Sample workflow for LP digitization • Hacker News Board

Re: Sample workflow for LP digitization

#51

Post by anexprogrammer » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 10:55 AM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #41

anexprogrammer wrote: post #23

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 th…

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

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.

Re: Sample workflow for LP digitization

#52

Post by semi-extrinsic » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:41 AM UTC

jestar_jokin wrote: post #43

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

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.

Re: Sample workflow for LP digitization

#53

Post by TylerE » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 6:49 PM UTC

anexprogrammer wrote: post #51

TylerE wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Sample workflow for LP digitization

#54

Post by Kadin » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #22

keithpeter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Well, any card with mic pres can do it, including a lot of older SoundBlaster type cards. I wouldn't recommend mucking around with doing things that way, but it could be done.

Most people rip vinyl using a hardware phono stage (which is a preamp + RIAA eq), but there are some audiophiles who prefer to rip using a straight mic pre, which bumps the levels up without applying any eq, and then applying suitable eq in software.

In theory, this would let you play around with different variants of the eq curve, and it would mean not needing a phono stage but only a (cheaper) mic preamp. In practice, most people who rip vinyl are going to have a phono stage anyway, because they want to listen in addition to rip, and there's just not that much benefit of doing it in software vs. using a cheap-but-decent analog phono stage, so few people do.

The exception seems to be people who are into early 78s, which often have proprietary eq curves.