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Best way to record vinyl to digital?

I hope that I'm not hijacking someone else's thread, but I asked a question over on the Digital Forum and did not receive a reply so I thought I would try here:

Can anyone provide a brief comparison of LP ripping software? Audacity and Reaper have both been mentioned, but not Pure Vinyl. Has anyone tried it?

I have been struggling with ripping my vinyl collection to digital files. I have a Mac Mini and an Apogee Duet I borrowed from the kid next door, and I downloaded the Pure Vinyl demo which is supposed to be fully functional. After messing with it for over a week I still can't get it to work, and the documentation they provide with the demo version stinks. So I am looking for a better way to do this and would appreciate any suggestions.
bodotes
11 responses Add your response
hotmailjbc
571 posts
 
pure digital techs helped me on the phone for an hour. i needd help. ha they have a reputation for great interest in what is going on with their customers and potential customers. several magazines gave strong reviews to pure vinyl so it might be worth it to you to call them. my only problem with them [and it was from my end] is they assume a certain level of computer accumen on the customer end. sorry i can,t help more but thought my experience might be of some benefit. i just bought the music player because the vinyl was out of my price range.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Have you contacted channeld, the Pure Vinyl publisher? They have a good reputation for support.

Your gear should give you good results; I use a Duet myself.
herman
2,259 posts
 
Second Tobias, PV has always been very responsive with support. I use the program and it works great.

.
altbrewer
24 posts
 
If you only downloaded the Pure Vinyl 3 beta version, you should also get the PV 2.3 application suite. The documentation with version 2.3 is more complete and will help somewhat with version 3, although several aspects of the interface differ.

The beta version 3 still has significant limitations and I have not yet gotten it to work to my satisfaction. It works much better if you record using a non-equalized amplifier for the turntable and let PV add digital RIAA equalization. But, recording an equalized signal from my phono preamp still fails with PV3. PV 2.3 works fine, but you have to downsample to CD quality (16/44.1) to edit the recording into individual tracks.
bodotes OP
30 posts
 
Guys, thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Altbrewer, I *think* that I have it working with the Duet, usinf the PV RIAA equalization. I'm still having trouble with the recording trigger - the recording stops when the music passes from a loud passage to a quiet one. I did send an email to Channel D, but their web site does state that support is for registered users. Fair enough, but why would I buy something that I cannot make work?

I think that the application is pretty good, but their documentation for v3 stinks. And you are correct, there are significant differences between the v2.3 and v3 interfaces that make the former documentation almost useless, except maybe as a concepts document.

Any other suggestions?
secretchimp99
8 posts
 
I don't know if this is helpful, but I would recommend demoing as many as possible before deciding.

I demoed a handful of programs a year or so ago (including Channel D's Pure Vinyl) and settled on Sound Studio. It's simple and does everything I need when combined with Click Repair(Highly, Highly recommended). I thought Pure Vinyl was a bit gimmicky for my tastes and functionally didn't offer anything IMO. However I do use their Pure Music for playback.

I record in 32/96khz in Sound studio then use Click Repair to remove surface noise and pops. Then normalize, edit, split tracks and downsample in SS. Really simple and no bugs, freezes or lost data in my year of using it. It's very stable IME.
br3098
995 posts
 
Well, after wasting the better part of this weekend plus several hours over the last two weeks, I am retiring Pure Vinyl v3. I just can't seem to get it to work reliably, and the documentation provided with the demo is almost useless.

I will try some of the other applications you all have suggested. Thanks for your help!
tobias
1,534 posts
 
I don't use PV for recording although I use Pure Music for playback. My recording software is Audiofile Engineering's Wave Editor and it is excellent.
les_creative_edge
174 posts
 
Apple's own Garage Band works very well and is pretty easy to get a grasp on. It's then easy to make and send files in many formats to other places on your Mac including burning CDR's and uploading to a portable player such as an iPod or other MP3 devices.

I have used each of these.

Garage Band
Audacity
Final Vinyl

Each work well enough once you get use to them. Audacity and Final Vinyl are FREE programmes and Garage Band comes with every Mac.
secretchimp99
8 posts
 
FWIW I demoed Wave Editor extensively about a year ago and really wanted to like it. The dithering and SRC are supposedly top-notch however I was getting drop-outs in my recordings. After a back and forth with support, I was told it was a known issue that would be corrected with the next version (1.5?). Something with the buffer size WE uses.

I haven't tried it since that time and hopefully it's been addressed.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Good to have that info re Wave Editor. The software is now in version 1.5.5 and I have not seen a dropout problem so far.

I am very happy with WE's dithering and SRC. There are no digital nasties in Redbook versions made with WE from downloaded hi-res files.
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