Archiving vinyl

[chrisg]

I am toying with idea of archiving my vinyl collection and put it on my laptop. I could enjoy some decent music when away from home.
This is domino effect: dac, head amp and good cans but this is another topic for this forum. Doing research on the web I found recording nowadays can be done in more than one way.

One method would be to use USB TT/phonostage but I am not sure if USB gear is a good way to go. These USB TT’s look very cheap to me.
 
It seems using my own TT and phonostage with good quality/professional sound card which captures 24/96 PCM and records WAV files is much better option.  The hosting computer shall be also high quality:
•   noise free: no CPU/GPU cooling fans or any other cooling fans,
•   no HD, only SSD drives,
•   reputable motherboard and add-on cards (good quality and electrically stable)
•   “clean” (preferably outboard)power supply.
•   recording to external drive via USB or fire wire is a must.
To set up HQ PC is probably quite expensive.

Another way is to ditch potentially noisy computer environment and use portable digital recorders. M-Audio, Tascam, Marantz or Korg portable solid state recorders are capable of capturing audio at 16bit/44kHz or 16bit/48kHz PCM, some of them can do 24/44, 24/48 or even 24/96 PCM. They record WAV files to USB stick, SD card or Compact Flash.
Sony Hi-MD recorders claim 16/44 LPCM recording on Hi-MD disks which could be upload to computer via Sonic Stage and converted to WAV format (at least theoretically).I have Hi-MD recorder but didn’t try it yet.

Probably the best option (and most expensive) would be to invest in professional digital recorder with all bells and whistles: balanced inputs and outputs, good AD/DA converter chips and high quality associated electronics. I looked at Fostex UR-2. It does 24/96 PCM, records WAV’s to USB stick or SD card. Tascam DV-RA1000HD  does 24/192 PCM or 1 bit/2.822MHz DSD and Records WAV or RawDSD files to DVD-R/RW or local hard drive.

Having said all that, I am not even sure if solid state or HD/DVD recorders are the way to go for home archiving. Most of the related write-ups and reviews on the web are about their suitability for live recordings. There is not much said (if at all) about using them for archiving music. Professional top notch recorders are also very expensive beasts. It’s worth noting though; Tascam RA1000HD is recently half of it’s original price on Amazon US (reduced to 1300 USD). Fostex UR-2 is 1000 USD. Add shipping, insurance and import taxes. It does not make financial sense to me. Not with my 250 LP’s. Unless someone has huge 1000 plus vinyl collection and even bigger bank account. Perhaps cheaper portable SS recorders are more justified but are their vinyl archiving capability good enough?

Do you guys have any views on this subject? Or, has anyone recorded vinyl lately and would like to share his experience.

[ghostinthemachine]

It is a daunting, pain in the backside task... good luck. Less hassle simply buying the albums on CD.

A PC is more than adequate to do the recording. The noise from the PC wont affect the recording process - just dont host the PC and turntable on the same stand/table/platform/counter.

[chrisg]

Buying digital downloads is what I am actually doing. At least CD quality or better. The couple of records for which I cannot find equivalent cd's or download I could record to my old Hi-MD recorder to LPCM and transfer to laptop (if it works). I don't have PC and proper sound card. I realize to record from tt this is quite involved, setting up, synchronizing, adjusting recording levels, etc. But like I said -this recording thing is just an idea, I need few opinions and yours is appreciated.

[handsome]

i think sound card quality would be the most important thing, once the analog is converted to digital all you are doing is moving the digits around (onto hard disk etc.) an external sound card will give you some immunity from the (electrically) noisy environment inside a PC. If you are going to archive why not do it at 24bit 96kHz - that is higher than CD quality? Almost all sound cards offer the ability today and the resulting large file sizes are largely irrelevant considering the low cost of storage these days. I use an EMU 0404 external sound card to digitise, CoolEdit Pro (now Adobe Audition) to edit and have a Western Digital 1TB internal drive for storage and another Western Digital 1Tb external drive for backup. Signal is from a home-made valve phono stage (really a lash up but it sounds great) and I use FLAC files for a modest (50% at best) amount of compression (of file size that is). The biggest schlep is editing: chopping up the resulting file into individual tracks, adjusting starting and ending points (i'm a bit of a stickler) naming them and converting to both FLAC and MP3 (for the iPod). The results sound very good indeed depending on the vinyl original of course. Well worth it!

[chrisg]

EMU 0404 is impressive judging by specs and reviews. Good thing it is  external usb, does not need dedicated PC, laptop is sufficient. Could probably benefit from better PSU and clock upgrade. Also comes with lots of software and is very reasonably priced on Amazon. You got me very tempted, Handsome...Apart from pain in the butt like Ghost said, there is a fun factor in doing your own recording, isn't it?

[handsome]

fun factor multiplied by amount of times you do it equals pain in the butt eventually i reckon.  there is also an 0202 which is the same but does not have the MIDI interface - even cheaper. i went with the 0404 because it did 192kHz sampling rate one of the very few interfaces that does. i intend using it ultimately for audio measurements. if you're prepared to go down to 96kHz sampling rate there are tons of cards (in fact i think they all do that these days) that do that and probably a lot cheaper. my squeezebox transporter only does 96kHz so that is what i use. good vinyl converted to FLAC do sound better than CDs converted to FLAC. i bought my 0404 locally go to http://www.soundz.co.za/Search.aspx?Keyword=emu

[chrisg]

I buy HD downloads from time to time, mostly 24/96. I found them sounding richer, with more ambient and low level details than normal CD. I do not hear much difference in high frequencies. I guess 24/96 vinyl copy will be similar experience when comparing to replacement CD. Sidetracking: when using software to finalize your tracks - is it possible to remove badly sounding cracks?  that is without removing whole section of affected track, just removing sharp peaks. Some static noise or minor cracks are no problem, that's part of vinyl. Unfortunately, I have few damaged spots on couple of records which are annoying.

[Uriah]

There is a program called Magix Audio Cleaning Lab (available locally)which takes most of the hassel out of recording your LP's,it detects the tracks pretty well and puts markers in place for you you just have to type the track name it will connect to internet and find this info as well if you want,it can also remove crackles,pops etc and has a full audio editor built in as well for those that really like to fiddle,also included is a basic print studio to do covers for your cd's

[handsome]

also check out audacity - it is a free audio editor, wont go online and find info for you but does have click and noise removal tools (amongst others)

[chrisg]

Audacity has it in Repair option in Effects. I also found another crackle repairing software here: http://www.clickrepair.net/software_download/clickrepair.html.

[chrisg]

Very interesting: http://www.philipharland.com/VinylAddiction/2008/05/30/transferring-lps-to-cd-made-easy-a-guide/. Check my last reply for proper web address to Click-repair software. Shortcut in article is not working.

[Prince]

Hmmmm...

-now that I have most of the tools at hand, I should try this. If only I could afford a good external soundcard. I have played with Audacity and it is very good at sampling vinyl and tape.

these tutorials from audacity or also very good http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CD. I've used it before. Will see if I have some time over the weekend to give it a go.

[egd]

http://www.project-audio.com/main.php?prod=phonoboxusbv&cat=boxes&lang=en

[chrisg]

There is also good comparison of usb capture boxes  here: http://www.tweakheadz.com/audio_interface_usb2_comparison_chart.htm