Anyone else burning all their Vinyl to WAV files and to their iTunes?

[auntiebling]

but these are a minority of the population.

you're out of touch with reality.

 

[GAJ]

I walk an hour every day with my iPod at lunchtime, and I can tune in whilst in my cube, though I tend to use my computer for that.

As for the system. I got a turntable that plugs into iMic etc. The thing that stopped me is a long-term bad relationship with Audacity. Over the years, I have had a very hard time figuring out correct sampling rate, suffering freezes and such as both my OS and Audacity versions changed. The thought of putting on a record, starting Audacity etc just seemed like it wouldn't work. My question is: do you run a single sound file for a whole side of an album or stop and start each track? The former seems like it would result in too big of a file. the latter would be a hassle. Curious to know. I have so many computer project work (graphic arts, ,music notation, songbook designs, that I am hesitant to ascend new learning curves in what little time I have in the evening.

Well, with the system I use you first burn a "master" with the whole album.

Next step is you go and cut out any "excess" at the beginning of the file, (you can cut out the sound of the needle drop), and in between the two sides of the album and any excess on the end, (if you're in the shower and it records 5 minutes of silence at the end for example).

You can also "fade in" to a song should it, for example, be the first song on the album that has gotten thrashed in the first 10 seconds from ham handedness resulting in huge scatches and/or a stuck needle on an especially deep initial scartch of an album.

Next step is using the visual representation of the music you find the spots in between songs and insert a "tracker" so the program then automatically breaks the "master" into individual song tracks, (at this point you can discard the "master" if you want).

If you want to then dump those tracks into iTunes rather than play them from your computer you drag and drop the tracks into a blank playlist in iTunes then go into the "get info" section and number the tracks, name the album and the individual tracks, (I copy and paste the track names from Amazon).

So, if, for example, you burn the tracks to a CD they are all separate so you can jump ahead to a track should you care to.

If you play it on your iPod the album name and track names show just as usual.

It's actually a pretty neat system, but, unlike burning a copy of a CD you can't do it in less than a minute.

A 50 minute album takes 50 minutes to record in "real time" and then the editing and separating into tracks takes another 5 minutes and the naming of tracks and such in iTunes takes about another 10 minutes.

I'm retired so I have plenty of time on my hands when I'm not out riding and such.

My albums have essentially been lying in wait for decades and it's nice to make it more convenient to access them rather than simply buy the CD of the album I already own.

Plus, the familiar "scratches" and even the sound of the needle drop are like you're meeting an old friend.

 

[Bay Arean]

Wow. To me, it sounds like a hassle, but I have some vinyl that I truly would like to transfer. I guess it would be worth a try...Thanks for SOP, it helps. I am guessing you don't get a freeze when you burn each master side (?)....I wonder how high your sampling rate is, too, because that's probably part of the problem. My issues with Audacity have always been in home recording. where I want a high rate...

 

[GAJ]

Wow. To me, it sounds like a hassle, but I have some vinyl that I truly would like to transfer. I guess it would be worth a try...Thanks for SOP, it helps. I am guessing you don't get a freeze when you burn each master side (?)....I wonder how high your sampling rate is, too, because that's probably part of the problem. My issues with Audacity have always been in home recording. where I want a high rate...

It's not really much of a hassle because the thing that takes the longest is the actual recording which you can listen to on your headphones while on line.

I record to WAV at 16 bit uncompressed 44.1kHz, (CD quality which is more than enough for vinyl...or the cassette deck I also can record from).

The only times I had freezing issues was when in the editing mode if I left my browser open...no problem at all having the browser open when doing the initial recording though.

I can burn/edit/copy to iTunes/label 3 albums or so while on line each.

Makes you think you're being productive while BS'ing on BARF and with friends via e'mail.

 

[johnkol]

People that work in cube farms pretty much have 8 hours a day to listen to music.

I work in a cube farm and absolutely no one listens to music; it's essentially considered time off if you do that, the assumption being that you cannot be working while listening to music at the same time.

 

[Bay Arean]

I work in a cube farm and absolutely no one listens to music; it's essentially considered time off if you do that, the assumption being that you cannot be working while listening to music at the same time.

Die, tyrants, die. I guess I'm lucky. We're graphic artists so I think we get to be wacky. We sometimes listen aloud though the office banshee has made a deal in the past.

 

[Traq]

I work in a cube farm and absolutely no one listens to music; it's essentially considered time off if you do that, the assumption being that you cannot be working while listening to music at the same time.

I've never heard of something so ridiculous. Sounds like you work in a sweatshop...except they'd let those workers listen to music.

