Transferring a vinyl on digital - question

[UniSol GR77]

Hello guys,

I got a very rare vinyl transferred on digital. I went to a professional recording studio in order to get that accomplished.

The original analog master source has been lost forever (sadly), so this is an attempt to preserve the album the best way possible.
The result is that frequencies don't go past 16.000 hertz.

http://www83.zippyshare.com/v/uVj4uPT5/file.html



Is this a good/great effort? Or shoud I re-do this?

Thank you so much!!!!!

[singhcr]

From what I can see the capture starts to roll off around 22 KHz. Looking at the information at the bottom of your screen shot this is a CD quality capture (44.1 KHz, 16 bit or 44/16 for shorthand). That means that you get about 22 KHz of frequency information. I very much appreciate your desire to preserve this record, but I think the studio didn't do the best job with the sample rate and bit depth. Vinyl is capable of far higher audio quality than what can be captured with CD standards.

I would aim for 192 KHz, 24 bit PCM or at the least 96/24. DSD is a good format too if you have that capability.

If it is not too much trouble for you, I would politely suggest that you get it captured at a higher quality. I hope this is helpful information for you, my friend. Again, I commend you for your efforts in preserving music for future generations.

[punisher]

transfer it to a cassette or reel to reel...analog to analog

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by punisher

transfer it to a cassette or reel to reel...analog to analog

That's an excellent idea as well. A good metal type IV cassette or quarter track reel to reel at 7.5 IPS would be fantastic for a backup. Just make sure that you keep the peaks at the appropriate levels as to not saturate the tape.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by singhcr

From what I can see the capture starts to roll off around 22 KHz. Looking at the information at the bottom of your screen shot this is a CD quality capture (44.1 KHz, 16 bit or 44/16 for shorthand).

I would aim for 192 KHz, 24 bit PCM or at the least 96/24. DSD is a good format too if you have that capability.

Thank you so much for your brilliant approach and your polite answer. Again, many people who listened this digitally-transferred recording seemed very impressed about its audio quality, but you're right that we can "capture" something more from the vinyl anyway.
I will think about it.

Mind you, nobody ever "realized" that it came from a vinyl... I didn't say. How would you judge a 22.000 hertz range anyway from 1 to 10?

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by UniSol GR77

Thank you so much for your brilliant approach and your polite answer. Again, many people who listened this digitally-transferred recording seemed very impressed about its audio quality, but you're right that we can "capture" something more from the vinyl anyway.
I will think about it.

Mind you, nobody ever "realized" that it came from a vinyl... I didn't say. How would you judge a 22.000 hertz range anyway from 1 to 10?

You are most welcome. I'm not really sure how to answer your question there, but it's not just the frequency range captured but the bit depth as well. I have heard LP rips before and to me there's a big difference between CD quality and 96/24, especially when playing over a good set of speakers.

I have a Korg MR-2000S digital audio recorder that can record up to 192/24 PCM and 5.6 MHz/1-bit DSD that I use for my vinyl rips. If you are interested, I could rip the LP for you. I also have cassette and quarter track reel to reel decks too if you wanted an analog copy. Let me know if you are interested in pursuing this route.

[UniSol GR77]

I have heard LP rips before and to me there's a big difference between CD quality and 96/24, especially when playing over a good set of speakers.

Even if this difference is debatable and many would disagree with you, I know where you're coming from. I must say that they (the studio) did a great job within the range of the "CD quality", so to speak.
But I know where you're coming from, however.

I must add that the human ears "capability" is seemingly 20.000 hertz, not even CD quality.

I have a Korg MR-2000S digital audio recorder that can record up to 192/24 PCM and 5.6 MHz/1-bit DSD that I use for my vinyl rips.

I'm pleased and honoured with your nice proposal, but I'm located in Italy. That would be a blast, once found even better copies of the same album/vinyl. Time will tell.

Thank you so much, you're such a good person!

