Making torrents from Boot LP's

[Homebrew101]

Well, I'm finally getting around to connecting my stereo to my pc and I have a few questions.

One of the things that will be possible is copying albums(you older folks will remember vinyl came before cd's) to my pc thence to cd etc.

I have some bootlegs on vinyl, is this what I have seen referred to as "liberating bootlegs"? Are torrents sourced from vinyl this way allowed on Traders Den? If so, how do I show the lineage?

Any of you that do this, any recommendations on free software and methods?
I am assuming that I save as wav files (sampling at 44.1K and 16 bit) and convert wav to flac. Oh, and use CD-Wave to split the tracks first.

Does this sound right?
Again, any software recommendations are helpful.

[U2Lynne]

(love the avatar!)

Yes, we do allow shows sourced from vinyl here and yes, that would be liberating a bootleg. Basically for lineage, you would start with vinyl and then list what you use to end up with the flac files. So, you would list the software you use to capture the sound onto your computer, the software then used to break it into tracks and convert to flac. Some people like to also list the equipment - the turntable, the needle, the soundcard, etc. I've never done something like what you are doing, so I can't tell you how or what to use. But, when you are ready to make a torrent, I can help you with that.

Here is how I make my Vinyl rips. You can use your line-in to your computer but I have just an average soundcard (Realtek) and I can never get the leveling just right and it sounds like garbage. But I found a slick way to get high quality recordings using my DVD recorder.

My process sounds like a lot of work, but in the end it's beautiful quality. My goal is to minimize any loss during process before the final conversion (burn to CD, etc). I plug the preamp-out into a line in of my DVD recorder (happens to be the front, or secondary but works just the same). I can burn up to 7 or 8 albums using the SLP recording speed on a single DVD-RW disc. You don't lose any quality since it always records to AC3 format anyway. I can just fit more albums on a single DVD disc.

If you don't have a DVD recorder,your line-in should work just fine. I use MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab 2005 Deluxe and it has an option to record the audio into wav format, then split the track into separate files (I'll get to that later) I then take the audio using DVD Audio Extractor and dump it into an uncompressed WAV, keeping the original 48K sample rate and 16-bit format. This again keeps the original quality intact.

Equipment Used:
Gemini II Turntable with Stanton 520 SK Stylus
DJPRE-II Preamp - leveling set to -2
Sansui DVD Recorder

Software used
DVD Audio Extractor
MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab 2005 Deluxe
Acoustica MP3 CD Burner (can burn any file format to CD) plus automatically removes the pesky 2-second pause between songs most MP3 burners create

I load the master wav into the Audio Cleaning Lab then there is an option to automatically split up the file. You can then name the songs (see the software for details - this wasn't meant as a software tutorial), but then you export the songs into uncompressed WAV at 48K and 16-bit as mentioned before. Don't worry about the necessity to convert it to 44.1 in fact I've gotten some strange results by doing it. You can export the recording to OGG (a nice semi-lossless compressed format) also. If you're worried about disc space I'd use this. But I try to minimize any loss of quality before finally burning it on to CD so I go with the WAV.

You can clean up the record if necessary using the Cleaning Lab also - clicks, rumbling. It has a slick noise reduction and mastering function and I've made some old records sound even better than the original.

As far as FLAC, there are a number of software packages that will convert WAV to FLAC if that't what you want to use. I load the uncompressed wav through Acoustica and burn my CDs for listening and enjoying!

Hope that helps.

[diggrd]

I must say that is a novel work around for having a crappy sound card but I suggest you look into exactly how AC3 works because it is certainly not lossless.

AC-3 perceptual coding is a data-compression scheme that seeks to eliminate the data we cannot hear while maintaining all the information that we can. AC-3 divides the audio spectrum of each channel into narrow frequency bands that correlate closely to the frequency selectivity of human hearing. That allows coding noise to be very sharply filtered by taking advantage of the psychoacoustic phenomenon known as auditory masking. Coding noise stays close in frequency to the audio signal being coded, so it is effectively masked. AC-3 uses a "shared bit-pool" arrangement to use data as efficiently as possible. Bits are distributed among the various channels according to need. AC-3 allows multichannel surround sound to be encoded at a lower bit rate than required by just one channel on a CD.

[Five]

also I would avoid using de-noising software], also avoid automatic de-clickers because they won't even get all the clicks and will take away a lot of the transients in the music.

just go phono>amp>lineout>soundcard>recording software (audacity or even cdwave can do it too)>cutting (cdwave again)>FLAC

get healthy levels balanced on both sides without any clipping... once or twice is not bad but 10, 20 etc is dodgy. if you want to make a processed version, probably best to do it for "personal use" imo.

[showtaper]

Originally Posted by Five

also I would avoid using de-noising software], also avoid automatic de-clickers because they won't even get all the clicks and will take away a lot of the transients in the music.

just go phono>amp>lineout>soundcard>recording software (audacity or even cdwave can do it too)>cutting (cdwave again)>FLAC

get healthy levels balanced on both sides without any clipping... once or twice is not bad but 10, 20 etc is dodgy. if you want to make a processed version, probably best to do it for "personal use" imo.

Have to disagree a little here. I have several de-noising and de-clicking
plug-ins that allow you to "invert" the signal when you test to make sure
you are only removing the desired noise or transients.

