Tranferring vinyl records to dvd

[volvoguy]

On 8/23/05, squareyes <squareyes at optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> I imagine he would need a recording application, (files in would be .wav
> files I imagine).
> A converter to CD tracks. New to me too.

Not to be mister negative, because I seriously hope open-source audio
apps will be at least up to par with proprietary apps someday. This is
one of those "still need to boot into OS X/Windows" deals for me (and
my brother with an audio engineering degree). I've been doing digital
and analog editing, and general audio engineering for a lot of years,
and while the basics are possible in Linux, it's either really
difficult or not possible at all to duplicate the results you'd get
with a more mature system. Capturing the audio is easy enough -
Audacity will get the job done. The hard part will be "cleaning up"
the audio. I usually record a bit of the noise that the turntable
makes all by itself, and use a noise reduction plugin (I prefer Waves
audo restoration plugins) to remove that particular noise signature.
Pops/dust/scratches are usually the most difficult, and I personally
haven't seen an open-source app that can do that well.

Even though vinyl can theoretically have a greater dynamic range than
"CD quality" (16bit, 44.1k sampling rate), unless you have a really
good turntable, anything below about 20-30Hz is just going to be mud -
so I usually employ a high cut filter in that range. My final stage is
to use a compressor/limiter to make sure it's as "loud"* as possible
before burning the CD. Keep in mind that (in simplified terms) if your
recording is too quiet, you're not really making use of all 16 of
those bits. I usually use Waves L2/L3 Ultramaximizer, which is
basically just a fancy limiter, but it allows you to set the maximum
level you want (I shoot for -0.3db), and then adjust the gain to
anything you want, and it'll never go over that -0.3db.

*I put loud in quotes because it really doesn't have anything to do
with listening volume, but filling up the 16bit range you have
available. As one of my favorite mastering engineers (Bob Katz) once
said, "It's not how loud you make it, it's how you make it loud."

I think *the* best suggestion so far is Derek's. It's well within your
fair-use rights to borrow a CD of an album you already own and make a
copy. I'll add to that, that unless your friend's records are really
rare and out of print, it will save him a lot of time and energy to
just buy the CD versions. I get asked to transfer vinyl to CD all the
time and that's always my first question - "Can you buy it on CD? Yes?
Then do that." Also, FWIW, depending on the condition of the record, I
usually charge between $25-50 (US) to do a transfer.

Hmm... I guess I didn't answer your question though. Just consider
this an informational message until I can get to my Ubuntu machine and
get the names of the few apps I HAVE played with. I think "GNUSound"
may have been one of them. (I just grabbed everything audio related in
the apt repositories, so I forget which is which). :o)

-- 
Aaron

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