 

[aminalmutha]

OK, I have a genuine question: when do you listen to tunes on your portable device? I really cannot think of a moment during the day where I could do that: on my commute to work I listen to CDs in my car. At work obviously I cannot listen to anything. Commute back home same as before, and when I get home I have my stereo to enjoy.

I can see how portable tunes can be useful for people that commute by public transport, or for students that have some dead time between classes, but these are a minority of the population.

So I'm clearly missing something here.

All the time. I can plug my phone into my truck and my car, hell, I don't even have to plug it into my car cuz it gots Bluetoof. arty I've got stacks of CD's, but sometimes it's a hassle to carry a bunch around with me and I don't like them cluttering up the car.

Cube farm allows this also. I can also throw my phone on my boom box in the garage and stream Pandora, which rulz. Trust me, I love my vinyl and CD's, but the iPud type stuff is extremely convenient.

 

[johnkol]

Die, tyrants, die. I guess I'm lucky. We're graphic artists so I think we get to be wacky. We sometimes listen aloud though the office banshee has made a deal in the past.

Well, it's not a company policy or anything like that. We're engineers, working on product development, so there's a lot of co-operation, and at any given time people could come up and ask you a question, so essentially isolating yourself from others is not considered a nice gesture -- so no one does it. Whenever I have downtime I cruise the web... and post on BARF!

 

[wellbredred]

I did the dedicated analog-digital turntable. Using Cakewalk.

I work in a cube farm and absolutely no one listens to music; it's essentially considered time off if you do that, the assumption being that you cannot be working while listening to music at the same time.

No offense but that sounds like a shithole. We don't have cubes, just rows of desks (like cafeteria seating, which is kind of a shithole in itself) with a short divider. We're all wearing headphones.

edit: just read this:

Well, it's not a company policy or anything like that. We're engineers, working on product development, so there's a lot of co-operation, and at any given time people could come up and ask you a question, so essentially isolating yourself from others is not considered a nice gesture -- so no one does it. Whenever I have downtime I cruise the web... and post on BARF!

Are you in my office? We're engineers working product development. We just IM each other

 

[Poxy]

I thought WAV at 16 bit uncompressed 44.1kHz was CD quality?

It is, but just so you know...24 bit/ 48k is what professionals use in audio post production. The sample rate (44.1k, 48k) isn't as important as the bit depth though.

Especially since your recording levels probably aren't ideal, (you lose 1 bit for every 6db below 0) you really are getting a 15 bit recording at best. If you were transferring modern music which often has little dynamic range no biggie, but music from Vinyl's heyday was mixed with WAY more dynamic range. This can mean the quieter passages of your music may even be in the 12 bit range.

Ironic that in the age of digital (which allows for more dynamic range) we have chosen to reduce it in our Mastering process. Google "Loudness War" if you want to know why.

Anyway, digital storage is cheap. Go for 24 bits and someday you may be glad you did. I doubt you'll hear the difference between 44.1 and 48 (10% improvement in a range largely inaudible to humans) but the difference between 16 bits and 24 is 50%...more in fact because it's a logarithmic scale.

 

[goodness-707]

I work in a cube farm and absolutely no one listens to music; it's essentially considered time off if you do that, the assumption being that you cannot be working while listening to music at the same time.

We probably work in different kinds of cube farms. I've worked in several, also all on product dev engineering teams. Headphones are semi-common, and largely up to the individual. The only real trend I've seen in the last several years is that people are willing to spend a lot more on headphones. Also, the teams I've worked on tend to care a lot more that you do a kick ass job than how you go about getting it done.

Even for archival purposes vinyl is far more resilient than any digital medium.

What... do your bits biodegrade?

 

[RS250 Chester]

Took me a a few years to digitize about 1500 albums/12" singles and EP's. Made 2 copies, a FLAC and an MP3. I used NCH's Wavepad editor, which was outstanding and much easier to use than Audacity. Had great set of filters and IIRC, would detect blank space and divide the music. Also had a ID tag editor.

My set-up was quite complex, but was quite pleased with the results. Technics turntable plugged into a Sony ES amp; sound was routed to a Sony Minidisc recorder (had a great set of DAC's), where I was able to output the sound via optical cable into my sound card optical inputs. This was before any USB turntables hit the market.

 

[johnkol]

Are you in my office? We're engineers working product development. We just IM each other

Probaly not in your office since in our office no one listens to music!

Sure, most of the time we IM each other too, but I suppose the culture here is that aurally isolating yourself from your surroundings is frowned upon so nobody does it.

