1 year, 10 months ago
What vinyl-to-digital program does the best job of perfecting sound quality?
I've transferred several vinyl records to digital files using GoldWave, and I've never been very satisfied with the sound quality. Even if the record is in mint condition, the result sounds distorted and echo-y.
So, what program does the best job of perfecting the sound quality (i. e. eliminating white noise, eliminating distortion when the sound level goes up, etc.)?
So, what program does the best job of perfecting the sound quality (i. e. eliminating white noise, eliminating distortion when the sound level goes up, etc.)?
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M$2 Answers
The best way to get rid of all these nasty little side effects is not with a better program but with better equipment. So how are you transferring right now? This would help the answer along. In any case Garageband and Protools have the best features for an average Joe to clean up an audio track.
The best way I have found is recording through an audio Interface. I'll keep the description short because you might not wanna shell out the money, however it might be a better value that purchasing software.
1. take an Instrument cable and hook in into the interface, then hook the other end into the output jacks on your receiver
2. The output jacks on your receiver are most likely 1/8th inch, so get a converter piece. You can find one at radio shack or other places like this.
3. Then using Garageband you can record whatever is playing on your record player (cassettes and radio as well)
4. If you don't have Garageband or don't want to get it, other recording programs will work just as good. Audacity is a free basic program that will allow you to do this. However it has terrible tools for cleaning up noise. In a lot of cases i don't even clean up the tracks because they are fine the way they are. Interfaces rule.
Here is a link to some nicer interfaces by M-audio. This is more to get the idea of an interface, so keep in mind the prices here are a bit much, a guitar shop or even pawn shop might have one for much cheaper.
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=USBinterfaces
This is one that might be good for you,
It has 1/8th inch jacks and is also by M-Audio. This would eliminate the whole converter process and is also one of the cheapest one for M-audio, I'm sure other companies make similar models for an even more reasonable price.
The cons of this one: sound snobs might say a 1/4 inch instrument cable would have better quality, and I have never seen this particular model personally.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html
Second suggestion:
ION makes a cheap durable USB record player that comes with free software that I find is pretty easy and really great sounding. The kit is about 60- 90 bucks depending on where you find it and a monkey could use it. The software it comes with is E-Z audio converter, I don't personally know if it works on anything besides a mac, but I would assume it does.
Here is a link for the ion, another great thing outside of converting is it is battery powered so you can listen to records outside! the speakers on it are weak but any small computer speakers will be loud enough for a small group of people.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=Ion+portable+record+player&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=13708658749298903074&ei=R7Q4TLzhCtSlnQfcurzfAw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ8wIwAg#
The best way I have found is recording through an audio Interface. I'll keep the description short because you might not wanna shell out the money, however it might be a better value that purchasing software.
1. take an Instrument cable and hook in into the interface, then hook the other end into the output jacks on your receiver
2. The output jacks on your receiver are most likely 1/8th inch, so get a converter piece. You can find one at radio shack or other places like this.
3. Then using Garageband you can record whatever is playing on your record player (cassettes and radio as well)
4. If you don't have Garageband or don't want to get it, other recording programs will work just as good. Audacity is a free basic program that will allow you to do this. However it has terrible tools for cleaning up noise. In a lot of cases i don't even clean up the tracks because they are fine the way they are. Interfaces rule.
Here is a link to some nicer interfaces by M-audio. This is more to get the idea of an interface, so keep in mind the prices here are a bit much, a guitar shop or even pawn shop might have one for much cheaper.
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=USBinterfaces
This is one that might be good for you,
It has 1/8th inch jacks and is also by M-Audio. This would eliminate the whole converter process and is also one of the cheapest one for M-audio, I'm sure other companies make similar models for an even more reasonable price.
The cons of this one: sound snobs might say a 1/4 inch instrument cable would have better quality, and I have never seen this particular model personally.
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html
Second suggestion:
ION makes a cheap durable USB record player that comes with free software that I find is pretty easy and really great sounding. The kit is about 60- 90 bucks depending on where you find it and a monkey could use it. The software it comes with is E-Z audio converter, I don't personally know if it works on anything besides a mac, but I would assume it does.
Here is a link for the ion, another great thing outside of converting is it is battery powered so you can listen to records outside! the speakers on it are weak but any small computer speakers will be loud enough for a small group of people.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=Ion+portable+record+player&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=13708658749298903074&ei=R7Q4TLzhCtSlnQfcurzfAw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ8wIwAg#
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M$Report Abuse
I use SoundForge Audio Studio which lets you take out the scratches and other annoying backdrop sounds and more or less acts like a soundboard. This lets you control individual tracks and has good results. It is a small learning curve but gives you the results you want.
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M$
