burning cd's

[oldtimer]

I would like to record some lp's onto cd's using my computer. Please help me starting from ground zero since I am not a computer whiz and I have never done this before. Which program for recording do you suggest? Any tips, advice are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[doctorcilantro]

There's quite a bit of free .wav editors out there; I'd search the web for shareware. Wavelab Lite if you can find it would nice. I find the Steinberg products very flexible and they are well designed.

Actually, I think J. River Media Center may have a wav editor and record funtion. It's a really great program and you can try it for 30 days.

Others popular "expensive" progs include: Magix Sequoia, Sonic Foundry Soundforge, Steinberg Wavelab.

What about your phono stage? Going direct from a TT with an onboard amp? Receiver? Integrated?

I'll try to dig up some FAQ's....

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=298117

http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=381168

http://www.tweakheadz.com/soundcards_for_the_home_studio.htm

Dr. C

[oldtimer]

My plan is to go from TT through integrated amp then to the computer. Thanks.

[yaffstone]

Check out Audicaty. It's free and pretty darned good.

[dgb]

As someone who has recorded extensively at home, both analog and digital, I'd reccomend buying a nice three head tape deck. Nakamichi, Yamaha, Sony ES, some of the Onkyo's, TEACs and Pioneers are also quite nice. Easier, quicker, fewer problems and the sound quality is just as good.

Now that you're probably disregarding that advice... here's some more.

Best quality would require you using an A-D converted outside of your computer and running that into a digital soundcard. If you do the A/D conversion through the computer's soundcard, unless you get a real nice one specifically for music, you're going to get all kinds of ugly noise from the innards of the computer. You can get outboard soundcards now I think, just for this type of thing.

Digital editing is also tricky. Most pop and click removal software will leave horrendous artifacts, which you may not notice in the car, but will definately notice on your home system. If you manually remove the clicks, things work out better, but of course it takes quite a while.

EAC is a free, and very well done ripper/recorder/editor. Has a very nice noise rediction module if you transfer from cassette or from noisy original LPs.

[oldtimer]

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I did just buy a Nakamichi LX-5, but for cars and sharing with others without tape decks I want to be able to make decent cd's too.

[ESV1955]

I'm in the process of converting my LP collection to C.D. myself. I chose to buy a CD recorder from Sony (RCD-W500c) for about $250.00. I'm about 50 albums into the project and so far everything is going well.

[yaffstone]

For the car I've gone to an mp3 jukebox. Some of these come with rip built in and a line in jack. The jukebox can be connected to the car stereo either through a cassette type adapter or by FM transmission. There's so much road noise in most vehicles that the loss of sound quality of mp3 isn't noticable. Another bonus is that you can play back your collection in shuffle mode so you don't have to listen to a complete album at once. All the tunes are ones you like, but in no predictable order so you get a bit of a surprise on every song...

[Mallette]

May I respectively disagree with dgb about the "ugly noise" of internal computer soundcards? While this general belief is grounded in some degree of fact with regards to cheap and on-board sound circuits, the better ones, including Revelation, and even internal SB cards such as Live! on up, are very low noise. The high end ones, such as Card Deluxe, ESL Pro, etc. are as low or lower in noise than even the most expensive outboard DACS. Card Deluxe was compared by a $tereophile reviewer to Mark Levinson's 15,000.00 outboard unit favorably.

Further, I've the personal experience of building 5, and am working on the 6th generation of computer-based digital audio workstation/recorders/music servers for the most demanding application. While some of the earlier ones had one issue or the other (sometimes more!), none has ever suffered from RF or any other noise induced by the computer. The latest, MBS-6, now in construction, will be recording at 24/96 X 4 channels for DVD-A production, and you'd better believe I'll not be settling for any "noise" not made by the musicians!

While the suggestion to transfer to tape is a sound one (no pun intended) from an ease/quality POV, it is not archival. If you are SERIOUSLY into preserving LP's, I'd record them to a RAID 1 HDD at 24/88.2 with only very high end (such as Sound Forge) processing for click and pop removal. This program (and I am sure there are others) can be set so that it in no way alters the signal unless it "sees" the signature it is set to detect of a pop or click. Then, it removes it nicely and, in many cases, with no audible impact of its own. Once you have the disc recorded at 24/88.2, you can downsample to half that (16/44.1) to make CD's for convenience. Make 2, label one "BU" and put it in a safe place. If something happens to your listening copy, MAKE ANOTHER FROM THE BU, and put the BU away again. This way, you are backed up twice...one at the high resolution RAID level, then at the CD level. I use a similar process for location recordings and have lost no data since I implemented the strategy.

With high-end DAC cards, a quality turntable and preamp, you will be amazed at how close a 24/88.2 recording of an LP will be to the original...except, now no clicks and pops!

Making LP>digital transfers is a time-consuming process whether done well or poorly. Might as well do it well!

Happy listening!

Dave

[yaffstone]

RAID 1? Isn't this level just disk expansion? RAID 0 would be mirror, level 5 would be parity redundancy at 1/number of disks loss in space. Does RAID have a different meaning here then in data storage?

More importantly though, where does one get the software you are recommending?

[fletcherkane]

Magix Audio cleaning Lab--$40 bucks at Best Buy. A simply amazing tool. Very user friendly. Every imaginable filter. Let the wizard clean the recordings for you, or notch every click and pop manually. It is all a breeze with this program. I bought it in December, and have not stopped since. I am constantly converting my lps. I love it.

