Pure Vinyl Software

Unless your vinyl is extremely noisy, so many clicks and pops that you hear more of them than music, I'd not use any software cleaning. Any declicking you do will have audible effects on the music. Also the better built the turntable and cart, the less likely the clicks and pops will bother you. Now if this is something rare, that you need the cleanest sounding results possible, I would remove the clicks and pops manually. Software such as Adobe Audtion will let you do this.

Here's what I do when transfering vinyl:

First I clean the LP on a VPI 16.5 RCM. I also use a quality turntable/cart/preamp combo (VPI,SHURE,Dynavector) and a quality sound card (m-audio audiophile firewire).

You can use any sound recording program, if going to cd, I'd record straight to 16/44khz, if archving for digital storage not on cd, go for 24/96 then compress to a lossless codec such as flac.

I started blogging about the Pure Vinyl experience. You can check out the progress here:

http://www.wynacht.org/?p=149

Would the MSB PAD Professional A/D Converter produce better sound than the Apogee Duet?

Thanks,
Joe

Joe, that would be a great comparison. The price of the MSB looks great. The only problem is you would still need an interface with a digital input to make use of the MSB since it is only an AD converter. The Apogee on the other hand is the interface and AD converter in one small unit.

Probably the best setup would be a top notch AD converter running into a top notch interface such as the Metric Halo ULN 2. This is a rather cumbersome not to mention expensive solution compared to the streamlined and even portable Duet.

We shall see. When Jwynacht gets the Duet and Purevinyl running together we will do a direct comparison between that and my "old fashioned" rig and see what sounds better.
I am running a 4000.00 Wadia AD converter into the Alesis Masterlink and the recordings are GREAT! The Wadia is like 5 years old which is a long time in the world of digital. Hopefully it is possible that Apogee can make something that beats it for 1/8th the price and fits in the palm of your hand.

Pure Vinyl looks really cool. I've already made some investments in my process of transferring 600 LP's to digital, though, so it's a rather pricey choice at this point for me.

For what it's worth, just to put an alternative approach:

Mac OS X/Mini with Bias Peak (similar price to Pure Vinyl)
Outboard A/D converter: USBPre
Click/noise fixing on Windows with Cool Edit/ClickFix
Archive as FLAC, burn to CD.

I record 24-bit 44.1. I can't do 96 with my setup, but at the time (2002) anyway the cost of the hardware/software was the best compromise for me.

Depending on the record, splitting the tracks can be easy or challenging. The hardest part for me is figuring out how much to clean the audio. Sometimes a light touch with ClickFix in the gaps will do the job, sometimes I end up just living with a few natural artifacts to preserve the high end, etc.

Recently I've been experimenting with Cool Edit's noise sampling and removal functionality. I'm debating whether this might be more effective and less harmful than I previously thought. Jury's still out.

But the bottom line for me is that saving the final work in FLAC and/or CD is the way to go. MP3's are like low-end cassettes in the modern age. I still hope for on-line retailers to start selling non-DRM in lossless formats. Then I may just buy digital replacements for alot of my more scratchy/warped items!