- Input level - seems a bit low, maximum amplitude as reported by Audacity barely exceeds 0.5 on audio peaks (loudest passages). Level controls in both Win 7 and Audacity are at max;
That’s just about right. Without a gain control some records will be louder than others and you absolutely don’t want it “trying” to go over 0dB (1.0 or 100%) because you’ll get [u]clipping[/u] (distortion). It’s much better to have a the signal a little low than a little high… It’s not like the analog-tape days where you needed a strong signal to overcome the tape noise.
Just use the Amplify effect to bring-up the level after recording.
2A. In this regard, if I choose Normalize, is there a way to specify the normalization reference?
The Amplify effect scans your file first, so you can set the target peak-level.
If you want to maintain the original loudness differences between the songs/tracks, make a single file that includes both sides and normalize everything together.
Note that normalizing the tracks individually will insure that all of the tracks have equal peaks, but it will not necessarily make them equally “loud”. The peaks don’t correlate well with perceived loudness and some quiet-sounding songs have high peaks. And, some songs have loud parts and quiet parts.
Example: suppose I record different files for each movement of a multi-movement symphony. Can I normalize the amplitude of a very quiet movement with respect to the maximum in the loudest movement to avoid artificially “turning up” the volume of the quiet movement?
Some people incorrectly call that “normalization”. Normalization adjusts the whole file by the same amount.
Some music (especially classical music) is very dynamic… It has loud parts and quiet parts and it was intended to be that way. You can use dynamic compression* Effect → Compressor to bring everything toward the same level. There is also a Leveler effect, but I think that’s more for spoken voice and it might screw-up music.
I can’t tell you how to set the compressor… It’s a bit of an art and you’ll have to experiment. Every piece of music is different and every person’s idea of what it should sound like is different. You can over-do it and you can get side-effects.
You can also use the Envelope tool to manually fade-up and fade-down the gain.
Most modern music is highly-compressed to make it “constantly loud”. But, this can also make it boring… Many people prefer the old vinyl releases to remastered digital versions for this reason.
- Would the USB output of a good-quality turntable (such as the AT-120LP-USB) usually have proper RIAA equalization applied to it?
Yes.
[u]This Page[/u] has tons of information about digitizing LPs, including links to software for cleaning up the “snap”, “crackle”, and “pop”. Audacity also has a Repair and Click Removal effects. I use a program called Wave Repair ($30 USD) and it does a great job on most defects, but it usually takes me a full-weekend to clean-up and LP. Next time, I’m going to try something more automated.
Besides cleaning-up the clicks & pops, I find that many older records are a little “dull” sounding so I’ll use the Equalizer to boost the high frequencies a bit.
Oh… I always forget… My main advice if you care about sound quality is to buy the CD or MP3 (if it’s available).
- Don’t confuse dynamic compression with file compression (such as MP3). MP3 does not affect the dynamics.