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78rpm Records Digitized

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Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#41

Post by LeoPanthera »

gruez wrote: post #8
css wrote: post #5

The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. I’ve had some luck digitizing some of my collection with a DP-450 [0] and Ortofon Blue [1], but had higher end stuff end up sounding less interesting to my ears. This is the trouble with audio in general: people not only…

> The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. Would a scan done with a laser turntable[1] be better? The wikipedia article mentions that it produces a much better capture than regular tonearms, although they are much more susceptible to dust. [1] https://en.wikipe…

Literally the only advantage of a laser turntable is that they don't wear out the disc with repeated plays. They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove, so the record has to be perfectly clean, which is essentially impossible.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#42

Post by userbinator »

rvnx wrote: post #20

I try to understand how this is legal ? I mean: what is the difference between Archive.org and any other torrent website ? Aren't they both preserving the culture ? Archive.org is doing 20M USD in revenue, lot of people are getting paid in the process, and suppliers as well, it's not like they are working for nothing. They just don't have investors (but can have big salaries). Genuinely wondering because I saw that y…

I believe they are officially recognised as a legal library, which has some positive implications on what they can do with copyrighted material.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#43

Post by gruez »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #41
gruez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. Would a scan done with a laser turntable[1] be better? The wikipedia article mentions that it produces a much better capture than regular tonearms, although they are much more susceptible to dust. [1] https://en.wikipe…

Literally the only advantage of a laser turntable is that they don't wear out the disc with repeated plays. They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove, so the record has to be perfectly clean, which is essentially impossible.

>They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove

How big of an issue is this? I imagine that the same peice of dust that can be pushed aside by the stylus can also be blown away with a blast of compressed air, so blowing the record prior to playing it should solve any dust-related issues. It might not be viable for everyday listening, but for archival purposes that might be worth it to get a better copy.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#44

Post by WalterBright »

samstave wrote: post #18
reaperducer wrote: post #16

Since the kids are all about sea shanties these days: https://archive.org/details/78_rio-grande_leonard-warren-tom...

Thank you for this! I had a TON of classic Jazz 78s from my grandfather - unfortunately I couldnt find a 78 player at the time for the life of me - and I gave them to a friend who was a really accomplished Jazz drummer in SF - one of my biggest regrets - but they were so heavy and I didnt have space for them when I moved...

They can be recorded as a .WAV file at 33 rpm, which is then easy to write a program to speed up to 78.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#45

Post by WalterBright »

gruez wrote: post #8
css wrote: post #5

The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. I’ve had some luck digitizing some of my collection with a DP-450 [0] and Ortofon Blue [1], but had higher end stuff end up sounding less interesting to my ears. This is the trouble with audio in general: people not only…

> The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. Would a scan done with a laser turntable[1] be better? The wikipedia article mentions that it produces a much better capture than regular tonearms, although they are much more susceptible to dust. [1] https://en.wikipe…

> dust

I wash my vinyl with liquid dish soap before playing, then air-dry them. It removes all hair, grease, dust, etc. Not a spec left.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#46

Post by LeoPanthera »

gruez wrote: post #43
LeoPanthera wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally the only advantage of a laser turntable is that they don't wear out the disc with repeated plays. They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove, so the record has to be perfectly clean, which is essentially impossible.

>They are worse in literally every other respect, especially sound quality, since they have no method of pushing dirt and dust out of the groove How big of an issue is this? I imagine that the same peice of dust that can be pushed aside by the stylus can also be blown away with a blast of compressed air, so blowing the record prior to playing it should solve any dust-related issues. It might not be viable for everyda…

Laser players are pretty rare, but those who have them say it's a huge issue, and the noise from dust and dirt is very distracting. It's apparently very difficult to get the records to be sufficiently clean.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#47

Post by WalterBright »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #30
gruez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. Would a scan done with a laser turntable[1] be better? The wikipedia article mentions that it produces a much better capture than regular tonearms, although they are much more susceptible to dust. [1] https://en.wikipe…

It's the equalization that had the kids thinking 78 was so obsolete & bad sounding compared to our 45's and the upcoming 33's back in the early 1960's. Naturally it was all the fault of the RIAA. By that time almost all new record players had the recent RIAA standard equalization built in, by compensation in the audio playback circuit based on the published RIAA engineering standard which had emerged. Otherwise the 4…

> 78's which had plenty of space between the grooves since there was only one tune per side.

Hence the appearance of the 12" 45 rpm disco single in the 1970's, which sounded a heluva lot better than the 45, especially in the base.

It was even better to score the "promotional copies" which had no bubbles in the plastic or other flaws. I don't know if the PCs were pressed on a separate line or were just hand -picked from the normal production run, but they sure sounded good.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#48

Post by sgtnoodle »

jnurmine wrote: post #26
css wrote: post #5

The trouble with digitizing analog mediums (especially vinyl) is how much your equipment can alter the sound. Given a different tonearm, cartridge, amp, etc, the same record can sound very different. I’ve had some luck digitizing some of my collection with a DP-450 [0] and Ortofon Blue [1], but had higher end stuff end up sounding less interesting to my ears. This is the trouble with audio in general: people not only…

Perhaps a laser could be used to first reliably replicate the original pattern of an LP into digital form, then one could feed that pattern to a real tonearm needle somehow, vibrating it suitably, in a nondestructive manner. Like some kind of "fake vinyl", except the actual musical data could be downloadable. This way one could stream/download vinyls while still playing the music with all the small imperfections whic…

I imagine someone with a signal processing background could design a suitable digital filter to emulate the effects of various tone arms. Designing the filter might require cutting a special tone record so that the frequency response can be measured.

Alternatively, the "hip" thing to do might be to train a neural network on a bunch of old record recordings, and then pipe whatever you want through the resulting model.

Re: 78rpm Records Digitized

#50

Post by reaperducer »

WalterBright wrote: post #44
samstave wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this! I had a TON of classic Jazz 78s from my grandfather - unfortunately I couldnt find a 78 player at the time for the life of me - and I gave them to a friend who was a really accomplished Jazz drummer in SF - one of my biggest regrets - but they were so heavy and I didnt have space for them when I moved...

They can be recorded as a .WAV file at 33 rpm, which is then easy to write a program to speed up to 78.

It's my understanding that it's more than just the speed. 78's will destroy the needle of a regular record player because they're made of very hard shellac, and not vinyl.
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