Finally I've got around to a short item about the LP to CD effort: I
was planning to do almost everything on the day, this would then have the effect of being
a newbie at this challenge. Unfortunately it took a few hours to sort out my computer.
After people had gone home I eventually found a cure: the modem card was attempting to use
the audio card in simplex mode continually and I simply disabled it in the device manager.
The modem card probably has some voice-mail features which shouldn't be active unless
asked, stupid thing.
As usual, computers let me down but we managed to get some recording
done at least and we had quite a few discussions about different things. Chris B seems to
be reasonably computer literate and my friend Martyn has done all this LP/CD thing all
before. By not doing anything previously I thought it would be a learning experience for
all of us by starting from the beginning, and it certainly was. Eventually we used the
motherboard's onboard sound card and tried EZCD5 and Groove Mechanic to cut an LP side.
The EZCD5 had some distortion probably due to overloading the input by not setting the
level right. The Harry James Sheffield Lab direct cut record is quite dynamic. The Groove
mechanic had no distortion but was slightly less dynamic than EZCD5. This could be because
GM had de-click and de-hiss enacted, reducing fidelity. They both seemed to lack a bit of
dynamics, we did a real time AB comparison with the LP. But frankly I thought the result
was damn good. With a lesser quality record the result would be great (IMHO). Without
going overboard I think EZCD5 (spin doctor) will do nicely. It just means getting the
level right using the loudest passage. Later Ill try this with the Sound Blaster Live card
which is a bit more representative. The 18 bit Turtle Beach card would not work in my
W2000 setup , at all. I may try it in my W98 setup just to see if it works but time is
against me.
The next choice is to either have another day doing a similar thing
on another day or simply write up the experience for the MAN, or both. It was a good day,
but of course, not enough was done.
The computer is a 1.4GHz Athlon. Turntable is an Oracle with an
Empire arm and a Koetsu Gold cartridge. This fed my own pre-pre amp into my Hafler DH101
preamp (line out) which then went into my Pioneer Pre-amp which fed the amps. The Hafler
variable output went into the soundcard input. Record was a Sheffield direct cut of Harry
James. The cut CDR was replayed back using another CD-ROM drive with the digital out going
to the Pioneer. The Pioneer then switched between digital (cut cdr) in and analogue
(record via Hafler) in for comparison. The Pioneer has inbuilt DAC and DD decoding as well
as true analogue circuitry. The amps are Quad 405 feeding Quad ESL63s. (I think I switched
out the active xover for this testing) . Tonight I am going to a PC-User night on this
topic, so the tale will continue.
Postscript
The night was really just a demo for Clean v2.0 by Steinberg.
The salesman gave a convincing display of what it can do to a crackly record. Personally I
thought it looked like a good program despite himself. It had everything that you would
need without going overboard. No other programs are required with it except for perhaps
the CD burning s/w (but it may even include that). It has a street price of $169. It is
definitely more comprehensive than Easy CD creator Disk Doctor ( at a similar price). It
looks good but I would like to try it.
So far, the candidates are:
1. Clean 2/Clean 3 A$165 Note: Clean 3 has "TubeSimulation - Hifi valve amplifier simulation" effect. Looks promising. Does everything.
2. Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum A$115 Does most simple things, relatively easy to use.
3. Wave Repair v4.7 (wav editor only, requires extra recording and burning s/w) $0. Too limited in my opinion.
4. GoldWave v4.26C A$55 (~US$40) Looks promising.
5. CoolEdit 2000v1.1 US$69.
6. Groove Mechanic Shareware is a 15 day trial or buy for US$39 (requires extra burning s/w). Works quite well without being complicated
7. Sound Forge 5.0 XP Studio A$199 US$60
8. Cakewalk Pyro 1.5 download US$19 Pyro may only have limited hiss/clicks processing capability, if any.
The following are just too complicated, too expensive or not specifically for LP/CD:
1. Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 A$209. Cakewalk appears to be more of a studio mixer etc.
2. CoolEdit Pro 1.2 A$605† (new version is v2.0)
3. Sound Forge 6 A$549
Chris (the saga continues) M |
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