[Mallette]

RAID 1 is usually implemented as mirroring; a drive has its data duplicated on two different drives using either a hardware RAID controller or software (generally via the operating system). If either drive fails, the other continues to function as a single drive until the failed drive is replaced. Conceptually simple, RAID 1 is popular for those who require fault tolerance and don't need top-notch read performance. A variant of RAID 1 is duplexing, which duplicates the controller card as well as the drive, providing tolerance against failures of either a drive or a controller. It is much less commonly seen than straight mirroring.

RAID 0 is for performance, but if either drive fails, all data is lost.

Dave

[dgb]

Mallette,

I agree that with the proper equipment recording onto computer is outstanding, but many people are under the impression that any old $350 e-machine will get the job done, it won't. I have a Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1 sound card which does a very nice job. But most standard soundcards are going to sound like crap if you record direct from your preamp output into the soundcard's analog input. I recall my Soundblaster 16 card had a noise floor around, I'm thinking about -50 or -60 db, so really your S/N ratio is worse than even a moderately decent tape deck. If you go digital, there of course is not problem with that.

I've used Magix, and it's a very nice tool, but I never found it's wizards terribly effective. I also found it very clunky and slow. The interface is very easy though.

By far the best LP to Disc transfers I've gotten were with a Philips CD-Recorder. Unfortunately good quality CD-R music discs are impossible to find any more, and my player only takes 74min, which are also impossible to find. Been thinking about possibly buying a pro recorder, but my recent Dragon purchase probably precludes that (well, if I wasn't married it wouldn't stop me)

As to archive quality, there is NO digital media that is considered archival. DAT was as close as it got, but now the format is almost totally defunct. I used to work in an archives that had thousands of A/V items from Fred Waring's complete recordings to every Penn State football game. There are exactly three A/V formats that are considered archival: celluloid film, reel to reel audio tape and phonograph records.

Everything else is prone to failure or format obsolesence. You can always find a film projector or record player, you can't say that about U-Matics, Betamax, helical film players. DVD production is also very expensive to have done professionally, but it is the best alternative to film and will hopefully be supported for the forseeable future.

Cassette tapes are far more reliable than CD or DVD when properly stored. There are many reasons for this.

A. When CDs go bad, the disc is usually unsalvagable by Joe Schmoe computer user. Tapes may suffer from drop outs or even be eaten (which shouldn;t happen in archival conditions) but you can always salvage the vast majority of the recording.

B. CD-Rs go bad A LOT, especially with cheap media which is about all you can get now. CD players can be very finiky as to what they will or will not play. Some don't play CD-R, many don't play CD-R 80min. A tape will play in any tape deck. Magnectic audio tape has been around a lot longer than CDs, and especially CD-R, has a proven track record and is likely to remain in production longer than redbook CDs which are already being pushed out.

As to sound quality, CD can certianly outperform cassette tape but how many LPs really produce S/N ratios higher than the 72-80db a top notch tape deck can handle? How many CDs for that matter?

CD to CD copying is of course a different story.

Rant endeth.

[Mallette]

dgb:

I am not going to go there on the "digital is not archival" thing again. The arguments are completely absurd. I am 56 years old and my soul is analog to the core...but to argue analog as archival under any circumstances other than hieroglyphics on stone simply offends common sense.

When a digital storage device approaches its shelf life, you simply copy to whatever is "now." My current preference for long term is simply archival HDD, which I only use to dump things to then put away. Given the 100,000 MTBF of HQ HDDs and the fact I put about 2 or 3 hour on them to transfer, I doubt there will be any problems other than insuring the stuff is passed on to another medium before anyone forgets what these things were. Perhaps I will leave a note...

Of course, I also burn CD's and DVD's. Anything worth keeping is worth keeping redundantly.

Best regards,

Dave

[johnyholiday]

think i'm going to get set up ,an go like hell for 30 days with this one ,i want to record some lps to dvd with visualizations, http://www.funvibes.com/ ,any other suggestions on software ........

[dgb]

It's fine to do this with a personal collection, but with tens of thousands of items and limited resources it's just not a realistic goal to copy an item every 5 years or so. Digital discs are great for high use items or as a backup, but it is not been proven, and has in many cases already been discredited, as a long term storage option.

The arguments are not absurd, you can disagree with them if you like, but there is a track record on phonograph records, microfilm, celluloid film, and magnetic audio tape. When stored properly they are stable for at least as long as they have been in existence. I've had CD-Rs that I've recorded, sat on a shelf for a year, and tried play with no avail. No scratches, no smudges, just no results.

[Smokem]

Wouldn't a CD/R or DVR be alot less hassel?

[Mallette]

I have been storing digital archives since 1988. No losses. Some of this orignated on Amiga floppies, 5.25 IBM floppies, etc, to HDD's and the old Iomega 40 mb RMD carts, then various other media.

Again, IMHO and experience, ONLY digital is archival. All other methods suffer from transfer degradation or simple deterioration.

For my most precious material, I back it up to brand new HDD's of the best quality, then burn CD/DVD's (working copy and secondary BU). If the working copy fails or is damaged, I make a new one from the secondary BU.

Yep, it's a bit of trouble..but true archiving is a bit of trouble in any medium. OTOH, I've not lost data.

I've reviewed the government and other "tests" finding analog superior, and they are so full of poorly applied science as to be reminescent of the space shuttle program. Burt Rutan got it right... Just because you are a huge institution with a ton of money doesn't mean your results are TRVTH.

Dave

[anarchist]

Yes - CD and DVD are very easy. DGB is, however, quite right about the problems inherent with these items as archival mediums. It is well known that CD's and DVD's suffer from disk rot. That is a fact and there is no way around it. The solution is redundancy (Mirror, RAID5, backup to tape, etc.)

[Mallette]

I fully concur with the idea that laser media are not foolproof. Nothing is, hence redundancy.

Dave