Vinyl to CD - suggestions?

[JRV]

I just bought Pinnacle Systems' Clean Plus 4.0 , which contains a phono preamp I can connect to my sound card, and their "Clean" software.



Then, a little too late, I thought some of you might have gone down this path before and might have some hard-earned wisdom to share about the best way to put my LP collection on CDRs.

I've just played with Clean a little. First impression is that it is amazing, and will do it's thing with minimum effort from me, but is really, really buggy. I've hardly ever closed the program the right way...it usually just crashes!

I'm running WinXP on a P4/3GHz & 512MB RAM so hopefully I won't be CPU-bound with all the sound-processing stuff.

Recommendations?

I haven't got a clue what this software you've got does Jeff but my Hi Fi set-up has a Marantz double CD deck that will record direct from the turntable, CD, tape deck or tuner.

It will record each side of an album as one track but there is an option to split them up. However, you have to be listening to the album and press a button on the remote at the right time.

I can then transfer the CD onto my PC and mp3 player.

A bit of a pain but it does the trick.

[JRV]

Keith, thanks for your reply.

Clean has all sorts of digital cleanup (hence the name) features. Removes pop, hum, hiss, and a bunch of other stuff. They're not just filters, they analyze the waveforms to do it (when set correctly) without removing music along with the noise. It has a preview mode for each correction that lets you hear only what it's removing to ensure the settings aren't too aggressive. When it's set right, which, at least in my brief experiments on a copy of Genesis' Duke that had a hard life, it actually seems to be able to do it automatically, all you hear is noise...no music. Pretty amazing.

You can also have it compensate for the compromises inherent in vinyl, like dynamic range and so on. I haven't quite decided how I feel about that vis-a-vis artistic intent, but I plan to experiment with it and will likely use it to some limited extent. It splits tracks automatically except, of course, where the songs run together and there isn't a silent lead-in track, as is the case with a lot of prog! In those cases, I'll have to intervene, but it's easy enough to do after-the-fact, and having the timings from the record label should help place the break correctly.

Wish there was a feature that knew how to compensate for eccentric spindle holes; I have many of those!

Perhaps your deck does this, but I have to be able to output files in CD-Audio ("Red Book") format so it can be played in a conventional CD player (not MP3, WMA, or other data format). That's important because my car CD changer doesn't know about data, and I don't plan to replace the car any time soon. Clean does that, although it will also do .MP3 and .WAV.

[JRV]

The thread hasn't been just overflowing with interest, but maybe that's because few have gone before. So I'll turn it into a review for those who come after.

Clean! is unbelievably buggy software when it comes to the mechanics of getting music off the LP and splitting it into tracks, and later burning it to audio CD. But if you can manage that, what it can do for the music in between those processes is amazing.

To hear music I've heard so many times that I've memorized each tape hiss and vinyl pop emerge from a background of silky silence, with sonic compromises inherent in analog reproduction subtly compensated for, is astonishing. And the sound processing is very fast and easy to do. Forgive me for waxing hyperbolic, but a veil is lifted; I am hearing the music for the first time all over again.

One caveat: I've started with 2 extremely well-recorded LPs. So, in a sense, all I've really accomplished is to make a silk purse out of a silk purse. Start with a sow's ear LP and the results will likely be less spectacular.

It's a major hassle because of the many software bugs, but the results are worth every frustrating moment!

Still looking for less painful alternatives, though, if anyone runs across one!

[progdirjim(Admin)]

I haven't used it yet, but I'm planning on trying out Adobe Audition - software that does much the same as Clean! I've heard pretty good things about the Adobe product - I'll post once I actually try it, hopefully soon. I have some vinyl I want to add to the playlist anyway...

[JRV]

Thanks, PDJ; didn't know Adobe was in that business. I'm going to check into it. Hopefully, Adobe can bring programming resources to bear on their product that Pinnacle can't. Looking at Pinnacle's broad product line, they must be spread pretty thin.

[moses]

I have Adobe Audition, it's certainly stable. I've never used it for cleaning up vinyl recordings, but I have removed tape hiss with it and it did a good job.

Good luck in your quest!