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Ripping from Vinyl, Simplified
An anonymous reader writes "In a short article at linmagau.org
John Murray brings Gramofile to our attention, just the thing to help you bring all those LPs in the cupboard into your MP3 collection. One more example of the analog hole in action, I guess ;)" It may not be CEDAR, but it sounds like a lot of utility for a 76kB program.
Just remember - a new record will sound far, far better then a CD.
Records only get crappy after much use. If they could make them out of a more robust material, I'd be first in line to buy.
I'm not Seth.
LP's can sound incredible, especially new ones (you might be suprised by how many bands you like produce LP's, go check out eBay or half.com). Also, they're just more fun to play, and have a "different", usually discribed as warmer, sound.
I think the goal here though is to save those old Pink Floyd/The Who records you still want to play every other day, but don't want to wear out from constant use. And who wants to go out and buy a whole new set of CD's?
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
> though it's interesting to note that even now
> some indie bands (notably the White Stripes with
> their recent Elephant album) are still releasing
> stuff on vinyl.
This sentence strikes me as slightly weird: why would I buy the latest White Stripes on vinyl if I was intending to convert it into mp3? Maybe because of the artwork? *shrugs*
Cool record btw, although De Stijl remains their best.
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
This could actually be the program that gets me to dig out the hundred plus albums and my old turn-table from storage and start to work. Now I either need a really long patch cord or I'll have to find one of those old Radio-Shack pre-amps that allows you to hook up a turn-table to a standard Line-In plug. The impendance is not the same on a decent turn-table as it is on other things that you plug into stereos (like CD players, tape decks, etc.) and if I remember correctly you can barely hear the music without one. Hell, I'm not even sure that my current pre-amp (my system has seperate components: pre-amp, tuner, and three power amps for the front, center, and rear speakers) in the other room (yes I'm too lazy to get up and check right now) has a Phono connection. I know finding one of the old pre-amps from Radio Shack is probably out of the question - does anyone else remember the little black boxes with RCA in and RCA out jacks, a screw terminal for the ground wire that also comes out of turn-tables and a power cord? They didn't even have any knobs or switches!!! If I can't find my old one and my current system doesn't have a Phono in then I'll have to find an old stereo at Goodwill to plug the turn-table into. If my component pre-amp does then how much sound quality will I lose with a 30 foot patch cord? I've never plugged my computer and stereo together. How many other Slashdotters are going to have to figure out some creative wiring to make this work? For that matter how many other Slashdotters still have vinyl? I wonder if this trip down memory lane will induce any flashbacks! ;-)
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
Any you just discribed why we use 44khz. Have ya ever looked at Nyquest? Ya double the rate of sampling to get an accurate response. Meaning that a human that has had their ears perfectly trained, had the right genes, and just came out of an ear cleaning session can hear a 22khz (and seldomly -- just a bit higher).
:P
:-)
Then again, what happens in pratice is to be debated. High quality FFTs show that 44khz with most consumer crap aliases at the high end...thus you have folks claiming 96khz is MUCH better -- why? Because with larger headroom, you can get much cleaner recordings of the material up to 22khz because physically, the cheap stuff doesn't have to be much better than the 44khz stuff, it just has to start aliasing a little later.
On quality equipment with great ADDA filters and DSP, 44khz is more than you need. My Kurzweil K2600 outputs at 44khz and local engineers are convinced its MUCH higher. It also costs 3x what most synths do
BUT if you could make something with cheaper materials and not worry about the quality control as much because you knew that no one was going to hear it, why not? So folks started in with 96khz which can actually be made rather cheaply (ya pick up the MAudio Audiophile 2496 for around $150 or less) and while it doesn't have as good of materials as some of the rest, the technology renders the problems out of the human range of hearing, whilst a consumer level card at 44khz would DEFINATELY have to deal with a lot more quality control to get to the same level.
So -- yeah 44khz is all one really needs to accurately reflect sound under ideal circumstances. As this isn't going to happen for most consumers, doubling the frequency again will flaten out the spectrum for you a lot more at a cheaper cost.
Personally, I'm sticking with my 48khz equipment...it sounds great and I had to pay for that quality...I just need to get some stickers slapped on them that claim to have been moded for greater range and no one would know the difference
One reason CDs got a bad rap with audiophiles is that a lot of the early ones had too much jitter - the recording term for a digital clock that varies its interval a bit. This gives the resulting sound a flat quality. To this day, one of the biggest differences between low-end and high-end digital recording gear is the quality of the clock. Once the sound is digitized, it's all the same whether you use expensive gear or a desktop computer...but screw up the initial A-D conversion, and nothing can help you.
I agree - And old friend, has over 10,000 VERY unique albums dating back to the first pressings of vinyl. (He's been collecting AVIDLY since he was a child - he's in his 80s now.) Through him I learned that the first vinyl was actually pressed into the medium LIVE (Not drums of wax, actual vinyl). The artist would play, and that unique original recording would go onto the disk. If he wanted to make 10,000 albums to distribute, he would have to perform the song 10,000 times! There's albums of these types of albums that are worth $50 and others that are worth thousands of dollars - just because someone sneezed in the background, or the artist did something unique or original in that individual recording.
I highly agree in saving very old recordings. Frankly, I think they're much better than the "digitally remastered" versions (Read: Guido shot first).
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
It's very worthwhile investing in good hi-fi equipment if you listen on headphones, as many (if not most) audiophiles do.
You certainly can get a worthwhile improvement from spending moderately serious amounts on equipment, but you're right in a way--the place to spend the money isn't always obvious, and a lot of expensive kit is wank that's beaten handily by stuff a fraction of the price.
For example, you can spend $1000 on a set of incredible audiophile speakers... or you can spend $300 on a pair of good headphones and a headphone amp. Unlike with speakers, you can put an audiophile headphone system in a shared apartment and not have to compromise. In fact, you can build a portable headphone listening setup that'll sound better than anything with speakers that you might plausibly set up in the communal living room.
Even cheap equipment can often be improved greatly by add-ons. I just upgraded to some Sennheisers for my Sony Walkman, and the difference is incredible. I have a better headphone amp on the way too...
Last time I auditioned CD players, one thing that surprised me was the amount of difference in sound quality in half a dozen big-name players at around the same price. If you're serious about sound quality, you really have to audition the stuff.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
i think you may have the wrong end of the stick. i dont doubt that your soundcard is good- but this isn't home audio, the turntables are aimed at professional music users (venues, recording studios DJs, etc) doing onboard a-d on the turntable is a good thing because: 1- it removes the need for a RIAA preamp to condition the signals so that the levels are right. (although some turntables have line out now) 2- no matter what you say, there is going to be less noise a-d'ing offboard, and it reduces signal noise brought on by cables. oh, and these beauties cost at least $1000 each...... HTH
-----im billy troll----- im better than you at everything you do.