Your recommendations and ideas for recording LP to CD

[Hershon2000]

I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted something Steve Hoffman, who I respect, wrote. The fact is, vinyl recordings were originally mastered & recorded to be played on record players. Do you agree on that much? Therefore if you take a straight digital transfer of a recording meant for record players to now be played on a CD player, by the nature of everything, it will not be heard the same or how it was intended to be originally heard on a record player. A mastering studio for CD's will attempt to correct this by remastering it for a CD. Whether or not you like the way it was remastered, is not something I'm questioning but the fact that you think people would prefer & seek out a straight digital transfer instead of a remastering attempt for a CD. I can't think of how a straight digital transfer would result in a decent CD release of a recording originally meant for vinyl. If it was a case of that you heard the remastered version of a recording on CD which say was a bad job to the original CD release which say was a straight transfer & sounded bad but not as bad the remaster, I'm not arguing that couldn't be the case because it would be a matter of chosing the least worst recording. But to say people seek out & prefer straight transfers is ridiculous, if they haven't compared the recordings first.

 

[tyrion]

I am not a recording engineer, however, it seems to me that if the recording on vinyl was meant to sound best played from a turntable, then that signal is what is coming out of the phono preamp. If that is correct then isn't the signal being recorded the one produced by the turntable? I believe that is what jp is trying to say.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted something Steve Hoffman wrote. The fact is, vinyl recordings were originally mastered & recorded to be played on record players. Do you agree on that much? Therefore if you take a straight digital transfer of a recording meant for record players to now be played on a CD player, by the nature of everything, it will not be heard the same or how it was intended to be originally heard on a record player. A mastering studio for CD's will attempt to correct this by remastering it for a CD. Whether or not you like the way it was remastered, is not something I'm questioning but the fact that you think people would prefer & seek out a straight digital transfer instead of a remastering attempt for a CD. I can't think of how a straight digital transfer would result in a decent CD release of a recording originally meant for vinyl. If it was a case of that you heard the remastered version of a recording on CD which say was a bad job to the original CD release which say was a straight transfer & sounded bad but not as bad the remaster, I'm not arguing that couldn't be the case because it would be a matter of chosing the least worst recording. But to say people seek out & prefer straight transfers is ridiculous, if they haven't compared the recordings first.

You're misinterpreting things...

Recordings usually are specifically edited before vinyl records are made of them -- this because the manufacturing process (cutting, pressing) has a characteristic impact on the sonic balance of the end product; furthermore during cutting low frequencies are decreased (and high frequencies are increased) to prevent extreme groove and stylus excursions -- the RIAA equalization curve --, which is reversed in phono preamps to get a linear reproduction curve back. Note that what you get from a turntable (after RIAA equalization in the phono stage!) is a 1:1 copy of the original recording -- minus the inevitable colorations introduced by the various electromechanical transduction processes.

Of course you can digitalize an LP and get a fairly neutral sound, comparable to the CD equivalent in the case of identical masters (again: apart from minor format-induced colorations).
.

 

[jpelg]

There are a handful of turntables with digital outputs, with either SPDIF or USB connections. Hook one of those babies up to the digital-in of your soundcard or a USB port and you should be able to capture the stream to a file, yes?

 

[jp11801]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hershon2000 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm pretty sure you misinterpreted something Steve Hoffman, who I respect, wrote. The fact is, vinyl recordings were originally mastered & recorded to be played on record players. Do you agree on that much? Therefore if you take a straight digital transfer of a recording meant for record players to now be played on a CD player, by the nature of everything, it will not be heard the same or how it was intended to be originally heard on a record player. A mastering studio for CD's will attempt to correct this by remastering it for a CD. Whether or not you like the way it was remastered, is not something I'm questioning but the fact that you think people would prefer & seek out a straight digital transfer instead of a remastering attempt for a CD. I can't think of how a straight digital transfer would result in a decent CD release of a recording originally meant for vinyl. If it was a case of that you heard the remastered version of a recording on CD which say was a bad job to the original CD release which say was a straight transfer & sounded bad but not as bad the remaster, I'm not arguing that couldn't be the case because it would be a matter of chosing the least worst recording. But to say people seek out & prefer straight transfers is ridiculous, if they haven't compared the recordings first.

one more time

1) individual tracks are recorded
2) these tracks are mixed to a stereo master
3)those tapes are used to made tapes to produce lps/tapes/cds.... the tapes used for production of LPs would have the RIAA curve applied you would never use that tape to direct transfer

the master tape is tape #2 not tape #3. THe tape used to create an lp stamper would have the RIAA curve applied. This would have a pretty weird eq applied. The inverse of the RIAA curve is applied in the phono stage thus getting you back to a sound similar to the master. Tape #2 is the tape that was used in straight transfers to cds in the 80s. Prior to the remaster craze that IMHO has driven the SQ down dramtically.

If you disagree that's fine but please please please read the primer on mastering that can be found on the hoffman site.

 

[jp11801]

to the OP please check out the Alesis Masterlink also teac makes a couple of units as well. I like the Alesis mainly because it's relatively inexpensive and has a nice size hard drive. You can record your vinyl in 16/44 all the way to 24/96.

 

[bigshot]

There's not much point capturing vinyl in 24 bit. The dynamic range isn't wide enough. It might make sense if you are going to be applying a lot of digital filters though.

See ya
Steve

 

[SoundGoon]

I actually go straight from my turntable into my integrated amp into my CD Recorder. I like the sound of vinyl, and the depth and richness that it has (even with the occasional pop and whatnot), and find that this method captures a good deal of that vinyl sound

 

[rodentdog]

You guys are missing the POINT! The OP wants an easy way to transfer LP's to CD's. Audio Cleaning Lab 2004 or equiv. is the easiest way to do this while having some control over the results (without being a recording engineer or nerd of some kind). Any normal person can use this software and get good or better than good results. Discussing the RIAA curve does little for the OP and is way too esoteric for most people. If the needle jumps out of groove in the forest, will anybody hear it?

 

[dr.morton]

You can buy my Terapin Video/CD Recorder.

You Terapin can be included into your setup like a tape recorder and works almost identical.

 

[Herandu]

Hmmm, I question the wisdom of some that is being said here. Might well be that a master tape has been remastered for cutting onto vinyl. Heavy bass for instance is one of them. Otherwise the before and after groove could have too thin a wall, and stylus pressure would then damage the groove in double quick time.
However the MASTER tape is as far as I know not always the same as the CUTTING tape. The master tape might be needed in order to set up an accurate cutting process, or make duplicates. It might have as many as 48 tracks ( or more) on it, with different instruments or vocals recorded on each channel. That is kept as such, in case say one instrument needs to be re-recorded due to some error not previously picked up. To do the whole session again would cost a fortune otherwise.

The cutting tape is the one that has been "equalized" in order to take care of the cutting process and prevent cutting damage. But this tape might be different for different recording material. A 12 inch can take more bass without much worries about track damage, since there is more vinyl surface to work with. A 7 inch less so, and a LP even less.

I am not a recording engineer. I did however have to repair and service STUDER, TEAC and REVOX multi track recording decks many years ago. This was mainly on site in the recording studio,or the cutting studio. I picked my info off the engineers and what was written on the box that kept these tapes.

As far as the CD bit is concerned: if it is done from the original multitrack master, then there is no issue between vinyl or CD. What you get on both is the same. UNless of course the engineer on the day decides to modify the equalization curve.