78's - record at 78 or 45? and correct sequence of processes

Special Interest Groups Recording Techniques
1

first of all - thanks for this board, and audacity!!! great program, great board, lot’s of help

here’s my situation and thinking - tell me if i’m correct:

have 2 great turntables and cartridges, but neither will run at 78
technics 1200mk2 with shure m95ed
technics 1100a with stanton 681EEE

i also have several older (and mediocre) turntables (all garrards) which DO run at 78 but also have mediocre/unknown cartridges

i’m thinking the BEST way to transfer some 78’s would be to go ahead and get a “78” stylus (i think it’s 3mil) for the 1200 (it’s $29 shure vs $69 for the stanton :slight_smile: and record at 45 then audacitize it up to 78

i’m thinking that i really won’t “lose” much in terms of freq response, playing at the lower speed (maybe lose below 40hz or so (due to those freq’s being moved down to 25 or so because of playing at 45 instead of 78))
and higher freqs won’t be lost at all - 15k would go down to 9k or so…

then i’d take the file, and work on it in this order -

remove clicks
remove noise
choose the best side to use (will record in stereo, but will use “cleanest” side for final mono conversion)
change speed to 45-78
adjust EQ
normalize

does my above procedure sound like the best way to do this? should i work on the file in a different order?

i have an imic, and can transfer to the mac without riaa, which is the way to go with most of these recordings i believe

i do have a few 50’s “kids golden records” which i’m guessing were produced WITH riaa so i’ll just play with the eq on those till they sound right

and also some additional questions:

  1. is there anything “worse” about playing the 78’s at 45 and then speeding them up in software, than just recording them initially at 78?

  2. is it possible that there is not really that much “information” on 78’s - where just using my “mediocre” turntable and cartridge would essentially give me the “best” overall recording? without having to increase speed in software?

  3. is the stylus movement at 78 somehow “MUCH” better in how it plays the record vs playing it at 45?

i don’t have a lot of 78’s to convert, but trying to get the best sound out of them
i also have a few from my dad back in 1943 recorded overseas at some of the recording booths they used to have, some singing and some whistling with his buddies, which i’m planning on giving to my sister for her birthday (he passed away a number of years ago) i know she’ll really enjoy his recordings, and all our old music we used to listen to when we were kids (davy crockett, barker bill, rocket ranger march :slight_smile:

thanks in advance for everyone’s help
morelater
the show doctor

2

There’s a pretty good old thread on this:
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=382&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=78+rpm

About your stylus, it’s probably best to have a stylus meant for 78s. The sizes were different back then, so that’s the first thing to get right.

You’ve got a few more questions:

  1. is there anything “worse” about playing the 78’s at 45 and then speeding them up in software, than just recording them initially at 78?

  2. is it possible that there is not really that much “information” on 78’s - where just using my “mediocre” turntable and cartridge would essentially give me the “best” overall recording? without having to increase speed in software?

  3. is the stylus movement at 78 somehow “MUCH” better in how it plays the record vs playing it at 45?

  1. It might actually be better. You’re right about losing a tiny bit of the bass, but the higher frequencies might arguably sound better if captured at a lower speed.

  2. It depends on the turntable / cartridge combo. The cartridge is more important. I would stick to using the Technics deck with the stylus you’d rather buy.

  3. I doubt the stylus movement would be much better played at 78. Again, the very deep bass might be missing, but you’ll be reading the higher frequencies at a slower pace which will make them slightly more accurate.

All in all though, the differences between deck setups might be so small that you can’t tell. The hardest thing will be getting the EQ curve right.

3

thanks for the quick response!!!

hehehe, and as luck would have it:
an “N78S” stylus for my shure m95ed costs just slightly MORE than picking up the SHURE M78S “mono” cartridge which INCLUDES the N78S stylus itself!!! :slight_smile:

so i’ll get to make another decision when it arrives - use the M78S as is, or transfer the N78S stylus onto my M95ED and see what sounds better

any thoughts on that?

have just ordered one and hopefully by next week will be in the throws of transfering and cleaning up my old 78’s :wink:

thanks again -
morelater
the show doctor