Basic questions re: Zphono and Audacity

[waxcylinder]

I agree with most everything Doug says - but I only Amplify to -2.0 dB (not all players and payer software play nicely with 0 dB maxed-out files - but having said that, most do). Nor do I find the LP transfers dull or un-bright.

@DVDdoug

Before any of that, I start with [u]Wave Repair[/u] ($30 USD) to remove clicks and pops. It does an audibly perfect job on most vinyl defects (with a choice of repair methods) and in the manual mode it only “touches” the audio where you identify a defect. However, it usually takes me a full weekend to clean-up the recording and I’m going to try something more automated next time. [u]This page[/u] (written by the developer of Wave Repair) has several other software suggestions as well as a ton of other information about digitizing LPs.

Personally I used Brain Davies’ excellent ClickRepair which once I’s tweaked the settings to my satisfaction I normally ran in automatic mode usaually less than 5 minutes or so per album - see this sticky thread: Click/pop removal - ClickRepair software

@DVDdoug

This is so awesome to be able to get some of my vinyl onto CD for car/archival. I’d appreciate any advice. Thank you.

Buy the CD!!! (If it’s available.) Most of the LPs I’ve digitized are old, and although I’ve had reasonably good results with the clean-up, the digitized copies rarely sound as “clean” as a CD or MP3.

Usually, but not always, the best option. Sometimes the CD has gone out of print and is only available for ridiculous prices on fleabay.

Or you can get a “remastered” CD version of the album where the engineers have maxed out the levels to compete in the “loudness wars” thereby spoiling irredeemably the original dynamics of the LP recording.
See: Loudness war - Wikipedia

WC