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by singhcr

From what I can see the capture starts to roll off around 22 KHz. Looking at the information at the bottom of your screen shot this is a CD quality capture (44.1 KHz, 16 bit or 44/16 for shorthand). That means that you get about 22 KHz of frequency information. I very much appreciate your desire to preserve this record, but I think the studio didn't do the best job with the sample rate and bit depth. Vinyl is capable of far higher audio quality than what can be captured with CD standards.

I would aim for 192 KHz, 24 bit PCM or at the least 96/24. DSD is a good format too if you have that capability.

If it is not too much trouble for you, I would politely suggest that you get it captured at a higher quality. I hope this is helpful information for you, my friend. Again, I commend you for your efforts in preserving music for future generations.

I completely disagree. You can't create frequencies out of what's not there. I can almost guarantee you that during the original vinyl mastering, both very low and high frequencies were rolled off. That was common practice, although it's more common to roll off the low end than the high end. On analog tape decks, high end frequency response was calibrated at 10Khz. That doesn't mean that higher frequencies weren't recorded, but they were what they were.

Redbook CD will record up to 22Khz. Few humans of adult age can hear even close to that. And there are negative impacts of pushing frequencies that you can't hear anyway through a sound system because they heat up the drivers and take power away from the frequencies you can hear.

Years ago, I bought the Alessis Masterlink standalone CD-R recorder which is capable of 96/24 for the express purpose of copying LPs at high sampling and bit rates. I very quickly learned that there was no audible difference between doing that and regular Redbook 44.1/16 (although I never tested on a four-year-old whose hearing hadn't yet been damaged). There was a very slight difference when recording live material. There's nothing wrong with oversampling in the studio, but I would say from looking at that graph that that's probably what the original mastering engineer intended.

[UniSol GR77]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I completely disagree. You can't create frequencies out of what's not there. I can almost guarantee you that during the original vinyl mastering, both very low and high frequencies were rolled off. That was common practice, although it's more common to roll off the low end than the high end. On analog tape decks, high end frequency response was calibrated at 10Khz. That doesn't mean that higher frequencies weren't recorded, but they were what they were.

Redbook CD will record up to 22Khz. Few humans of adult age can hear even close to that. And there are negative impacts of pushing frequencies that you can't hear anyway through a sound system because they heat up the drivers and take power away from the frequencies you can hear.

Years ago, I bought the Alessis Masterlink standalone CD-R recorder which is capable of 96/24 for the express purpose of copying LPs at high sampling and bit rates. I very quickly learned that there was no audible difference between doing that and regular Redbook 44.1/16 (although I never tested on a four-year-old whose hearing hadn't yet been damaged). There was a very slight difference when recording live material. There's nothing wrong with oversampling in the studio, but I would say from looking at that graph that that's probably what the original mastering engineer intended.

This is my point too.
Thank you so much for your feedback.
I've read your post very carefully.

[dobyblue]

Mono the low end, then you don't need to roll it off.

http://www.emusician.com/how-to/1334...ng-vinyl/39228

[ghebert]

I would say, if possible, get the studio to transfer it to DSD or 24 bit/192 Khz formats for archival quality and from there they can downsample it to CD quality if you don't want to (or don't have the means to) play the archival file from your PC. Transferring vinyl direct to CD quality as the master copy you're starting out with a lesser quality version as your master and from there any further compression is just going to be even lesser quality. At least with DSD or 24/192 you have all of the analog information from the record that is possible to have.

[dobyblue]

What about records created from 16/44.1 source material?

All the Dave Matthews Band Live Trax vinyl released at various RSD and RSD BF events have been mastered by Scott Hull from the 16/44.1 mix files.

Brothers In Arms, 16/44.1 recording (possibly 16/48).

I would imagine most major label releases today are at the most, 24/96. Heck I downloaded the recent 24-bit remaster of Singles OST from Acoustic Sounds at 24/192, no info over 40kHz hence I wasted $5 buying the 24/192 instead of the 24/96.

