Vinyl ripping software.

[ripblade]

I still have Audiotools, though I no longer use it. It was a very useful program, but terribly buggy....4.7 was the last version that was somewhat stable, at least on my machine.

I do miss the 2-pass RMS normalizer though...nothing else I've come across can replace it.

[cannan138]

I connect my turntable to a THX Soundblaster which has a USB out into my MacBook Pro. I then use Audacity to record the music. A top notch turntable is key though.

[megatrends]

And there is still Audacity, freeware.

Cheers,
Alec

I just got a free disc for that with my new Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB turntable. Looking forward to using it. It says to go the the website and look for the newest version which may be newer than the included disc lol. it is actually, the turntable came with v1.2.6 and they have 2.0 available on the website which addresses issues with the v1.2.6

I love this stuff.

[gofar99]

I suspect this is too much to want...but does it have a built in RIAA equalizer so that you can directly feed in something from a turntable and have it do the RIAA as it records - or even afterwards for that matter.

[Alec124c41]

I suspect this is too much to want...but does it have a built in RIAA equalizer so that you can directly feed in something from a turntable and have it do the RIAA as it records - or even afterwards for that matter.

There is an Equalizer program by the same gentleman that writes ClickRepair (recommended), with a number of options. Check that out.

Cheers,
Alec

[b1j]

I use Audacity, and after a moderately long learning curve, I can now rip albums reliably. I spend almost as much time marking off and naming the tracks as I do recording the LP. But pops and clicks? They're on the records, folks. I had my albums in careful storage for 25 years. They are in excellent condition, and some are just pristine, but others from earlier in life have honorable scars from the world. Obviously I clean the LP well before ripping, but there are physical imperfections on every disk. I enjoy the aural memory of hearing MY old album again across the decades, with that little pop I remember in the second verse. It's part of the experience.

All this other talk about interfaces and complicated equipment and settings...wow. I use a phono preamp (because my 5.1 home theater lacks a phono input) made by a company called TCC, whoever they are. It's model TC-750LC; I got it on Amazon a couple of years ago for $50. All I do is run from the preamp through a white/red RCA-to-1/8" TRS cable (Radio Shack) into the audio-in jack on my MacBook Pro. No external sound card, no other gadgets, no other software. I can make aiff, MP3, and a few other formats. The music sounds great and I'm delighted with having all my old albums road-ready. Oh, and a good set of headphones completes the setup.

[jorgjean]

I use Wavepurity

http://wavepurity.difitec.de/

excellent results. Also includes Trackprocessor that automatically splits into tracks and other handy tools. Interesting price, easy to use. Works with ASIO as well (contrary to Audacity).
Very highly recommmended.

[suprawes]

I have been using Vinyl Studio for around 3 years now. They are always adding new features and it does just about anything you can think of and makes the whole process as painless as possible.

[rkay5]

Hi,
Have Audacity with ASIO and it does recorded true 24bit files check with Wavelab 6.1 Bit meter.If you want a copy of Audacity 1.3.13 with ASIO pm me.

[mmarston]

Hi,
Have Audacity with ASIO and it does recorded true 24bit files check with Wavelab 6.1 Bit meter.If you want a copy of Audacity 1.3.13 with ASIO pm me.

Thanks for your kind offer, Robert. It's working great. 8 albums (2 double) copied since last evening. Now to the "post production..."

Best,
Mike

[rkay5]

Mike,
You are welcome,what audio interface are you using?I use a E-MU 1616m PCIe and recorded with Wavelab 6.1 at 88.2 or 96 or 192/32Bit float wav both side to Click Repair, than I use Audacity to make tracks and add metadata next save as 24bit aiff file because aiff will hold all the metadata when exported from Audacity wav will not.Next convert back to wav with dBpoweramp for play in foobar 2000.What do do and use?

[mmarston]

I have an M-Audio 24/96 that a friend tossed out. It's in a low end Dell running Vista that was the grandkids' game machine until I hijacked it... I do everything in Audacity (or did until I found out about the 16 bit issue.) I track at 24/96, save the .aup project, do my editing in that. I usually record all sides of an album as a single project.

