Audacity Forum

Just thought I would share how I process my lp's onto cd's, please feel free to offer me any advice, anything I should change to improve things


1. Firstly I open Audacity 1.3 and set its process priority to realtime using taskmanager, ive found that this seems to stop the random glitches through recordings.

2. Depending on condition of lp, I may clean it using iso propyl alcohol from the local record shop, getting rid of any mold spots, dirt, finger residue etc...

3. Record both sides of lp at 88200hz to single project in Audacity. Using hardware supporting true 88200Hz.

4. Export to wav and run through ClickRepair using "Default LP" option for bad lp's with a lot of clicks, reducing DeClick slider down to about 30 for lp's in better condition, less clicks.

5. Open back into Audacity and run Normalize, remove any dc offset and normalize to -0.0dB.

6. If lp is not entirely flat or is slightly warped, run the High Pass Filter with Rolloff 6dB, filter quality 0.7071, and cut off freq 40Hz.

7. Export to wav and run through DeNoiseLF using "DefaultVinylNoise"

8. Load back into Audacity and highlight individual tracks and export to wav's ready for burning using Nero. Nero converts to 44100Hz without interpolating.

Just wanting to know if there's anything I should change, or anything I should do differently.

It's similar to the workflow tutorial I wrote for the 1.3 manual a while back, but the order of processing is slightly different. See: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Samp ... gitization

For a start I would recommend doing the DC offset removal as the first processing step after capture. No amplitude adjustment at this satege - just DC offset removal.

Like you, I much prefer ClickRepair to Audacity's effect for this. My default in CR is set to 30 and with "Reverse Processing" checked (helps in false detections with percussive stuff). See this sticky thread: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1994. I find the results a liitle shy of magical.

I would always do the amplitude adjustment as the last processing step prior to exporting the production files. I never go as high as 0dB as some players do not play nicely at that level - so I max it out at -2dB or -3dB (plenty loud enough). In the past I have always used Amplify rather than Normalize for this as with 1.3.13 (current Beta) and prior, Normalize always worked on each channel as a separate track, useful if you have unbalanced hardware but otherwise can damage your stereo image. In 1.3.14 (currently Alpha) Normalize fa been enhanced so that you can either operate on each channel as a true pair or as separate tracks (there is a chec-box for this).

I work with Audacity set at 44.1kHz 32-bit float and export/re-import 32-bit WAVs to/from ClickRepair. On Export I use Audacity to downsample to 16-bit PCM Stereo WAVs at 44.1kHz, I use triangualr dithereing for the downsampling (you can set this as an option in your preferences). Results are excellent both whan played on high-quality electrostatic loudspeakers and on my studio-quality hradphones.

As well as burning CDs I also make two separate copies of the finished WAV files on two separate external 1TB USB disks. CDs that you make at home are burned in a photochemical processs similar to photographs - and like photos thay can degrade over time (hence the backups).

WC