[c1nn1c]

Good lord, so much FUD in this thread.

There is nothing wrong with transferring vinyl to 16/44 if done well. CD is capable of much more accuracy and fidelity than older vinyl. Having said that, if they are willing to do 24/48 or 24/96 for you, that is a very good idea. A higher sample and bit rate will preserve more, and since preservation is your goal, better to go for overkill. Its like with film, better to do some ridiculous scan at some obscenely high resolution than risk losing any info.

That EQ curve looks fine. Older vinyl always had the lows and highs rolled off to compensate for the limitations of the day.

And transferring analog to analog? Seriously? Yeah, lets just degrade the source even more. And at 7.5ips? Good lord, do you want it to be a noisy mess? If you want an analog R2R backup, transfer to hi-res digital first to preserve it and then to R2R so there is no further degradation.

Its already ON vinyl, why would you mono the lows? It sounds like an older era recording, any engineer worth his salt back in the day would have phase checked everything already anyway. Modern engineers often don't because mono playback isn't as much of a concern as it used to be.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by c1nn1c

Good lord, so much FUD in this thread.

There is nothing wrong with transferring vinyl to 16/44 if done well. CD is capable of much more accuracy and fidelity than older vinyl. Having said that, if they are willing to do 24/48 or 24/96 for you, that is a very good idea. A higher sample and bit rate will preserve more, and since preservation is your goal, better to go for overkill. Its like with film, better to do some ridiculous scan at some obscenely high resolution than risk losing any info.

But DVD is not capable of much more accuracy and fidelity than older film, so the analogy makes no sense. If CD is capable of "much more accuracy and fidelity than vinyl" then doing 24/48 or 24/96 is illogical.

And transferring analog to analog? Seriously? Yeah, lets just degrade the source even more. And at 7.5ips? Good lord, do you want it to be a noisy mess? If you want an analog R2R backup, transfer to hi-res digital first to preserve it and then to R2R so there is no further degradation.

Studios have been doing it wrong for years then, why did they ever make a safety copy instead of just transferring to HR digital? Oh that's right, it's so that the analogue chain is kept intact. Several of the MFSL Silver Series releases use analogue copies of the original analogue master, particularly when the original master is in another country like the Men At Work releases (Sony Australia made a direct copy for Sony Music to send to MFSL).

Its already ON vinyl, why would you mono the lows? It sounds like an older era recording, any engineer worth his salt back in the day would have phase checked everything already anyway. Modern engineers often don't because mono playback isn't as much of a concern as it used to be.

That comment was referring to current vinyl mastering and you don't have mono playback in mind when you mono the lows so I'm not sure why you mention mono playback at all. The reason why modern vinyl mastering engineers may mono the lows:

At the other end of the spectrum, there are things to consider when working with bass and low-midrange content destined for vinyl. “Low frequencies use up the most space, especially if they're heavy and constant,” (John) Golden remarks. “Care must be taken to control excessive low end. The lathe can cut it just fine, but if the volume exceeds a certain level, the record could skip when played back.”

Two things that can cause problems are bass instruments that are hard-panned, and phase issues in the low end. To compensate, the lowest frequencies going to vinyl are often moved to the center of the stereo field during the mastering stage. The engineer chooses a crossover frequency at which the centering begins based on orchestration, volume, program length, and other variables in the music. Because every project is different, there are no hard-and-fast rules, so if you are concerned about this happening to your master, consult with the engineer who will cut your lacquer.

“I always tell clients, especially dance artists, ‘Mono your bass,’” (Pete) Lyman says. “Staging is a big problem for vinyl cutting. I've run into situations where producers try to do stereo kick drums, and they think they're fattening them up by moving one a couple of milliseconds, which only knocks it out of phase and results in less bass. And it's almost impossible to cut. We can do things to try to mono the low end, but usually it requires a remix.

