Recording LPS onto some form of server.

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Warrenz

15 posts

Geek

#33143 30-Apr-2009 20:52

Hi Guys

I have a reasonable size LP collection which for convience I would like to record onto some form of "server/ media centre" if possible, without much loss of sound quality.

The "server" media centre would need to hold music from other sourcers, like I tunes and if possible photos/video.

Could this all be done & work well through a computer?

All of this would need to be able to interfaced through multroom system mentioned above.

Once again thoughts / comments appreciated.

richms

28175 posts

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#211048 30-Apr-2009 21:27

Grab the same things thru torrent, ripping LPs is a long, drawn out process that IMO is not worth it since its never as good as the same thing off a CD.

Richard rich.ms

NZWizzkid

14 posts

Geek

#212703 5-May-2009 22:26

Greetings

I am assuming that your turntable is connected to a pre /amplifier with a "tape out" or "line out", connect the output to the 'line in' on your sound card. Windows recorder should work.
The copies you make will generally not be as good as studio recorded or re-mastered digital copies, but they are going to be as good as you are likely to get them. You could cough up for a sound card that has a high bit count A/D converter, but I do not think you would notice the difference.

Preferably I would look for a program that,
a) Has the ability to remove clicks and pops automatically.
or
b) Has the ability to view and edit the waveform so you can remove the imperfections manually.

I personally would go for option 'b' but that is because I like to sit in front of my computer screen to the early hours of the morning and fiddle with things to get them as near perfect as possible.

Colin Smith
Systems Specialist
1 Touch Automation.

lchiu7

6476 posts

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#213517 8-May-2009 17:03

There is a freeware program called audacity which can do that sort of waveform editing and remove pops and crackles.

I have done some of this transferring; only because I don't want to buy the CD or cannot buy the CD of a LP I own. I have used a Canopus ADVC110 which is a firewire capture device connected to a PC over firewire (of course). The turntable is connected to an amp, the line output goes to the ADVC110 and over firewire the PC gets files in DV format which most software can understand.

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AncestralGeek

91 posts

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#214727 13-May-2009 22:38

Hi

Over the past 4 years I transfered 400 LP's to digital. Used a Project Turntable, with built in pre-amp, through a Creative Audigy2 sound card. The software that came with the sound card included enough tools to subdue clicks etc and also edit the waveform.
Do not under estimate the amount of time this is going to take. Take the time to prepare the LP, play and record the LP, edit the resulting file, split the tracks etc comes to about two hours per LP. Even longer if LP is not in pristine condition. By the time I was finished I had refined my technique somewhat and was recording the whole LP to a single file and doing the editing on that. There is a variety of software available but the only piece of software that tempted me was a program that would split the tracks for you.
Initially I was recording in 24 bit and a high sampling rate to a .wav file. Seriously large files, very slow to work with. After awhile I decided to reduce the recording the settings to CD standard. The mixture of my hearing and equipment that I was playing the recordings on meant that there was no point in in the higher settings.
I am glad that I did it but are quite convinced that a lot of the LP's that I have must have been given to me for surely I would never have brought some of those LP's.

Good luck.