cliveb;688331 Wrote: 
> Well, just because the music is well-recorded classical does not alter
> the fact that vinyl LPs have a maximum dynamic range around the 60dB
> mark - perhaps 70dB for a pristine "audiophile" pressing with a
> following wind.
> 
> Modern soundcards routinely achieve noise floors below -90dB. (Even my
> modest M-Audio AP2496, which must be well over 5 years old, achieves
> about -93dB). Using such a soundcard, you can safely record LPs at a
> peak level down around -12dB and the vinyl surface noise will still
> overwhelm the soundcard's noise floor. My recommendation is to visually
> inspect the LP to find what looks to be the loudest section, then set
> levels to peak at about -9dB on that section. That still gives you a
> decent amount of headroom for surprise peaks.
Yep, that is pretty much how I do it too. One of the facilities of
VinylStudio is that it counts "clips" in your recording as you go
along. As I usually listen to the music as it is recording I am aware
of any clips and can make a quick fine adjustments on the fly.  I am
not usually worried if I have one or two clips in a recording.  If I
have the basic level about right they are usually the very peak of a
transient of a couple of milliseconds and no distortion is audible.

I think the misunderstandings between myself and Cunobelinus is that he
and you  digitise precious recordings that are not available any other
way.  Because of that you are both taking an appropriately diligent and
serious approach.

For me the process of digitising my LPs started as a casual experiment
but quickly became just added on to a process of rediscovering the
older parts of my music collection. Without that extra motivation I
doubt I would have got past recording the first 3 or 4 discs.

However, as I am listening to the music anyway, I might as well record
it at the same time and save myself the cost of buying the CD. For
instance last night I listened to, and recorded, Rickie Lee Jones "The
Magazine".  I remember playing it avidly for a few months after I
bought it in 1984 but I don't think it has been out of its sleeve since
I moved to London in 1989. It was pretty pristine so I just manually
removed 3 "pops" at the start of one of the tracks but otherwise dumped
it straight into FLAC files. The Discogs database via VinylStudio had no
trouble finding tag data with track times and cover art came from
Amazon. Processing time was about 6 minutes setting track breaks, 5
minutes removing the three pops and 40 seconds to save the FLAC files.

Last week I played Donald Fagen's Nightfly and Kamakiriad. Although
Kamakiriad was fine, I had played Nightfly to death in the past and the
disc showed it. There was no visible damage or grime, but a lot of
intrusive clicks and pops. After trying to repair the surface noise in
the first track I got bored, dumped the computer WAV file and ordered
the CD for £4.50 from Amazon. In the meantime I am listening to it on
Napster.  Brilliant album!


-- 
TheLastMan

Matt
http://www.last.fm/user/MJL-UK
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*Study:* Linn LP12, Naim 72/Hi-cap/Headline.
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