[78deluxe]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I completely disagree. You can't create frequencies out of what's not there. I can almost guarantee you that during the original vinyl mastering, both very low and high frequencies were rolled off. That was common practice, although it's more common to roll off the low end than the high end. On analog tape decks, high end frequency response was calibrated at 10Khz. That doesn't mean that higher frequencies weren't recorded, but they were what they were.

Redbook CD will record up to 22Khz. Few humans of adult age can hear even close to that. And there are negative impacts of pushing frequencies that you can't hear anyway through a sound system because they heat up the drivers and take power away from the frequencies you can hear.

Years ago, I bought the Alessis Masterlink standalone CD-R recorder which is capable of 96/24 for the express purpose of copying LPs at high sampling and bit rates. I very quickly learned that there was no audible difference between doing that and regular Redbook 44.1/16 (although I never tested on a four-year-old whose hearing hadn't yet been damaged). There was a very slight difference when recording live material. There's nothing wrong with oversampling in the studio, but I would say from looking at that graph that that's probably what the original mastering engineer intended.

First of all, I'm a professional recording engineer.

This is the best and most accurate thing I read in the thread.

If you have a source that is better than than vinyl (i.e master tapes), you can get a slight difference doing 96/24 assuming you have great pre-amps, etc. but realistically most people do not have playback equipment to hear the difference. Vinyl already has a lower dynamic range than CD 44.1K 16bit does so you are not losing dynamic range.

Most people that are old enough to know what vinyl is already have hearing loss that can't hear 1700K anyway.

[c1nn1c]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

But DVD is not capable of much more accuracy and fidelity than older film, so the analogy makes no sense. If CD is capable of "much more accuracy and fidelity than vinyl" then doing 24/48 or 24/96 is illogical.



Studios have been doing it wrong for years then, why did they ever make a safety copy instead of just transferring to HR digital? Oh that's right, it's so that the analogue chain is kept intact. Several of the MFSL Silver Series releases use analogue copies of the original analogue master, particularly when the original master is in another country like the Men At Work releases (Sony Australia made a direct copy for Sony Music to send to MFSL).



That comment was referring to current vinyl mastering and you don't have mono playback in mind when you mono the lows so I'm not sure why you mention mono playback at all. The reason why modern vinyl mastering engineers may mono the lows:

Holy crapballs did you just misinterpret everything I typed on purpose? Would you like to throw in some "alternative facts" while you are at it?

Nowhere did I even mention DVD playback. I'm talking about scanning film elements. Wow, DVD has lower fidelity than film? You don't say? Mind = blown! I'm talking about a safety margin. He's worried about losing content, I said go for overkill so you don't worry. Pretty simple point.

What does keeping the analog chain intact have to do with anything? Any time a copy is made from an analog source, the signal and source degrade. Every. Time. With current technology, we don't need to worry about that anymore. How is that not a good thing? A single, high resolution, non-analog step is going to mess up that lovely even harmonic distortion and wonderful analog noise floor that is already present? Sure thing. An accurate digital copy is just that, a copy, with no changes. Also, way to dodge the point that 7.5 ips sounds like crap.

So wait, studios have been doing it wrong for years? OK, new tech comes along, but because "that's not the way it was done in my day" its bad? Hold on, I need to ride my horse to work because cars are untrustworthy and don't have the same warmth and smell as a good horse.

And those MFSL series you are talking about, do you not think the sound was degraded by transferring from master to a copy to another copy? Because it was and you are deluding yourself if you think they sound as good as the originals.

I mention mono playback because of the era and exactly because of the point you make. If it was already checked for phase coherence in mono playback, you wouldn't need to worry about making the lows mono. Plus, as I said, its already on vinyl so your point is totally moot anyway as you are referencing recordings are are going to be cut to vinyl. Its not going to matter if its already there. Again, pretty straightforward point.

[dobyblue]

It seems as though this thread has run its course. Best of luck OP.