
Sample workflow for LP digitization - dirwiz
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/sample_workflow_for_lp_digitization.html
======
don_loemax
As a club DJ who selects and plays in a digital format now, I like to leave
clicks and pops in when digitizing my "white-labels" or vinyl-exclusive
releases (some of the best or most coveted tunes are released on vinyl first
in very small runs, months before they are available as downloads). I like to
normalize then run the recording through Izotope's Ozone 7 on the "warm and
transparent" preset to get it closer in loudness to digital releases I am
mixing them with. There is a small community of us who share rips of this type
of release from around the world, online, as the best place to pick a lot of
this kind of record up is in smaller local genre-specific shops. Black Market
soho in London was a Mecca of mine or Rooted Records in Bristol but I live in
Cali now and have a hard time keeping up my share ratio but still get a rush
when I get a great vinyl rip of a tune earlier than most. It is silly and
matters very little to my livelihood but an old tradition in dj'ing that I am
glad still survives (having tracks the next Dj doesn't, that is).

~~~
ams6110
Why is this done? Tradition? Certainly it's an extra expense that releasing in
pure digital format would not include -- and it's not like all the music is
not mastered digitally now anyway -- nobody is mastering on tape and cutting
and splicing....

~~~
rfrank
White labels and dubplates in general hearken back to the sound system culture
that originated in Jamaica [1]. Mostly a means of getting the newest songs
fastest; record something in the morning, press your dubplate that afternoon,
play it out that night. The unofficial nature of the recordings makes it
easier to hop around copyright stuff and not clear samples, etc. The song
Alicia by Mala jumps to mind [2], I don't think it's ever seen a proper
release because of the heavy use of Alicia Keys samples.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_system_%28Jamaican%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_system_%28Jamaican%29)
2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpV7radKuwo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpV7radKuwo)

~~~
ams6110
Again, I don't see how pressing a physical recording is making anything
faster. It's a step that's entirely unnecessary if you distribute digitally.
It must be more of a tradition, or a desire to mix on turntables, or possibly
a way to do a limited/controlled release that is not easy to redistribute
widely as a digital media file would be?

~~~
rwjwjuwjudf
He did say this, but maybe it wasn't clear. It's faster because you can skip
the meaningless bureaucracy associated with obtaining copyright permission for
a tiny run - a lot of dance music samples other music. If you try that with a
digital release, it can bite you if it blows up.

~~~
anon4
No, he means like if you write the flac to a flash drive. Just write it to a
digital medium, rather than go to the trouble of pressing discs.

------
chiph
I didn't see it mentioned, but I wonder if Audacity inverts the RIAA
equalization curve.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization)

~~~
keithpeter
You are right, there is no mention of the turntable/stylus/preamplifier
configuration at all.

I would _guess_ that the Audacity people assume that people would be using a
turntable plugged into a preamplifier with RIAA equilisation built in.

[http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/mixphono.htm](http://midimagic.sgc-
hosting.com/mixphono.htm)

History before the 1950s is complex. Audacity has provision for defining a
frequency response curve and applying that curve to a project.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
As bondaburrah points out in the sibling comment, there are probably no
consumer sound cards in existence that would be able to record a non-
preamplified vinyl recording. So the RIAA equalisation issue is moot.

~~~
jestar_jokin
Yes, there are. Any sound card that supports XLR connector mics will probably
support phantom power and have a built-in mic amp, a vinyl pre-amp is not much
different. I use an E-MU 1212m with a microdock, making it equivalent to a
1616m, which offers a "Turntable Input (w/ground lug and hardware RIAA
preamp)".

[http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product.aspx?pid=19007](http://www.creative.com/emu/products/product.aspx?pid=19007)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Interesting. I had no idea how cheap what I would consider to be pro-grade
sound cards are. I'd have thought an XLR input soundcard with phantom power
support was close to $1000.

------
hardwaresofton
While I have no need of ripping vinyl, just wanted to say that Audacity is one
of the best examples of indispensable FOSS (when it comes to working with
sound) that I have ever come across in my life.

I remember I was using it well over 7 years ago, and was in awe of how much
power it gave me for free, and how capable of a tool it was. Couldn't donate
then, but definitely can now. While I know my time/PRs might be more valuable,
regular money will have to do.

~~~
schlowmo
Word! I just like to add that it's especially indispensable for many community
radios across the world. Maybe there are more powerful tools out there (FOSS
or not), but I never saw an audio tool with such capabilities which people got
used to so quickly like they do with Audacity. The absolutely perfect fit for
those community radios where almost everything has to be self-taught.

------
Animats
Of course, the real way to do this is to optically scan the record and
simulate a stylus tracking it. The Library of Congress does this.[1] They've
even recovered records broken into pieces, by scanning the pieces and
reassembling the 3D model.

