Audacity Forum

I've been ripping some vinyl and have some that need some noise reduction
beyond the regular snap & click removal. When I try to create noise profile
I get an error message saying "Audacity has encountered a problem and must
close."

Sure could use some help on this one.

TIA

Splat!

I'm shuffling back and forth for the best way to deal with this....

Download the Piano Trill from here...

http://www.kozco.com/tech/soundtests.html

...open that by itself in Audacity, select a small piece and see if the noise profile tool works. I bet it does.

If it does, then you may have a damaged sound segment. You're using a USB turntable, right? Many, many people have trouble with those. Chances are good the extra noise you're getting isn't coming from the record, but from the USB sound services crashing. This also explains why Audacity can't handle it. It's not a standard, undamaged sound file.

Let me know.

Koz

Thnx, Koz. I'll give it a try. I think it may be something in my install, tho.

BTW, I'm running v126 on an HP-PC with WinXP-MCE, if that helps any.
And no, I'm not running a USB turntable -- it's a Sony turntable I've had
in storage for a l-o-o-o-ng time, made long before there was any such
thing as USB. It was "state-of-the-art" about the time the Commodore-64
first came out and still works great. I'm not looking forward to the day
the needle needs to be replaced, tho. Hope it lasts thru the rest of my
project.

My turntable only runs 45s & 33s so I got to wondering if Audacity could
"adjust" for 78s ripped @ 45 (it does a pretty good job of it). I'd been using
RipVinyl but it just doesn't have the capabilities of Audacity. Main reason
I was using RV is its ability to separate tracks during rip operations.

Using it to rip something like 700+ 33's and a dozen or so 45s. Most of
them are in pretty good shape and sound pretty good with just click-pop
removal. What's giving me fits is the half-dozen 78s I happened onto at
an estate auction -- they really need a lot of cleaning up. Those discs aren't
in very good condition and are barely audible after ripping -- click-pop
helps a lot but they need much more than that. Guess I'll be finding out
about Audacity's enhancing capabilities pretty quick - anything you
recommend in that department?

Anyway, all my A-V stuff is on another machine so I'll get back to you
with the results.

Again, thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a shot before I start
messing with the software/install.

Splat!

Splat! wrote: My turntable only runs 45s & 33s so I got to wondering if Audacity could
"adjust" for 78s ripped @ 45 (it does a pretty good job of it). I'd been using
RipVinyl but it just doesn't have the capabilities of Audacity. Main reason
I was using RV is its ability to separate tracks during rip operations.
Splat!

Splat!

Some points to watch for with 78s:

1) if you do not have a TT with 78rpm, you can use the Change Speed feature in Audacity to record at 45 or 33 and shift it up to 78 (this is not optimal though)

2) You really need a special stylus designed for 78's - they're bigger and fatter than stereo vinyl styli - a modern stylus designed for LPs will wallow in the bottom of the 78's grooove and give you much more noise.

3) DON'T clean the 78s with any alcohol-based solvent

4) the RIAA equalizaton curves used for 78s are not the same as for 33rpm vinyl - indeed they vary by 78 manufacturer. However to help you here Audacity has several pre-defined RIAA equalization curves to suit different makes of 78.

WC

What he said.

The needle or stylus is intended to be suspended between the two v-shaped walls of the groove. If the needle is too narrow, it falls down to the bottom of the groove and picks up all the dirt and groove noise down there.

Try as I might, I can't find a picture of groove modulation. Oh, well.

http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/ ... 8S_content

See, we're not making this up.

Koz

Ouch! My pacemaker jumped when I saw the price for that
cartridge. I'm not sure 6 discs/12 tunes is worth $90 to me.

As I get deeper into this project I'm realizing how little I know and/or
just never considered.

3) DON'T clean the 78s with any alcohol-based solvent

At least I thought of that before it was too late, waxy. I had the bottle
in hand and decided against it. I don't want to know what 99% iso
alcohol would have done to that old, brittle plastic. I'm trying not to
use it on any discs at all unless nothing else works. Had a couple 33s
it did a good job on but I was desperate and they had the aged
remains of PB&J or something on them. (Ain't kids great?!?!?!)

You folks start talking equalization curves and all that and I'm lost.
Never was that much of an audiophile and these old ears don't
work as good as they used to. (Too much time around jet planes
and out on the rifle and pistol ranges while in service.) What I can
hear, tho, what I've done so far sounds pretty good, near-CD
quality for most. Audacity IS truly audacious.

So onward and upward, folks. I think I'll set the 78s aside for
the moment and get back to them later. By that time I should
have learned lots more and there's plenty of other vinyl for me
to try to get digitized before the Grim Reaper finds me.
I average a 2-4 33s a day when I get serious about it so there's
a couple years worth of work, anyway. Then there's cassettes
and photos to play with if I last that long.

Thanks for the info.

Splat!

<<<Had a couple 33s
it did a good job on but I was desperate and they had the aged
remains of PB&J or something on them. >>>

I don't think anybody said you couldn't wash the disks, you just can't use a harsh solvent on them. Several drops of dish washing detergent in a tub of neutral to the touch (not too hot, not too cold) water should work wonders. If you leave it all wet too long, the label may suffer, but if you go through the effort of a special stylus, you can do good things by taking the PB&J out of the grooves. Swirl gently with cotton wash cloth to break free the more stubborn dirt.

Rinse in clean, also neutral temperature water. The truly compulsive will do a final rinse with distilled water and the clean disks should air or lightly pat dry on a clean towel ready to go. That's an old film trick. Distilled water drys with no crust, haze, or rings.

Never, ever touch the grooves with your fingers. Ever. Skin oils are sticky and slightly acid.

Let's see if anybody writes back horrified at this whole idea.

Koz

Splat! wrote:Ouch! My pacemaker jumped when I saw the price for that
cartridge. I'm not sure 6 discs/12 tunes is worth $90 to me.

Sometimes, depending on your cartridge, you can just buy a 78 stylus that will fit in your existing cartridge.

Splat! wrote: You folks start talking equalization curves and all that and I'm lost.
Never was that much of an audiophile and these old ears don't
work as good as they used to.

All that the RIAA equalization is is a mechanism to deal with loud and bassy sounds on the record. Early on recording engineers discovered that sudden loud sounds and big bass sounds caused far too much travel in the cutter and the playback stylus. So what they do is use electronics to "de-emphasize" those sounds when cutting/pressing the vinyl - and then your preamp/amp via the phono input circuitry will apply the RIAA to re-empashise the relevent parts of the sound spectrum. You can easily hear the difference by pluuging your record deck into an alternative input on your amp (e.g. an AUX or TAPE input) - it will sound noticeably bassless and thin (we get lots of posts about this: "my LP recording sounds thin....").

Splat! wrote: I average a 2-4 33s a day when I get serious about it so there's
a couple years worth of work, anyway. Then there's cassettes
and photos to play with if I last that long.
Splat!

Not a bad rate that Splat! - I'm just about entering my third year on LPs/tapes/minidiscs - with probably another six months on my collection - and then my wife wants me to do hers. Then, like you, I will get back to my photos which I abandoned half-completed when I took up the audio. Good job I'm retired now ....

WC

Groove sound "flat" versus properly RIAA corrected.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/riaa/riaademo.mp3

Oh, and this process has been standardized for thousands of years--for 33-1/3 and 45s, but not for 78s. Back yonder, everybody had their own process for keeping bass notes from waddling outside the groove. Everybody's process, of course, was Much Better than everybody else's.

Koz