Recording LP's

[Squishman]

So far, I have 68 of my 450-some records recorded from my Thorens turntable with the Ortofon Black cart. There are about 100 I suppose I have no interest in recording. I don't tag individual tracks. That would make it a nightmarishly long project. I just make a long 320 kbps mp3 of one LP, because that's how I play records anyway (if double LP, then it's two mp3's). Then I tag them accordingly. When side one ends, I do not click pause on my laptop until the tonearm lifts with my awesome AT6006R tonearm lifter with a featherlight trigger. The reason is because I want that lift-pop sound on the tape. If I am listening to the recording in another room or the car, this helps me (as you can easily imagine) to relate the LP playing experience and to know when the record was flipped. Fun project that will take me many months to feel like it's done or close to done anyway. I use mono settings on the laptop and AVR when recording mono LP's.

 

[TLS Guy]

So far, I have 68 of my 450-some records recorded from my Thorens turntable with the Ortofon Black cart. There are about 100 I suppose I have no interest in recording. I don't tag individual tracks. That would make it a nightmarishly long project. I just make a long 320 kbps mp3 of one LP, because that's how I play records anyway (if double LP, then it's two mp3's). Then I tag them accordingly. When side one ends, I do not click pause on my laptop until the tonearm lifts with my awesome AT6006R tonearm lifter with a featherlight trigger. The reason is because I want that lift-pop sound on the tape. If I am listening to the recording in another room or the car, this helps me (as you can easily imagine) to relate the LP playing experience and to know when the record was flipped. Fun project that will take me many months to feel like it's done or close to done anyway. I use mono settings on the laptop and AVR when recording mono LP's.

Why are you so wedded to the mp3 codec? That is a poor quality, way out of date codec. AAC is much better and FLAC even better.

 

[Squishman]

Why are you so wedded to the mp3 codec? That is a poor quality, way out of date codec. AAC is much better and FLAC even better.

I knew someone would pipe in about that. Thought it'd be lovin though! He mentioned that once and Flac doesn't play on my USB reader on my Teac CD player. I tried that. AAC will only play from an Apple device on my Teac. I am using usb drives at the moment, although since the files are tagged, I will likely import them into my Ipod touch someday. I am pretty sure that the iPod software down-converts whatever you toss into the player, but I am just making an assumption. To compare, I just now put on an LP and a recording of the same album, Sam Phillip's "The Indescribable Wow" which is a very nicely recorded album. To me, the difference was very hard to detect if even at all switching from one to the other. I am leaning towards "no discernible difference". I use the highest bitrate possible, which I would think matters a lot. I remember when storage was more of a commodity and folks used 128 kbps. I can see how that bitrate would sound audibly worse than the original source. My recordings are pretty dang good at 320 kbps.
As I type, I am letting that album play from the USB drive and holy buckets, that is a beautiful recording!
Here's the album on youtube. Check it out! I did sound for her once back in the early 1980's, btw.

 

[Squishman]

Oh yeah... I recall bringing this LP to your place a while back.

 

[TLS Guy]

I knew someone would pipe in about that. Thought it'd be lovin though! He mentioned that once and Flac doesn't play on my USB reader on my Teac CD player. I tried that. AAC will only play from an Apple device on my Teac. I am using usb drives at the moment, although since the files are tagged, I will likely import them into my Ipod touch someday. I am pretty sure that the iPod software down-converts whatever you toss into the player, but I am just making an assumption. To compare, I just now put on an LP and a recording of the same album, Sam Phillip's "The Indescribable Wow" which is a very nicely recorded album. To me, the difference was very hard to detect if even at all switching from one to the other. I am leaning towards "no discernible difference". I use the highest bitrate possible, which I would think matters a lot. I remember when storage was more of a commodity and folks used 128 kbps. I can see how that bitrate would sound audibly worse than the original source. My recordings are pretty dang good at 320 kbps.
As I type, I am letting that album play from the USB drive and holy buckets, that is a beautiful recording!
Here's the album on youtube. Check it out! I did sound for her once back in the early 1980's, btw.

AAC codec is NOT limited to Apple. I use it and it and have nothing Apple in the rig.