Vereina;384516 Wrote: 
> Many thanks again to all who have replied (and apologies for not having
> said so sooner).  I really appreciate the fact that you all took the
> time to share your knowledge and experience.
> 
> I have now bought an Edirol UA-1EX USB DAC, and am looking forward to
> starting to experiment (just as soon as I have time to do so ....).  To
> begin with, I am going to try using Audacity, although may look at
> alternatives later on.
> 
> As for the sample rate and word length: given all you've said, I'm
> going to try 24 bit / 48 kHz to being with (and will also do some
> comparisons with other resolutions).  It sounds like that should be
> perfectly adequate.
> 
> And I do, by the way, have a Nitty Gritty record cleaning machine. 
> Quite invaluable when buying second-hand records!  I dare say that the
> records being clean makes an order of magnitude more difference than
> fine details of the hardware and software setup being used ....
> 
> Thanks again ....

Take a little care with the 24/48 encoding. 

1 - File sizes are enormous. x4 even compressed to FLAC is typical.

2 - I have done some experimenting and could hear no audible difference
off LP, and I would class myself as a very discerning listener.  Mind
you the HF hearing loss at my age (49) would make any sonic benefit
from a 48khz sampling rate inaudible anyway!

3 - If you ever want to write the files to a "red book" CD (CD-R
/CD-RW) then you will be down-sampling to 16/44.1 which can introduce
significant errors and compromises when converting 48 to 44.1

4 - Everything you do on the digital side will take a lot longer!

I am getting into a quite reasonable work-flow. When I started
recording my LPs I noticed how few of them I had actually listened to
in the last 10-15 years.  I realised that I would have to listen to an
LP to decide whether or not to record it.  But then again, why not
record it while I listen to it anyway?  If the record is really hateful
I can always bin the data rather than encode it.

Although very time consuming I am thoroughly enjoying this process,
rediscovering music I had forgotten I had.

So my work-flow is

- clean the LP.  I don't have any fancy machinery. I use neat washing
up detergent (Fairy Liquid) which I apply with my fingers (taking care
to avoid the label).  I then rinse off under a cold tap.  You can do
this so that very little water is trapped in the grooves - it tends to
"bead" and  run off quite well anyway.  I finish off by dabbing with a
piece of paper towel.  Maybe not the ideal cleaning method, but way
better than not cleaning at all - and it is surprising what a huge
difference such a simple process has made to many of my older and
grubbier LPs.

- put on headphones.  To avoid microphony with the LP12 I never
monitor using speakers.

- launch the recording software, pick the loudest track and set the
level.

- drop the needle, sit back and enjoy the music.

- my software (Spin-it-again) uses on line databases to label the
tracks and suggest track breaks.  I do a bit of minor editing and then
it saves the single WAV recording as separate WAV files for each track

- use dBpoweramp to batch process from WAV -> FLAC and MP3tag to add
the tag data.

I am well used to the odd click and pop so I don't bother with any
"clean-up" processing.

All in all it adds about 5 minutes to the beginning (to clean) and 15 -
20 minutes to the end of any LP I listen to, which is not so bad. I have
done about 40 so far and it has taken me about 4 months, so that is
about 2-3 LPs a week. At this rate it will take me another 5 years to
finish my collection.  Not a process for those in a hurry!


-- 
TheLastMan

Matt

SB Duet, Synology Diskstation 107+ with FW 2.0-0600
SqueezeCenter 7.3.1 and SSODS 3 beta 15.
Naim 42/110 amp, B&W CM2 speakers.
LPs ripped using Linn LP12, Naim 72/Hi-cap, M-Audio 2496.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TheLastMan's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=16021
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=57431

_______________________________________________
ripping mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping

Reply via email to