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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.
I personnally enjoyed the way this guy rips vinyls: by scanning them !
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Most people know how to connect line out to line in - but there are other issues. RIAA filtering (No, it's not evil - google it), wow and flutter filtering, among others.
You can't just hook line out to line in and expect a decent result. You need some decent software as well. this guy makes a living doing decent conversions. If it was truly as easy as you say, he'd be out of business.
I'm not Seth.
Only to audiophiles who use worthless and unquantifiable terms like "warmth" and "roundness".
Those guys are wankers - but valves do have a different sound. When valve amps clip, they have a nicer sound then transistor amps. This is thought to be caused by a more 'rounded' curve, caused by even order harmonics. see this page for more information.
A good quality cd in a good quality system is more than adequate for any normal human being who doesn't base their life's worth on the amount of vacuum (sp) tubes in their living room.
Remember when 256 colour graphics cards came out? I bet you thought 'Wow! I'll never need more then those'. When high colour came out 'This is great - more won't make a difference, since the eye can't see any more'. as technology improved, so did our desire for more quality.
I'm not Seth.
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
Aren't records made from digital sources?
Depends. Many studios still use magnetic tape, although others use Pro-Tools and their ilk for everything. Once the multi track recordings are done, then the mastering might be to magnetic tape, DAT or Exabyte (amongst others). Then comes the mastering at the pressing plant, which is where any recording will go digital (if it's being pressed onto CD) at the glass mastering stage. Vinyl mastering produces a die, and this is still an "analog" process.
And yes, bass frequencies are limited on vinyl, I remember an early acid house track called "Oochy Koochy" which had such a massive kick sound that it trashed the mastering studios cutting head, something they weren't insured for. That reminds me - I'll have to extract that record from my brothers grubby mitts next time I see him ...
Chris
Now, the equalisation curve was specified by our good friends, the RIAA... all amplifiers that have a "Phono" input use an RIAA EQ curve in the pre-amp stage to boost/reduce the frequencies to get back to a flat response that should sound like the studio mix off the (pre vinyl mastering) master tape.
Often these days all mastering is done at a flat EQ curve, because CDs can handle this, and then mastering happens *again* for the vinyl stage. It used to be the other way round, so early CDs were replaced with "digitally remastered" cuts - Brothers in Arms, Pink Floyd catalogue, that sort of stuff - and had a sound that was more faithful to the original, pristine LPs without sounding "tinny" like the first released CDs.
Digital to Analogue converters and preamps are so good these days that there is little difference between vinyl and CD. A lot of the "warmth" that supposed audiophiles go on about is probably "rumble" anyway (that is, the 50 or 60Hz drone that comes from the platter's electric motor and is passed to the needle, and other artifacts created by the rotation of the record in slightly less than perfect circles, etc).
What I like about LPs is the bigger artwork, the physical effort required to play a recording, and the soothing 33 and one third RPM of the disc as it spins on my old JVC turntable. Also, records which are well kept - as they generally are in my collection - sound pretty good too. However, they're not *better* than CDs. Just different. Old analogue stuff has afficionados everywhere, but please stop bleating that it's because it's better. It's just different.
One interesting argument though - a big thing in digital audio is to keep a fully digital path all the way to the very last, then have a top D to A converter right in the amp and straight to the speakers, some people even sending a digital feed to speakers which have reference D to A converters or even some system to use the digital signal to generate an analogue wave which goes beyond normal D to A electronics (can't remember too much about that, Google around if you feel so inclined). With my vinyl setup, however, I have a signal path that is fully analogue, and no need of a DtoA stage at all ;-) - although I do have solid state electronics in the system... which old wind up 78rpm players didn't have. I bet some people claimed they sounded better than the newer 33rpm records with electric motors and all that, too.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Long, long ago, I set up a really cheap and crappy stereo system in a really perfect room - the library of a stately home. The wallw sere lined with books - acoustically absorbing but not dead. The wall behind was coverd with curtains. teh room was large (say 50 ft by 40) and exactly symmetrical, and with a sofa at the optimum listening position.
