Thoughts on Vinyl to MP3, etc...

[jahganja7]

greetings idrens!
i-man enjoys the sound of roots chunes comin through on the vinyl, but unfortunately it is much easier for i to get music inna digital file or CD. though i mostly deal with files from the computer to a CD, i try to find sets that someone has recorded from vinyl to a computer, so as to get closer to the "original" sound with hisses pops and a much warmer tone.

upon comparison of two sets, one being off vinyl to MP3 and the other being remastered for CD, the vinyl copy always sounds much rootsier and as i can imagine more authentic.

does anyone here transfer vinyl to computer? if so, how do you rate the copy of the vinyl to the original. i know its not the same, but is it still up to the prestigious Vinyl Standards?

any other digital collectors look for these "vinyl" copies?

[Guest]

bun mp3, i wish it never came.

[kukuman]

I've transferred some vinyl to digital formats. If you use a quality encoder at the right settings (i.e. LAME encoder at V2) the difference is imperceptible. If you really want a true digital copy, though, use FLAC. FLAC is a lossless format, as opposed to MP3 which loses the highest frequencies. The only downside is that FLAC files are about 10x larger than MP3 files.

[stepping razor]

Most of the vinyl put out these days are from mp3s and the like.It seems every thing is digitaly mixed for release on cds, vinyl and represses.
For one thing its ones and zeros which a analogue eq cant pick out nothing.The whole sound is so muffled.
Reggae is about great production and putting dem great productions through some digital era its like whats the point of good productions.
I am quite new to computers and mp3s and i cant be doing with ipoddies.
The old fashion hands on way is far quicker than any bit of bod technology.
Theres real feel in the old equipment (analogue) and suits roots reggae down to the ground.
Also, its how you record as a musician on to what formats thats important cos each time its put onto another digital format the sound gets more and more compressed till it sound like a lot of tunes coming out at the moment.
Compressed sound is a big problem for soundmen and cant be doing with something that you cant fix.
Compressed, compressed, compressed that if your lucky to get it compressed three times when you buy it or down load it.
peace

[BassGroove]

CD is useless for quality playback that's for sure but we all can't afford vinyl and the setup to play it or we like listening to music in the car and vinyl never quite made it there, although I vaguely remember a vinyl 45rpm single player for cars.
There are some quality vinyl to MP3 transfer people the king of the bunch is probably I-Self though others like RasDragon do commendable jobs as well. Here's an extract from an I-Self info file.

==============

Cornell Campbell - The Stalowatt

'Tech stuff:

Being a mono album it was recorded in 24 bit/96 kHz and downsampled
to 44.1 kHz during mp3 encoding. Single channel mp3s at 160 Kb/s means
you get the same resolution as if having (unnecessarily) downloaded
a 320 Kb stereo file (containing identical information in both its
channels).

Not that maximum resolution is a necessity in this case; this LP is
a lousier product than most I've bought. Just check this list of fixes
applied to the original recording:

Tracks 4 & 5 not only lacked any semblance of clarity in the highs
but the volume also was too low. Remedy: +9 dB treble applied to
both and in addition a modest 1 dB level boost.

Tracks 6 & 7 both suddenly lost about 1.5 dB volume after circa 30
seconds. Apparently the engineer decided they were to loud and
swiftly pulled the slider down (why worry - the set was already out
of line...) Further, track 6 runs too fast and Cornell's voice has
a slightly higher pitch than ususal.

I include a speed corrected copy (measured against other records
where this riddim occurs).

Track 7, on the other hand, could not be helped. The tape suddenly
changes speed in the middle of the song. You can hear this also on
Aggrovators Meet Revolutionaries At Channel One from the following
year where the riddim was reused.

And again the two concluding tracks on this side (10 & 11) lost more
than a decibel in volume and sounded much duller than the rest.
Track 10 got +1.6 dB and 11 +1 dB in level boost and both had +6 dB
of treble added to them.

Add to that a vinyl that crackled considerably from the very start.
This was fixed by appliying Sonic Foundry de-clicking with varying
setting for different portions of the record.

The set normalized as one piece and limited by 2 dB.

The rip now plays smoother and better than the original album!


"Audiophile" signal path:

Dynavector Karat 17D2 Mk II moving coil cartridge >
Nottingham Analogue Hyperspace turntable/Space tonearm >
LC Audio Sidewinder Mk II reference preamplifier >
Supra EFF-I interconnects >
RME DIGI96/8 PST soundcard >
Sound Forge 6.0 editor, using plugins from Sonic Foundry & Waves >
LAME 3.93 MP3 encoder with RazorLame interface'

====================

I'll dig out a pretty interesting conversation on one of the BBS's for ya too, when I can find it ;o) It goes into great detail about the ins and outs of vinyl transfer. I much prefer quality vinyl to MP3 than CD, especially the older MONO releases.
I guess the next 'phase' in vinyl ripping will be FLAC encoded files now that bandwidth is no longer that much of a concern.

Dub On!

[kukuman]

Most of the vinyl put out these days are from mp3s and the like.

Whaaat? Do you have a source for this claim? I find this extremely difficult to believe.

[stepping razor]

Bass Groove - It all started going wrong with the first computer editing software Qbase in the early 1990`s.
With all your techno Jahgone perhaps you should learn about analogue before you remix the original to suit your ears.The original was made that way why change it to make it your production bootleggers using the original artist to promote your ipoddies.Rather than go into all that richmans software its better to use the hands on approach its quicker, cheaper and better sound quality.

kukuman - my ears.compressed, compressed.

Its time to ditch the mp3s and ipoddies (boogleggers) and get back to the roots of the roots music. telling a sound engineer his job.

peace

[leggo rocker]

They used to bootleg vinyl too back in the day. Not as easy I guess but they did it.

[stepping razor]

JA runnings serious runnings that one.Forget the lawyers.
peace

[jahadambom]

upon comparison of two sets, one being off vinyl to MP3 and the other being remastered for CD, the vinyl copy always sounds much rootsier and as i can imagine more authentic.

Isn't it true that the advantage of pressing music onto vinyl as opposed to digital format (CD) is because you can reach a wider range of frequencies?...higher highs and lower lows.

That warmer feeling you get from a vinyl recording as opposed to it's digital counterpart, is warmer because it has lower bass frequencies than a CD can achieve. Isn't it also true that the same album is mastered differently for Vinyl than it would be for a CD only release?

Can somebody help me on this as I can't remember where it is I read this.

On another note...
I wouldn't exactly call the crackles and pops from a vinyl, an authentic sound. The artists certainly never intended the music to have this onthe recordings. This is just a result of the record owners' care of the vinyl (or a lack thereof). Don't get me wrong, It doesn't bother me to hear these background noises on a vinyl, but It is definitely more pleasing to listen to a vinyl that is without this noise so that I can hear what the artist/producer/engineer is doing on the song.