Work Flow for reel-to-reel recordings of LPs Please comment.

[rorser]

Below is a work flow suggested by my son for converting my reel-to-reel tapes of LP records to digital using Audacity 1.3. I would be most grateful for your comments and suggestions and improvements. I am not sure I am doing things in the best order and that I am using the correct Effects or the correct settings for the Effects that I am using.

WORK FLOW FOR REEL-TO-REEL CONVERSION TO DIGITAL USING AUDACITY 1.3 (BETA)
Device setting: MME: Line In (VIA High Definition Au
1. File; New (Project)
2. Start tape playing
3. Click on Audacity’s Input Level Meter; Start Monitoring; if no sound then:
4. In Windows 7’s Control Panel; Sound; Recording tab; Line In; Properties; Levels set to “5” Don’t close the Sound Window or sound goes off. If no sound, you can Disable the device under Device Usage and then re-Enable it; this usually restores the sound. I do not understand what’s going on.
5. Using Audacity’s Input Volume Control set Input Level, to avoid clipping,. Best setting seems to be 0.1 (which sets Windows-7 line-in level set to “5”). Audacity notes say to record at higher input, but I cannot find a way to lower the input volume from the tape deck. Changing Audacity’s Input Volume slider changes Windows-7’s Control Panel; Sound; Line In Properties; Levels simultaneously, and vice versa. So, there is no way to adjust them independently.
6. Set Project Rate Hz to 44,100
7. Start recording and complete the recording
8. Remove dead space at start and end of recording
9. Save file as .aup file
10. Remove Noise using Edit; Select All & Effect; Noise Removal, but first select a “silent portion of recording to use as a noise reference. Use the following settings: Noise Reduction 10dB; Frequency Smoothing 500 Hz; Attach/decay Time 0.5 sec. Remember to Select All before executing.
11. Normalize using Edit; Select All & Effect; Normalize This is better than Effect; Amplify since this does not correct for unbalanced Left & Right channels on the original tape, but Normalize does. Setting: 0.5 dB
12. Truncate Silence if there are dead spaces within the recording that you want to eliminate. Use -40dB as the setting.
13. Add tags: File; Metadata Editor & input Artist, Album, etc.
14. Export: File; Export; Save as type FLAC Options Level 5, Depth 16

Thank you, Richard

[ignatz]

Richard:

I noticed your response to my post in your other thread.

I had originally made a long reply in this thread before I made that post, but I deleted it without ever posting it.

Why delete it? Because some of Audacity is personal preference and what a person is accustomed to. There is more than one way to skin a cat, etc.

I'll try to abridge what my post would have been.

The consensus among "experts" seems to be that processing should be done in this order:

Derumble, declick, decrackle, debuzz, and then dehiss. Then tidy up intros, tails, adjust volume, and export.

Given, that, here is what I do.

1: Start and finish the recording in Audacity. Some people would immediately do a save of the raw file at this point, but I do not. All I save is the finished product.

2: Decide which of those "D-word" processing types is needed and do them in that order. Depending on the source material in the recording, you may not need to do some or all of them. I'm not an expert, but in Audacity i think you would derumble with high pass filter and declick with the repair effect manually (works well, but time-consuming). Decrackle would be difficult but might be helped with the noise removal filter. Debuzz likewise difficult, but a hum can be treated to some degree with a notch filter. Dehiss is easily done with the noise removal filter if you have a noise sample to grab.

On a worn 78 rpm disc, you'd obviously want to do most of the D things. On a transfer from a modern era CD or pristine LP, you might want to do only dehiss. Etc.

I have spent as much as 3 hours declicking a 3 minute song in Audacity, so you can see it is a problem. I declick ONLY with the "repair" effect. I have no experience with the "click removal" tool.

I typically play the song through, listening for annoying ticks. When I hear a loud one I make a note of about where it is and then zoom into it, looking for the tell-tale vertical spike. Then you highlight just that click, and poke "repair". You typically have to zoom in so that the seconds display is shown to 4 decimal points (for instance, a click might be centered at 45.5483 into the song. "Repair" will not work if you select too long of a segment--you will get an error message and that will force you to select a smaller portion.

Deleting very small (under 1/100 of a second) segments may be preferable (less time-consuming and inaudible) to click repair. You just need to experiment with a variety of songs.

To dehiss, you need to use the mouse to grab a portion of the file that does NOT have any musical content. This is typically the near silence between songs or from the lead-in or lead-out grooves at the beginning and end of an LP side. Zoom in to magnify the wave form so the prospective sample is an inch or so wide, so you can highlight it easily with the mouse. After highlighting, go to effect/noise removal and poke "get noise profile". Then highlight the ENTIRE song (edit menu, then select all).

You can use a very short bit of noise as a sample. I very rarely use more than 1 second and often use as little as 1/4 second--just make sure it has no music in it.

After I'm satisfied with the D stuff, all that is left is tidying up, possibly adjusting volume, and export.

My stuff is all single songs (not entire LPs). I chop off the intro to within 1/4 second or so of the music beginning. I fade out any noisy tail if it has any clicks in it. I add 2 seconds of dead silence to all songs through the generate menu.