This cheap stereo system (high street retailers cheapest "got everything" model) sounded absolutely marvellous. Like kit costing fity times as much.
Ever since then, I have been of the opinion that it is not worth spending a fortune on hi-fi kit if you intend to install it in a room in which you intend to Have a Life. The necessary compromises to live in a room - particularly if you share with other people - will cancel out all the advantages of super-duper kit. If you are prepared to set up a special listeneing room, it might be worth investing in this kit. Until then, buy more music or more beer.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Vinyl is highly reccomended if you have kids as far as demonstrating how sound works. You really don't get that positive feedback system, nor can you use a catas needle in a styrophome mug to demonstrate the whole gramaphone concept. Ok, this will definatly cause your record to degrade.
Dispite the fact that I was born in the 70s... I only recently gained an apprication for vinyl. As a kid, when I bought records, it was cause I didn't have a tape player, and I treeted my vinyl poorly. I went with cassettes cause they were so much more portable, I could play them on my TI-99/4a data recorder, and they didn't get damaged too much if I didn't put them back in their cases.
But I was missing something actually. Amazingly enough vinyl is actually a really good standard. Part of my prejustice was the fact that I was a kid and was listening to the stuff on my folks record player, some wooden cabinate deal with cheepo tv tweaters, stereo that was screwy from date of purchace, and an 8track that the program button was screwy. And plus the fact that all the records I had at the time were hand me downs from family members, played to death.
When CDs came out, I was instently impressed... vast sound improvement vs cassettes I noticed right off the bat, no background hiss, and vs the vinyl players *I've experenced* no background 60 cycle hum. So I went for one of those, I was older and could afford one, at first a simple boom box, eventualy a dedicate amp and a multi-disk changer with remote, and then I had something resembling a servicable sound system.
While I'm not a true audiophile, there are those who believe that vinyl is a superior standard to CD. Recent experiments have show me personaly that it's good, it's pretty damn good. If you are lucky enough to have a decent turntable, with a decent cartrage, a new needle, proper alignment, and kick ass wires that don't pickup that annoying 60 cycle hum that most turn tables seem to be a victim of, they sound great, in fact, they do kick ass. Wether or not they have a more natural sound due to the fact that they are analog and have more descrete values between their max and minium range, or if the better cartrage / styluses pickup more noise giving it a warmer feel rather then accurate, I don't know.
Before I get too off the mark, it's reasonable to believe that an analog vinyl record can more accuratly produce natural sounds due to it's analog nature, that whole issue with descrete values in the human percieved range is easy enough to believe. I've never seen it personaly, but i'm willing to believe this. However, in order to achive maxium effect, you need a virgin pressing, virgin record, kick ass turn table, etc... etc... and ya know... I am not going to spend that sorta money on a sound system, nor am I going to spend hours tweeking with my stylus alignment. Forget that. CDs sound pretty damn good, mp3s at a high enough bitrate are adquate for portable audio. Even an old goodwill CD-rom drive will proved *great* audio at sub $20.00.
So to answer your question, no you are not weird like that. While some will argue that the vinyl standard is superior in quality, you can't argue about the entry level cost of CD vs vinyl. CD provides damn good sound for few bucks. CDs are damn cheep to produce dispite the phohographs simple technology to extract sounds from a disk.
But now we are getting stanards for digital audio that more then double the sample rate and 33% the bit width... it would be interesting to see how phonophiles feel about sound quality vs ye old snap crackle hiss humm.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
This is great news. Now we just need to get people with older record collections to rip them to MP3 so we can properly archive music before it's lost forever.
Just think of all the music produced in the 20's, 30's and 40's that was never remastered and released on CD. Big Band Swing, Jazz, Blue Grass, tons of music that still has a copyright on it (thank you disney), but the copyright owner doesn't want to keep current in their catalog (too expensive). Get this music out on Kazaa, and introduce yourself to a generation of music that is slowly being lost.