audacity will definitely work and you can't beet free. Nice set up by the way.
@@BarakaPDub Thanks. 👍
first . great 2 see ya paul. hope ur havin a btr holidays than I. house broken into 25k gone. police reports 2020 sux
So I am 'hearting' that you commented Ken but not that your house got broken into! Losing 25k in stuff really does suck! I hope anything that was taken can be reasonably replaced.
Back to basics; the source is the single most important aspect of any archiving project. Ensure you have the very best copy of the record available to you and make sure it's absolutely pristine clean. Use the best turntable, arm and cartridge available to you and double-check alignment, tracking forces etc. Make sure all your connections are clean and tight using good quality cable and plugs. Tip: Connecting the "tape out" from your amplifier to the input of your laptop / recorder is an easy way to make the connection and ensures the signal benefits from the R.I.A.A. equalisation from your phono stage. Ensure the stylus is absolutely clean for every recording. It's a little pedantic, but worthwhile, to ensure the stylus is cleaned for every individual track; remember the stylus gradually clogs as it traverses it's way across an album. Monitor on headphones with your speakers at zero volume; not only are headphones more analytical (so you're more likely not notice any faults or problems) it will also prevent acoustic feedback to the turntable which could be an issue with some setups. Once you've got the connection leads and software it can be used, of course, for any audio archiving including old tapes and, copyright permitting, radio broadcasts (although the Discogs function won't be much use here!). For a "toe in the water" a suitable. basic. lead can be obtained from Amazon or E-Bay for a couple of quid (bucks!) and Audacity is a free download so there's no excuse not to try it out for yourself. Hope this proves of some value; good luck and take care ;0)
You bring up some good points that I didn't delve into but your right about having everything clean. I make sure my stylus has been cleaned well prior to any rip. Thanks for the additional adds Rassputin.
@@BarakaPDub Hi. Thanks for that; I'll show this comment to Mrs Russputin to prove that I was actually once right about something!! ;0) All the best for the New Year; stay safe and sane my friend
Looks good. But pricey for what it is. I have Logic Pro so hoping to use that to record my vinyl.
It is a bit pricey but I find it to be a huge time saver.
I purchased a NAD DAC through Crutchfield with the impression I could get The basic version of Vinyl Studio free. Turns out I get a trial version only. Limited to 5 LP's
That's a bummer. If you listen to a lot of records that are not available digitally, I think it's worth the investment personally.
I think it's worth it and nothing Alpine soft did. I just won't buy another NAD product ever and crutchfield should know more about the products they sell
I plan to buy vinyl studio will it also allow me to simply play a DVD? My new laptop with external drive does not allow me to play. I used the various downloadable free trial one's but my free has run out.
Interface: ART Project Series USB Phono Plus. Thank me later!
I will have to look into the unit.
Subscribed
Thank you sir!
This is a great piece of software - I bought it a few years back. For me, I record the LP externally to .WAV on a tascam hardware recorder. Then move the SD card to the PC and copy to my HD. (I convert to FLAC before opening in Vinyl Studio). In regards to normalizing, I generally do a quick de-click first, then normalize allowing it to set different levels per channel. This gives me reasonable levels to work on the LP while I do further cleanup. Then do a final normalizing before exporting.
Thanks Ron. I hadn't thought to approach it this way. Have you seen any difference in de-clicking first and then normalizing? In a sense, that makes more sense since you likely amplifying more problems.
@@BarakaPDub For me it's main purpose is knock out any large pops/clicks, bring the channels up to "full volume" so I can better hear any areas that might need a closer listen to for correction. I suppose it could work either way, but I tend to record a bit on the low side to avoid distortion. Play around see what works best for you. I needed to level out the R vs L channels (sometimes off a db or 2 depending on the LP) and not get caught if there was a pop only in 1 channel when I normalized.
No thank you! I got back into vinyl to get away from software management of rips on my NAS, and streaming was a life saver. I buy and listen to a lot of vinyl, I stream a lot of Tidal MQA and I reserve CDs for albums I don't want to afford on vinyl (too expensive.) As far as I'm concerned, there is plenty of music to enjoy in several different formats.... While there are times I can't hear 'exactly' the album I want to, I can always find something to enjoy. Ripping, vinyl or cds, is just not for me.
It's definitely a fair point Joe and perhaps I am a bit too greedy, wanting everything to be digitized :) It is a bit a labor of love to do this and it may not be worth the investment for everyone. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment though.
Apple Music has precluded me from any perceived need to digitize, accept for the reasons you are mentioning.
I hear you Charles. Apple, Tidal, Spotify all have a lot of content to be happy with but I would say about 15% of my collection isn't on those services at all. Maybe I should just be content with what's out there?
@@BarakaPDub BTW, my Sony TA-E9000ES just died. Thinking about a Stereo Preamp with recording output , phono input, and bass management, like the Parasound P6, to get bass to my passive sub. Any experience with that stereo preamp?
It is not ripping it is recording.
Depends on your perspective.
I found your background music distracting. Get rid if it.