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Level -> RE: Vinyl? (7/11/2007 6:35:30 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro
I have over 1000 vinyl LPs, including some very hard to find items in the exotica category from the 50s and some early jazz (I got a 20 year jump on the "lounge" craze). My setup is the old style stereo setup: receiver, equalizer, direct drive turntable, etc. I haven't bought any *new* vinyl in years, but I did recently buy up everything I could find on Pat Suzuki - but all of that was used and over 40 years old already. Ebay can be a good source for cheap stuff, but sometimes you get burned by sellers who don't know how to grade used items or how to pack stuff for mailing. I never pay much because I know that the odds of something being in shit condition on arrival is very high.
Sometimes I still listen to vinyl music as is, but I am also slowly but surely transferring it all to VBR MP3 format with the LAME encoder. Takes a bit of work, but it's fun to hear old and rare stuff anyway, so it's not too much bother. I mean, it's my collection and I have no problem listening to it again while handling the various tasks to convert it to digital.
To convert to digital from vinyl you basically you go line out from the receiver to a ground loop isolator and then line in to a decent soundcard on a computer. I record full sides of vinyl records to wav form and split it up into individual songs with a sound editing program. I run some sound enhancing algorithms against the wav files before conversion to MP3, stuff like: noise reduction, click and crackle removal, and vinyl restoration - it depends, you have to have an ear for what is necessary and what is too much. When I'm done it tend to sound fairly clean and sparkly. If my method is not perfect I am still satisfied that it is perfect to my personal needs and opens up the choice between digital and analog listening options. The digital copy sounds very good and is infinitely transferable to other media.
It may interest some to know that I have used the same process to edit new CDs on the very rare occasion. Kate Bush's "Aerial" has some clipping on the second CD - no matter where I played it I could hear the clipping - so I edited it out for my own collection. No more clipping. Sad but true. My question is: how could Columbia not know they released it that way?
Are you going to keep the vinyl after you transfer everything?
What got to me to thinking about all this is an issue of Sound & Vision that came in the mail today; they test 3 turntables (the "cheap" one goes for $300, the high-end one is around $8,000........choke, gasp........)
I still have a small number of LPs, but haven't listened to them in years.
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