Recording from LPs

I have done some recordings from LPs thru my Amp which has a PHONO Input. The WAV files sound with less BASS effect. Is it a problem with my Audio-Technica MC Cartridge or my Amp. When I tried to apply RIAA Eq effect from the Audacity 1.3.x ver the Bass though Boosted did not sound natural like from the Amp. Can any one suggest a remedy.

Murali

Well, your preampp/amp itself should already bea ppplying the necessary vinyl RIAA equalisation curve if, as you say, you are plugging the deck into the phono inputs of the amp. Does the LP sound ok when you play it throgh the amp to speakers or headphones? If you can send a good signal to speakers/cans - then you should be able to send a good signal to Audacity (and you should not need to mess with software RIAA equalization after recording)

Where are you taking the outputs from on the amp? A good place may be if you have outputs for sending to a tape deck for recording.

And you don’t tell us what amp that you have - or how you are connecting to the PC (On-board souncard? External USB/Firewire soundcard? - which make/model).

WC

Thanks WC for the response. My Eqpt Configuration is as below:

Amp : Make PULZ, an Indian make, Model 180DC Integrated Stereo Amp, 42+42 W rms @ 4 Ohms, With inputs for PHONO, TAPE, CD/AUX.
Cassette Tape Deck : SONY TC WE 475
Turntable : AKAI Belt Drive Model AP-B1 with AT-70 Cartridge.
DVD Player : PIONEER make, Model - DV-686 A
Speakers : 3 Way, 8 Inch Woofer, 6.5 inch Mid-Woofer and 1inch tweeter, Woofer is ‘Bolton’ an Indian make, MidW and Tweeters are made by Peerless India.
Computer : Pentium-IV 3.0 MHz, Intel 915G Chipset Board with Onboard Sound, 512 MB RAM, SONY CD Writer, 80 GB SATA HDD.

I record through the Tape out (2xRCA jacks) from the Amp, and fed to the Audio Line-In Jack of the computer. The Quality of Sound recorded as WAV are the same that are heard thro the speakers. My request to you is to suggest an idea to Boost the low frequencies when recording from the Turntable. When I convert Tapes to WAV format using Audacity the sound is excellent.

I have recorded some 150 hours of Music from Vinyl as WAV, sampled at 44100 Hz and 16-bit , the recordings are mostly of Tamil Film songs which are mostly Analog Mastered (Stereo) . Some recordings which I have made of English Pop Music ( Eg. BoneyM , LIPPS INC, SuperMax, Donna Summers, Giorgio Moroder, Police etc ) from Vinyl sound better from BASS point of view. Only the Tamil Film songs are of less BASS effect for which I require a solution. Will it sound better if I use a Equaliser between my DVD Player and Amp for Boosting the Low Frequencies.

Murali

Clearly if the recordings you made from tape are as good as through the speakers - that implies that there is nothing wroong with the AMP=>PC=>Audacity either hardware or software setup.

If you are not getting enough bass and the recording sounds a little thin then that is normally a sign that the RIAA is not beiing appled - Are you sure that your record deck is plugged into the phono input onthe amp? And when you play the LPs through the amp and the speakers dose it still sound lacking in bass or does it sound ok?

My recommendation to you would be to install 1.3.5 and play with the equalization effect - in 1.3 the eqalization is much improved and you can make it work with sliders as one of the options. You don’t really want to re-record 150 hours of music, I’m sure …

WC