If I were saving an entire LP or side of an LP as a single file (I don't do that; apparently you will do that), I might fade out the end of each song and possibly generate silence between the individual songs. It would depend on how much groove noise I hear and whether I wanted to take the time.

I usually do NOT normalize or amplify in Audacity. My exports are all in mp3 format and I use a separate program called MP3 Gain for that purpose. My mp3s are exported at Quality 2, Joint Stereo, Variable Bit Rate.

I don't use "projects".

I don't use "AUP" files.

Most would advise you to export as WAV or FLAC and then later convert to mp3 if you need mp3 versions. I don't do that. I'm willing to live with high quality mp3s.

It is good policy to do AVOID editing an mp3 file whenever possible. Do your editing on the original raw recording as it sits in the Audacity window immediately after you stop recording. Or do an immediate save of that raw recording as a WAV or FLAC file and then edit that. As I said, I usually don't do interim saves and prefer to operate on the fly on the raw recording as soon as I push the stop button.

I don't use Metatags in Audacity. I just give the file a name, export as MP3, and later use a separate application (MP3 Tag) to control all my tags. All I need to know is the artist and song title---I don't care about LP titles, graphics, genre, or any of that other stuff.

That's all I can think of offhand.

[waxcylinder]

As Ignatz says - and see this set of tutorials from the Audacityt manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... iscs_to_CD

Particularly this one: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... gitization

WC

[rorser]

Ignatz & Wax, Thank you. I read the tutorial and hope that the advice for recording LPs applies to my digitization of reel-to-reel tape recording of LPs. I have a few questions still if you have the time to respond:
The high pass filter to remove rumble has three parameters to set. The tutorial only suggests setting for two of them. The Filter Quality (q) for 12 dB roll-off sounds like it is an important setting that can create clipping if not set correctly. If I use the LP recommended roll-off at 24 dB and the cutoff at 25Hz, what do I set the q for?
Should I be able to click anywhere in the wave form and start my selection from there? I find that when zoomed in I am not able to click just anywhere. I have to try several different points before it will "take". Is this normal?
Do I leave the gray controls directly to the left of the wave form alone? The ones labeled Mute and Solo, L & R.

Much thanks, Richard

[ignatz]

If I use the LP recommended roll-off at 24 dB and the cutoff at 25Hz, what do I set the q for?

Should I be able to click anywhere in the wave form and start my selection from there?

I find that when zoomed in I am not able to click just anywhere. I have to try several different points before it will "take". Is this normal?

Do I leave the gray controls directly to the left of the wave form alone? The ones labeled Mute and Solo, L & R.

I haven't used it a lot. My general advice would be to leave the q at the default .7 until your own ears say otherwise, which may never happen.

I'd go with rolloff default also (24 for LP if that is what the manual says).

The cutoff frequency is the important one. I doubt if 25 would do you any good. I'd try 50, but I would experiment on some random test files with various settings until you discover a setting at which the effect is obvious--just so you can later recognize it. Try 100 or 200, you will probably notice something. You can get much the same effect by playing with the equalizer.

If you can't hear any difference in the "before" and "after", then the filter is pointless. You may not have rumble, but even if you don't, if you set the cutoff frequency high enough, you will hear an effect.

Why would you need to zoom in to use the high pass filter?? When you choose high pass filter from the menu, the entire file is automatically selected and when you poke OK in the high pass filter window, the effect takes place. Why zoom in?

Maybe I am unclear on your meaning?

You don't have to use the controls to the immediate left of the wave forms very often. I have never used mute or solo. You might use the little black triangle to expose another menu if you ever need to split a stereo track.

The project rate in the lower left should likely be at 44100---I think that is the default?

[rorser]

>>I find that when zoomed in I am not able to click just anywhere. I have to try several different points before it will "take". Is this normal?<<
This has nothing to do with the high pass filter, just my general use of Audacity.

[ignatz]

I can't duplicate what you are talking about.

At any zoom level, I always get the thin vertical cursor in the waveform wherever I poke with the mouse.

[rorser]

I fooled around with it a bit, and it seems that I can only successfully click 1 sec. or more away from the last long thin vertical cursor line. I cannot make another vertical cursor line in the wave form within + or - 1 sec. of the existing cursor line. Can you?
Richard

[ignatz]

I fooled around with it a bit, and it seems that I can only successfully click 1 sec. or more away from the last long thin vertical cursor line. I cannot make another vertical cursor line in the wave form within + or - 1 sec. of the existing cursor line. Can you?
Richard

Yes.

Each mouse click in a new spot moves the cursor to that new spot, regardless of zoom level and regardless of proximity to the current cursor location. The old cursor location disappears and the new one appears, whenever I left click.

If i zoom way way in and the cursor happens to be centered on 58.10020 seconds into the file, I can immediately click maybe a 1/4 inch to the left, which centers the cursor at about 58.10019 on my screen--one one hundred thousandth of a second earlier in the file.

[waxcylinder]

rorser,

it sounds like you may have got "Snap To" turned on - look at the bottom left of the Audacity window next the the Project Rate. If it's on then click it off. You should then be able to click anywhere.

WC