Recording From Vinyl To CD - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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captainbeyond View Drop Down

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Topic: Recording From Vinyl To CD
Posted: August 09 2006 at 10:53

Hey Everyone,

I'm guessing there have got to be more than a few gearheads out there in Prog Land. My questions are relatively straightforward:

1) How do you record from vinyl to CD?

2) What set-up/equipment models do you use?

3) What do you think is the best "bang for your buck?"

Thanks ahead of time for your help.

Cheers,
AA

oliverstoned View Drop Down

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 11:02

I would use an audiophile burner and connect the turntable directly to it.

Yukorin

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 11:14

Oliver ! Details please !

I have no idea how to do this. seriously ! Can I go to a shop with my Eider Stellaire vinyl and ask them to knock me a few off ? Copywrite problems ?

captainbeyond View Drop Down

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 11:30

Hey Oliver,

Do you have any specific recommendations? Like, what brand/model of audiophile burner? What kind of price ranges are we looking at? What do you think is the best value?

thanks....

oliverstoned View Drop Down

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 11:45

captainbeyond wrote:

Hey Oliver,

Do you have any specific recommendations? Like, what brand/model of
audiophile burner? What kind of price ranges are we looking at? What do
you think is the best value?

thanks....

-->My dear Yukorin. I don't have any idea about legal issues. I suppose it's theorically forbidden.

The best burner i know is the Denon CDR1000. I think it's already several years old. I don't know if it's available as new. It makes copy better than the original.
Of course, transfering analog to digital always downgrade, but with this machine, it'll be the "less worst" possible.

krusty

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 14:58

I use Cooledit Pro (on a PV) and just take a lead from my amp into my soundcard.
CoolEdit has a whole bunch of tools to remove hiss, crackles and hum.
The end result IMO is like listening to the vinyl source.

/edit. Should have said that I record the input as wave files which can either be burnt to CD using almost any CD-Burning software. I use Nero.
Or you could convert the waves to Mp3's for you mp3 player.

Edited by krusty - August 09 2006 at 15:01

Humanism

oliverstoned View Drop Down

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Posted: August 09 2006 at 16:36

"The end result IMO is like listening to the vinyl source."

Depends on the playback equipment however...

Edited by oliverstoned - August 09 2006 at 16:36

Eetu Pellonpaa View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 01:25

I have a RCA cable connected from my amplifier to my computer, so I can record anything connected to it (phono/tape/tuner/VCR/DVD/TV) as Wav with Cool Edit Pro, and then edit it with that.

captainbeyond View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 01:57

Hi Eetu,

Do you have any thoughts on external burners?

MikeEnRegalia View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 02:56

^ I'd always use a computer to record the analog signal ... for audiophile persons who don't believe that a computer soundcard can preserve the audio quality there are audiophile (read: expensive and with glowing circuitry Wink

) external soundcards. In the computer the recorded signal can be easily edited ... some will just want to cut it into single tracks, others will want to normalize it or de-noise it (which I wouldn't recommend, as it degrades the signal).

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Sean Trane View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 04:36

oliverstoned wrote:

I would use an audiophile burner and connect the turntable directly to it.

This is what I do.

the Hi-fi CD burner is the best way to burn Audio CDr. It has never failed me and my Cd-r are read everywhere flawlessly (well the car, not always, but it f**ks up also on regular Cds, too), which is simply not the case of multi-speed computer-burned CDrs

Slow, maybe and you must be staying close to it to watch out for it! The manual (no other trustworthy manner) incrementing of the tracks implies you must be around. If you get the 80 mins Cdr, you can easily squeeze two vinyls, but tyhere are some notable exceptions.

Edited by Sean Trane - August 10 2006 at 04:40

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword

Eetu Pellonpaa View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 04:47

captainbeyond wrote:

Hi Eetu,

Do you have any thoughts on external burners?

I haven't ever even seen any...

MikeEnRegalia wrote:

... some will just want to cut it into single tracks, others will want to normalize it or de-noise it (which I wouldn't recommend, as it degrades the signal).

Some old recordings of very poor quality can get better with using noise/hiss filters, like old audience recordings & bootlegs.

krusty wrote:

CoolEdit has a whole bunch of tools to remove hiss, crackles and hum.
The end result IMO is like listening to the vinyl source.

But I would recommend to use these tools when they are absolutely neccesary, the CoolEdit hiss removal may make the sound mechanical, at least I have experienced this.

Edited by Eetu Pellonpää - October 06 2006 at 09:47

Sean Trane View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 04:48

Eetu Pellonpää wrote:

I have a RCA cable connected from my amplifier to my computer, so I can record anything connected to it (phono/tape/tuner/VCR/DVD/TV) as Wav with Cool Edit Pro, and then edit it with that.

personally I will never use those RCA (red and white) cables anymore. They are awful. Other special cable may appear horrendously expensive but they do the job just fine. Problem is that my turntable (a very average Phillips) has those unremovable RCA cables .

As far as Hi FI CD burners, I have heard many horrible things about those multi-trays Cds recorders.

Best to use a unit containing the burner alone and using your normal Cd player as source.

the one Olivier shows is probably fairly expensive, but I use the Phillips (most likely a quarter of the expensive Denon prices) entry model and it seems to have exactly the same features and controls as the Denon. Although displayed differently, the controls are exactly the same and the display is also.

The inside of the machine is always the same, all there can be surrounding gadgets changing the prices. like multi-trays etc...

Edited by Sean Trane - August 10 2006 at 04:57

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword

Eetu Pellonpaa View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 04:52

Sean Trane wrote:

Do you hear them reducing the audio quality? I'm a bit deaf, so I'm not very sensitive to sound quality. I believe there are also RCA cables of different quality, some seem to have stronger heads as others. What other cable types could be used to transfer data from an amplifier to a computer?

Edited by Eetu Pellonpää - August 10 2006 at 04:53

MikeEnRegalia View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 04:56

Sean Trane wrote:

oliverstoned wrote:

I would use an audiophile burner and connect the turntable directly to it.

This is what I do.

Reading that I must say that I'm quite happy to having left CDs/CD-Rs behind. It must have been 2 years since I last burned an audio CD ... Big smile

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Sean Trane View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 05:05

Eetu Pellonpää wrote:

I was seriously doubting it would make a big difference at first, so the store manager let me take the unidirectional cables (careful how you connect them) home for a try out without paying. Next morning I was waiting ten minutes before opening hour of his shop to pay him and buy two more pairs. This is also very necessary for speakers. >>> noticeable difference, but if you are not sensible from the ears, then this might be superfluous investment

then the shop owner started telling me about the first weeks of pushing the cables to their limits in order to get full capacity of their performance. I think this is pushing it a little, though.

Wires are not cars

let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword

oliverstoned View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 05:15

Indeed, cables need some running-in time, even more with high end cables if it features boxes. Actually everything's needs running-in, even welds needs some time cause there's an alchemy between the different matters.
Of course, these are subbtle differences which need a transparent system to be heard.

Big cables need a long running-in time

Edited by oliverstoned - August 10 2006 at 05:16

MikeEnRegalia View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 05:43

Sean Trane wrote:

Eetu Pellonpää wrote:

then the shop owner started telling me about the first weeks of pushing the cables to their limits in order to get full capacity of their performance. I think this is pushing it a little, though.

Wires are not cars

this is one of the famous 10 biggest lies of audio (cables need some time to unfold their true potential).

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MikeEnRegalia View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 05:45

^ ok, I'll add alchemy to the things you believe in, olivier (including astrology, drugs and power filters). Wink

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oliverstoned View Drop Down

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Posted: August 10 2006 at 05:54

Sad fellow!