I do agree that without a significant amount of practice, most users tend
to set the plug-ins on "stun" and do more harm than good.

Probably the best rule of thumb for seeding here is to do as little as possible
to the sound and let each downloader decide if they want to "tinker".

BTW - in the digital world, NO amount of clipping is acceptable. I would
consider this as damaging as any lossy codec...........

Thanks for the input guys, and the info on AC3. I knew that AC3 wasn't exactly lossless but by recording the vinyl this way I still maintain the rich sound and don't lose any intricacies of the music itself. I know what you mean about the clicks. I have to use that function sparingly on some albums because even if the album has some clicks, if you begin to filter the clicks out you also begin to lose some of the little sounds you get from the drums, cymbals, or high pitches on acoustic guitars. It's almost like the sounds get muffled and you lose the feel of the song. I only use it on older albums that are not in great shape. I occasionally just have to tweak the EQ if I want to lose the clicks and maintain the sound. If I can't lose the clicks and maintain the sound I want then I just scrap it altogether.

[cleantone]

Have to disagree a little here. I have several de-noising and de-clicking
plug-ins that allow you to "invert" the signal when you test to make sure
you are only removing the desired noise or transients.

I do agree that without a significant amount of practice, most users tend
to set the plug-ins on "stun" and do more harm than good.

I agree with this too but if the guy doesn't even know what kind of software to use to record he should probably not try to delve into remastering the recordings. As other have stated, for yourself but no the torrent. I'd rather here clicks and hiss that nasty artifacts of bad mastering.

I'll also add that you may want to poke around to see if the records have already been converted properly and are possibly availible already.

[Five]

Originally Posted by showtaper

Have to disagree a little here. I have several de-noising and de-clicking
plug-ins that allow you to "invert" the signal when you test to make sure
you are only removing the desired noise or transients.

I do agree that without a significant amount of practice, most users tend
to set the plug-ins on "stun" and do more harm than good.

pretty much any wav editor can do the inversion test. I've spent quite a bit of time trying to get something useable out of an auto declicker and always failed. perhaps you could show me the before/after of what's possible, I could really use something like this at work. In fact, you're the first person I've ever seen post that it is possible to use a declicker without removing important transients in the music. I'm not wanting to start a fight, just shocked by what you posted and would find it very useful to learn how to do this if it is possible.

Originally Posted by showtaper

BTW - in the digital world, NO amount of clipping is acceptable. I would
consider this as damaging as any lossy codec...........

Freezer's shows are done on a standalone and clip lightly & constantly thousands upon thousands of times each show and still sound better than 9/10 aud shows you'll ever get. so I agree and disagree, in a way.

Originally Posted by showtaper

Probably the best rule of thumb for seeding here is to do as little as possible
to the sound and let each downloader decide if they want to "tinker".

totally agreed.

[tacoburrito]

I used to transfer vinyl. I used to go turntable>preamp>sony pro DAT>zefiro ZA2>wav. I would use the DAT as either a passthru or sometimes recording the vinyl onto DAT then playback to the PC. Why use the DAT? Well the one I used to use has Super Bit Mapping. So I would run my audio thru it. I haven't done any audio lately since I don't have a PC handy with an ISA slot which my old ZA2 requires. For any new projects I would probably just go to my friends house since he has a stand alone HHB cd recorder. Then I can go direct to his burner and rip the CD to the PC later for processing.

[Homebrew101]

Well I never dreamt of doing any corrections, processing etc. I'm an old school audiophile, and all of my vinyl is mint. I have maintained everything A1 since the day I bought it whether 10, 20 or 30 years ago. The only faults would have been present the day I bought it.

I also have a professional record cleaning machine to clean anything before I would do a conversion. I have invested thousands in vinyl over the years(like many of you I'm sure) and have always treated it like an investment, although in reality as far as investments go this one has virtually no resale value these days!
Much of the material I have on vinyl is irreplaceable and may never see release on cd etc. but of course for our purposes, only the boots are relevant and I only have a few of those because I was always picky about the sound quality and face it, boots were not always cheap (never on sale!) and you didn't know what you were getting soundwise 30 years ago.

Any ticks, pops etc. would remain untouched but they would be minimal. Transfers would be more have likely to have tape hiss or crappy bootleg sound than vinyl or conversion artifacts.

Thanks for the tips and help.

[Homebrew101]

Well I never dreamt of doing any corrections, processing etc. I'm an old school audiophile, and all of my vinyl is mint. I have maintained everything A1 since the day I bought it whether 10, 20 or 30 years ago. The only faults would have been present the day I bought it.

I also have a professional record cleaning machine to clean anything before I would do a conversion. I have invested thousands in vinyl over the years(like many of you I'm sure) and have always treated it like an investment, although in reality as far as investments go this one has virtually no resale value these days!
Much of the material I have on vinyl is irreplaceable and may never see release on cd etc. but of course for our purposes, only the boots are relevant and I only have a few of those because I was always picky about the sound quality and face it, boots were not always cheap (never on sale!) and you didn't know what you were getting soundwise 30 years ago.

Any ticks, pops etc. would remain untouched but they would be minimal. Transfers would be more have likely to have tape hiss or crappy bootleg sound than vinyl or conversion artifacts.

Thanks for the tips and help.