I've been away on vacation for a while so have only just stumbled across this thread, but I thought I would stick my oar in...
I've been digitizing LPs since 1994 (yes - that's 1994, not 2004). I'm probably peculiar in that I find the whole process very interesting, and it's one of my hobbies. But for people with a life, I'd say there are only three reasons why you should ever consider digitizing an LP: 1. It's not available on CD. 2. It's available on CD, but costs silly money. 3. It's available on CD, but has been remixed/remastered/otherwise edited in a manner that degrades the performance. (For example, the CD release might be hypercompressed so much that the LP actually sounds better). That's it. Just now I can't think of any other reason to do it (unless like me you enjoy the process). If you do decide to do some LP digitizing, I have a few comments: 1. The most important stage in the process is to get a decent analogue signal off the LP - what's lost at this stage cannot be recovered in software. That means cleaning the LP properly (ideally with a vacuum device), playing it on a decent turntable with a correctly aligned pickup cartridge and a stylus in good condition, and using a decent phono preamp. 2. I am unaware of any USB turntable that does what I'd call a "good job". Of those I've seen, the only one that looks remotely adequate is the Project Debut USB. 3. None of the USB turntables I've found the specs for mention user-adjustable gain prior to the A/D converters, so it is impossible to get the gain staging correct for all LPs. The manufacturer either has to play very safe and use a low signal level (thus losing resolution in the converters), or you'll sometimes get clipping in the converters. 4. There are plenty of free packages that will do basic recording and editing. Audacity has been mentioned and it's a decent general purpose audio editor. 5. As far as I am aware, there exist ZERO software packages that are both free and can do a decent job of cleanup (declicking, decrackling, etc). If you want to do any kind of "restoration", you will have to spend some money. Automatic declickers that I've tried and found to work fairly well are Wave Corrector, Click Repair, the Noise Reduction 2.0 plugin for Sound Forge (which I believe is bundled with Sound Forge Audio Studio), and the Audio Cleanup plugin for CoolEdit 2000 (which I believe is bundled with Adobe Audition). 6. Someone mentioned CoolEdit 2000. It's probably the best affordable audio editor there ever was. But when Adobe bought out Syntrillium, they dumped it. If you want to download it, you can find links to the install files on my site here: http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm. However, you will also need unlock keys, and I cannot distribute those for obvious reasons (like not wanting Adobe's lawyers to break my legs). What's now called Abode Audition is what was CoolEdit Pro, and it costs a lot of money. (It's a superb editor, but way OTT for LP digitizing). -- cliveb Transporter -> ATC SCM100A ------------------------------------------------------------------------ cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60096 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/ripping