We probably work in different kinds of cube farms. I've worked in several, also all on product dev engineering teams. Headphones are semi-common, and largely up to the individual. The only real trend I've seen in the last several years is that people are willing to spend a lot more on headphones. Also, the teams I've worked on tend to care a lot more that you do a kick ass job than how you go about getting it done.

What can I say, I've worked in very small companies (20 people) and very large ones (100k+ people), and it has always been the same: no one puts headphones on . Even when I was working at a startup where the atmosphere was very relaxed (we were having parties twice a week), same deal -- no headphones.

Just to be clear though: I'm not begrudging this fact. I'm one of those people that cannot listen to music while working -- I simply cannot concentrate with music in my ears. So even if everybody else was doing it, I would still be headphones-free.

What... do your bits biodegrade?

If you think about it... yes! Where do you store these bits? On CDs/DVDs? The protective polycarbonate layer will eventually outgas, the aluminum layer will oxidise, and your medium becomes a frisbee.

On hard disks? How many years before they crash?

So digital information has to be transferred between physical media every now and then lest it gets lost. On top of that you have the coding/decoding scheme used to haunt you forever: do you think that 50 years from now there will be devices that support MP3?

On the other hand, vinyl disks are very stable -- they have been around for more than 60 years without any deterioration. Plus, hundred years from now you could play them with a thorn as a needle if you wanted to.

 

[tzrider]

On top of that you have the coding/decoding scheme used to haunt you forever: do you think that 50 years from now there will be devices that support MP3?

That's merely a case for storing it in a lossless, archival quality format. For CD's it's typically 16 bit, 44.1k in wav, flac or another lossless format. For vinyl, go 24/96 if you can. Whatever the format du jour, you can transcode to the target format if you have a bit perfect copy of the original.

 

[Banjoboy]

subscribed!
Gotz all kindsa great shit on vinyl I'd like ta digitize sum day.

 

[Traq]

Sure, most of the time we IM each other too, but I suppose the culture here is that aurally isolating yourself from your surroundings is frowned upon so nobody does it.

Yea, it'd be horrible if someone had to get your attention and wait that 1 second for you to pull your headphones off. They'd probably die right on the spot!

I don't wear headphones but I frequently keep my earplugs in. I think your rationalizations of a "culture" not to "aurally isolate yourself" is ridiculously hilarious. No one has any personal items in their cubicles either, do they?

 

[zombi]

I do it by taking the amplified signal feed from my turntable into my old MBox ProTools rig, and then doing any sound work and track breaking stuff in there, same as from a cassette or etc analog source.

I'm sure its way easier now with an all in one retail product but this is how I've done it all along and I got the setup already. plus I only do this for stuff I gotta have that I can't get digitally somewhere else, cause it's not the easiest or least time consuming thing in the world to do

 

[GAJ]

It is, but just so you know...24 bit/ 48k is what professionals use in audio post production. The sample rate (44.1k, 48k) isn't as important as the bit depth though.

Especially since your recording levels probably aren't ideal, (you lose 1 bit for every 6db below 0) you really are getting a 15 bit recording at best. If you were transferring modern music which often has little dynamic range no biggie, but music from Vinyl's heyday was mixed with WAY more dynamic range. This can mean the quieter passages of your music may even be in the 12 bit range.

Ironic that in the age of digital (which allows for more dynamic range) we have chosen to reduce it in our Mastering process. Google "Loudness War" if you want to know why.

Anyway, digital storage is cheap. Go for 24 bits and someday you may be glad you did. I doubt you'll hear the difference between 44.1 and 48 (10% improvement in a range largely inaudible to humans) but the difference between 16 bits and 24 is 50%...more in fact because it's a logarithmic scale.

Thanks for the education!

 

[johnkol]

The sample rate (44.1k, 48k) isn't as important as the bit depth though.

That's not true; sample rate is critical in the accurate digitisation of the signal. For a complex waveform like music, you need a sample rate of 8 to 10 times the highest frequencies in your signal for a faithful recosntruction of the waveform, i.e. a sample rate of at least 180kHZ (so 192kHz would work fine). The Red Book standard of 44.1kHz falls far short of this, and it is one of the reasons for the substandard audio quality of CDs.

When I have a need to transcribe vinyl I use my Alesis Masterlink, and although it is a very highly praised machine, I can still hear the difference between the produced CDs and the original vinyl. I can even hear a difference between the 96kHz version of a track on the Masterlink's internal hard drive and the original vinyl track, but in this case I do not know whether I'm hearing the limitations of the sampling, or the D/A section of the Masterlink.