Community Forums Archive

Go Back

Subject:Filter to correct sound from record player?
Posted by: Videot
Date:12/11/2004 4:46:24 PM

I have finally got around to looking at recording my old LP's so that they can go onto CD's. I find that the recorded sound is very poor & distorted & have been told that I need a preamp that corrects the sound samples for my sound card. Is this the case & if so can this be also corrected my using some preset fileter in Soundforge? If so whats it called?

Subject:RE: Filter to correct sound from record player?
Reply by: MJhig
Date:12/11/2004 5:15:52 PM

You have been told correctly. You must have a preamp with a RIAA filter or a home stereo amp with a phono input. There's really no way around it. Google RIAA + phono for more detail here.

Once you have that solved.... here's a C&P of one of my previous posts;


Here's my method of converting my vinyl to CD using Sound Forge. This works well for me.

First and probably most important is to make sure the LPs are as clean as possible, the stylis, turntable, preamp and connections are in excellent shape of course.

Keeping in mind "less processing is more"...

Set the recording level peaks at about -6 to -3 dB. This makes the Plugin Chainer settings work without much tweaking.

Record the whole album as one file, this way the relationship remains intact between tracks as it was originally mastered.

Set up a Plugin Chain this way in this order;

Click and Crackle Removal (More conservative, for vinyl recordings) > Graphic EQ (Really don't do much here, just roll off Freq's below 20 Hz and compensate for LPs cutting everything below 7 kHz by -3 dB) > Wave Hammer (using the preset "Limit at -6 dB and maximize, change it to output level - 0.3 compressing just enough to compare to today's CDs).

Highlight the hottest part of the file, open the Plugin Chainer, preview that selection adjusting the volume fader on the Graphic EQ until the attenuation level (red meter) on the Wave Hammer Volume Maximizer page shows about 3 dB. This saves an extra process (normalize) on the data.

If there is no blank space between songs;

Place the cursor at the start of the audio in the file.

Press "m" to insert a marker.

Press the spacebar to start playback.

Press "m" again at the crossfade location to insert another marker. Repeat to the end.

Click Special > Regions List > Markers to Regions, when prompted click yes or ok.
In the Regions List window highlight a region click enter to edit name.

Click tools > Extract Regions and save them to a folder and burn them all in your burning software using DAO (disk at once) to prevent spaces between tracks.


If you have blank space to eliminate between songs;

Press "[" at the start of the song.

Press spacebar to start playback.

Press "]" at the end.

Press "r" to create region and name it.

Repeat to the end.

Click tools > Extract Regions and save them to a folder and burn them all in your burning software using DAO (disk at once).

Sorry for the edits, this is a C&P of a previous post and had to adapt it.

MJ



Subject:RE: Filter to correct sound from record player?
Reply by: Videot
Date:12/11/2004 9:29:40 PM

Thanks for that detailed answer. In the absence of preamp with a RIAA
filter could one possible use either the speaker or earphone jacks directly
into the PC's sound card?

Subject:RE: Filter to correct sound from record player?
Reply by: Chienworks
Date:12/12/2004 3:21:14 AM

You can. You won't want to. It will sound awful! I suppose one could look up the RIAA curve and correct for it with graphic EQ, but it still won't be perfect. Neither the speaker nor earphone jacks are the right impedence for this sort of transfer so you'll probably get a lot of extra noise and maybe some hum too.

Do you have or can you find/borrow/buy on ebay an old stereo amp/receiver with a Phono input? You would be able to use this as a preamp and connect the Tape/Record output to the computer's sound card. I would estimate that you wouldn't have to spend over $25 to get one of these used somewhere.

Go Back