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/how-a-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/how-
a-machine-in-the-basement-of-the-library-of-congress-is-saving-the-history-of-
recorded-sound/372723/)

~~~
gfody
There doesn't seem to be any free or commercial software that converts high
res scans of vinyl records to high quality digital audio. I remember this post
from 2002
[http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/DigitalNeedle/index.html](http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~springer/DigitalNeedle/index.html)
where a guy posts his results with this approach, but the quality is bad and
he doesn't provide source code.

------
kadavy
A less technical, step-by-step way (also using Audacity)
[http://transfermymusic.com/vinyl-to-cd-or-
mp3/](http://transfermymusic.com/vinyl-to-cd-or-mp3/)

------
anexprogrammer
When I rip vinyl I want as little processing as possible, so no messing around
with high pass and pop removal. If it's new or decent condition vinyl the pops
and hiss will be barely audible anyway.

Far more important to have a decent MC cartridge, and make sure it goes
through a decent phono (RIAA) stage, which generally means an older hifi amp,
or not-cheap hifi component.

Any phono stage of the last 20 years, or the "rip your old records" turntables
generally use lowest quality crap going.

~~~
TylerE
Eh, there are tons of EXCELLENT and not-very-expensive modern phono stages.
Just avoid DJ stuff

~~~
anexprogrammer
I guess it depends where you place "not very expensive", £100-200 will get you
a good hifi preamp phono stage with MC/MM. You can pay far more if you want
silly esoterica. It's not very far removed from the quality that would
typically come "free" with a decent mid-market older preamp.

~~~
TylerE
Not just older amps can have good built-ins.

Perviously I was running a standalone phono stage (Can't remember the exact
model offhand, but it was $250 or so - solid, well reviewed component.) I
upgrade to a Rega Brio amp about 2 years ago which has a built in phono stage
that was even better.

------
minikites
To those who would ask "why rip vinyl instead of getting the CD?", there are
lots and lots of records that never made it to CD.

~~~
lucideer
There are also other relatively compelling reasons around quality.

And I'm not referring to the idea that vinyl is an inherently better quality
format than CD, but rather that many[0] actual pressings have been mastered in
higher quality in practice.

[0] [http://dr.loudness-war.info/](http://dr.loudness-war.info/)

~~~
intopieces
I'm firmly in the camp that mourns the victims of the loudness war, but it's
important to keep in mind that "quality" is not something that can objectively
measured, and every generation has its own perception of it. In MP3: The
Meaning of a Format by Jonathan Sterne, he cites research done on "The MP3
generation" \-- people who came of age when Napster was on the rise -- that
found those listeners preferred the sound of 128kbps MP3 over any other format
or bit rate. The technology of encoding created an aesthetic.

And then of course you have Brian Eno:

"Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium
will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital
video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated
as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art
is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits
and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too
loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked
voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that
releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white,
is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned
to record them.”

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Eno was dead wrong about that. Outside of a marginal Kickstarter project -
probably for a Japanese fanbase - I don't think anyone is going to pay money
for a high-jitter 12-bit resolution retro CD player.

Comparing that to the stylised imperfections of a human performer is
unconvincing.

I do think there's an interesting effect where as soon as a first-to-market
technology becomes good enough to avoid being hopelessly terrible, its
characteristic flaws set standard expectations for a medium. Hence retro
anything - guitars, synthesizers, cars, recording equipment, tapes, vinyl,
paperback books, computers...

How likely is it that the early designers were so awesome they hit a
technological bullseye with these things - apparently almost every single time
anyone developed a new technology?

I can't quite believe that's how it works.

Personally I have no love at all for the sound of vinyl, even on
stratospherically expensive hardware.

~~~
JonnieCache
I've paid money for software which emulates a 12 bit ADAC, with a knob to
adjust the jitter etc. I have several such items in fact:

[https://www.plogue.com/products/chipcrusher](https://www.plogue.com/products/chipcrusher)

[https://tal-software.com/products/tal-sampler](https://tal-
software.com/products/tal-sampler)

That chipcrusher thing in particular does some crazy stuff.

~~~
voltagex_
Are they on the high or low end for pricing of plugins? I can imagine a full
setup (excluding hardware) gets very, very expensive.

------
Cerium
Years ago my dad wanted me to listen to 'the classics'. So he handed me a
stack of LPs and asked if I was able to convert them into CDs for him. Of
course I had to listen to each one to do a good job.

I'm happy to see that the process has improved in Audacity over the years.
When I used to do this there was not a good provision for adding labels to
become tracks.

------
voltagex_
I'm sad that there's no scene standard for ripping vinyls (apart from a few
mentions
[http://scenenotice.org/details.php?id=2006](http://scenenotice.org/details.php?id=2006)).
I'd like to think they'd use this guide.

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rdl
Are there any services which will do this for you, given crates?

------
basicplus2
one needs to sample the original at at least double the final finished
frequency, or the finished product will have a metallic tinge to it.

eg if 44,100hz rate is what you want to end up with, the sample rate needs to
be at least 88,200hz.

