First off…HAPPY NEW YEAR and seasons greetings. I just got this Vibe USB turntable and I am finding there is quite a bit of hum in the recording. Actually looks like more on the left channel.
I suspect I have a cheesy turntable. Probably a very common problem but a quick search prior to posting didn`t bring up much other than rather advanced stuff. Any suggestions? I have a couple of pretty good REAL turntables but not sure what I need to make 'em work with this software.
Thanks in advance
If you’ve got some good real TTs then send back the hunk-of-junk USB TT (certainly sounds as though it may be faulty).
Assuming that the TT’s that you have don’t have inbuilt pre-amps then you will need a phono preamp at the least. It may be sufficient to connect TT=>Phono Pre-amp->computer - but often the onbaord soundcards in computers are not very good (Macs reckoned to better than PCs in this respect).
I started out on my LP transfers with an ION USB TT - the electronics were good but the TT itself was poor quality as was the cartridge -so I soon junked it and revived my old Technics TT and gave it a home service. I bought a separate USB soundcard (Edirol UA-1EX) and phono pre-amp (ART DJ-Pre11). The USB Phono Plus is basically my pre-amp bundled with an integrated soundard. I have find the sound from the ART amp excellent and the build qulaityt is superb (if the bundled device had been available at my time of purchase I would have bought the USB Phono Plus).
The ART devices have a good grounding post - so you will need to connect the TT’s grounding wire to it (it’s normally a thin black wire terminated in a spade connector).
I see there is a dealer close by to me so I will check them out. Should also pull out my old turntables, make sure they still work. I have a tecknics and a pioneer that were pretty good . I see there are some issues on their site posted about windows 7 so I hope they are compatible.
If they are belt drive TTs you may want to consider replacing the rubber drive belt.
Lightly lubricate the bearing with light machine oil (sewing-machine oil is good for this).
Clean the stylus (carefully). Don’t be tempted to clean it with an alcohol-based solvent as it will probably unsticj the stylus from the cantilever mount - don’t ask me how i know
Make sure the TT and arm are set up properly (tracking, alignment etc.)