Processing usually starts with a steep high pass filter at 18-30 Hz (depending on the record) to get rid of warp-wiggles. Then attack any big clicks with the Repair tool so they won't interfere with level adjustment. Sometimes I use Normalize, sometimes Amplify, again depending... I do that for each album side separately. Next I find the start of audio for the first track, fade in 50 ms ahead of that point, and chop off the lead-in. Place a marker there, label it, then go to the next track. Find a zero crossing 50-100 ms before that and place another marker. I'm looking for and killing clicks along the way. Sometimes I use the Click Repair tool between tracks but not often within them; it sometimes does bad things to the music. When I reach the end of a side, a fade to silence, usually about 700 ms to a second. First track of the next side as for the first; deleting most or all between it and the previous fade. Sometimes I'll insert a couple seconds silence if it helps the flow... and thus to the end of the album.

Then I export multiple FLAC files at 24/96. These go in a folder with the album title, under a folder with the artist or band name. I'll enter the artist name, album, & year in the metadata for the first track, the labels insert the track names. I use mp3tag to copy the artist/album/year data to the other tracks. After copying the FLACs to another drive, I delete the .aup project to reclaim disc space. If I find any other noises I'll fix them in the individual FLACs. These become the "masters" for making CDs or mp3s, etc.

It's slow, but a labor of love. Unlikely that I'll ever get my whole collection done...

Thanks again,
Mike

[megatrends]

I have an M-Audio 24/96 that a friend tossed out. It's in a low end Dell running Vista that was the grandkids' game machine until I hijacked it... I do everything in Audacity (or did until I found out about the 16 bit issue.) I track at 24/96, save the .aup project, do my editing in that. I usually record all sides of an album as a single project.

Processing usually starts with a steep high pass filter at 18-30 Hz (depending on the record) to get rid of warp-wiggles. Then attack any big clicks with the Repair tool so they won't interfere with level adjustment. Sometimes I use Normalize, sometimes Amplify, again depending... I do that for each album side separately. Next I find the start of audio for the first track, fade in 50 ms ahead of that point, and chop off the lead-in. Place a marker there, label it, then go to the next track. Find a zero crossing 50-100 ms before that and place another marker. I'm looking for and killing clicks along the way. Sometimes I use the Click Repair tool between tracks but not often within them; it sometimes does bad things to the music. When I reach the end of a side, a fade to silence, usually about 700 ms to a second. First track of the next side as for the first; deleting most or all between it and the previous fade. Sometimes I'll insert a couple seconds silence if it helps the flow... and thus to the end of the album.

Then I export multiple FLAC files at 24/96. These go in a folder with the album title, under a folder with the artist or band name. I'll enter the artist name, album, & year in the metadata for the first track, the labels insert the track names. I use mp3tag to copy the artist/album/year data to the other tracks. After copying the FLACs to another drive, I delete the .aup project to reclaim disc space. If I find any other noises I'll fix them in the individual FLACs. These become the "masters" for making CDs or mp3s, etc.

It's slow, but a labor of love. Unlikely that I'll ever get my whole collection done...

Thanks again,
Mike

I'm new to Audacity but did try it out finally with my USB connection from my turntable. The owner's manual for my turntable told me to go to the Audacity website and download the latest version ... so I did. I could not get it to work and I am PC savvy ... the codec just didn't work.

I have a 32 bit OS and figured that was the issue and was correct, I reverted back to a previous Audacity version that actually came with the turntable as an install disc and it worked perfectly.

I recorded an album and also did each side as a single project and then edited out the tracks later.

I have not played with anything that removes scratches and pops yet. The record I recorded was clean anyway.

Any tips for removing pops with Audacity?

[mmarston]

There is an Audacity forum where you may find the answer to your installation issues: http://forum.audacityteam.org/...

As I hinted, the click repair tool is most useful in silent portions. The problem is it mistakes spiky waveforms for clicks and removes them. It can make horns & some synth patches sound really nasty. I end up using the "repair" tool instead, highlighting individual clicks. That has the limitation of 128 samples, though; fortunately most clicks are quicker than the 1.3 ms that equates to at 96k. But it's labor-intensive. Most of my records are pretty clean, but it still takes some time to locat & fix the audible pops. Some are visually obvious looking at the waveform, others not so much.

People say good things about Click Repair software, but I haven't tried that yet. I may, when I get around to some of the more damaged used records.

Best,
Mike