To reverb or not?
 

"Keith G" wrote

I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In Arms and I defy you
to tell them apart!


I reckon I could :-)

In my experience LPs tend to be larger, black rather than silver, and to be
double-sided.

Oh, and I've yet to hear a totally silent lead-in or run out on any LP.

David.

To reverb or not?
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In Arms and I defy you
to tell them apart!

Only time I've not been able to tell a CD and LP of the same material
apart is when the CD is a dub of the LP.



No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an essentially identical
*convenience* version of an LP.

To reverb or not?
 

"Rob" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 03/12/2010 09:50, Keith G wrote:

"Rob" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 02/12/2010 15:56, Jim Lesurf wrote:
In , Iain Churches
wrote:

"Jim wrote in message
...

Ahem:-) It's a long cone actually, Jim,

Well, to a physicst, a 'cone' is just a tune whose cross-section
varies along the length. :-)

It seems that, to a musical instrument designer. the difference
between a cone and a tube is of great importance. As the design is
based on physics, one would have thought that the difference would
be
important to a physicist too:-)

That may show that you're not a physicist. :-)

Indeed. Something for which I give thanks daily:-))

So, are you saying, Jim, that the bore (conical or tubular) is of no
consequence in this instance of musical instrument design?

Nope. I'm just saying what I actually said. :-) ie. that in terms of
the
physics, a cone and tube are just examples of the same general
behaviour.
And that in practice people choose the details to suit what they wish
to
achieve.


And for good reason I steer clear of the world of stethoscopes and
slide rules.

Different physical things behave the same?! At this rate vinyl and CD
will sound the same :-)


I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In Arms and I defy you
to tell them apart!


Indeedee - I've got a couple of records like that - Flaming Lips Yoshimi
Battles springs to mind.



Had the vinyl of that myself (red, IIRC) until I passed it on to my son.

To reverb or not?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In Arms and I defy
you
to tell them apart!

Only time I've not been able to tell a CD and LP of the same material
apart is when the CD is a dub of the LP.

No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an essentially
identical *convenience* version of an LP.

How do you guys do this?

I have a PC with a sound card and my amplifier has a ADC inside giving
spdif 16bit 44.1K out. Should I get a sound card with spdif in?

I've tried connecting left/right analogue into the PC and recording using
(would it be Audacity?) and to me it was complicated to get it to work at
all and distorted when played back.

Any advice?



TBH, for what they cost, if you have a number of albums to do I would
suggest grabbing a USB record deck to record the albums to PC via USB for
fuss and complication-free and then use a burning programme like Nero to
create the CDR.

To reverb or not?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message

In article ,
Keith G wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message ...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In
Arms and I defy you to tell them apart!

Only time I've not been able to tell a CD and LP of the
same material apart is when the CD is a dub of the LP.

No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an
essentially identical *convenience* version of an LP.

How do you guys do this?

Record with a professional grade 24/192 PCI audio interface hooked to the
main output of a good legacy preamp that has a phono input.

I have a PC with a sound card and my amplifier has a ADC
inside giving spdif 16bit 44.1K out. Should I get a sound
card with spdif in?

Or just get a USB audio interface with a SPDIF in.

Google is your friend!


I've tried connecting left/right analogue into the PC and
recording using (would it be Audacity?) and to me it was
complicated to get it to work at all and distorted when
played back.

Any advice?

The distoriton is probably because the analog signal you were connecting to
the computer was too high. Figure out some way to turn it down.

To reverb or not?
 

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Keith G
wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...

No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an essentially
identical *convenience* version of an LP.

How do you guys do this?

I use a dedicated audio recorder. Either a Pioneer PDR509 CD recorder, or
the Tascam HDP2. So my personal advice is to get a recorder that does *not*
record using 'a computer/soundcard'. This means you get a recording system
where the entire hardware is dedicated to, and designed for, the task.
Should also give you good real-time peak level monitoring so you can see
what you are doing in terms of level.

Then load the results from CDRW or memory card/stick into your computer for
editing.

I have a PC with a sound card and my amplifier has a ADC inside giving
spdif 16bit 44.1K out. Should I get a sound card with spdif in?

The first thing to check is if your existing computer soundcard is
recording OK and at the correct level, Get a test CD[1] and play it using a
CD player. Record that with your PC soundcard and see if it is clipped or
distorted. If so, experiment with reducing the input level. Then check the
level is uniform across the audio range for different frequencies.

If the soundcard works OK and there is no sign of distortion or noise when
you have the level right, it should let you record LPs as well.

Buying another ADC or card may help. But as with your existing soundcard
you will need to ensure you get the signal level correct to avoid either
clipping distortion (input too big) or noise (input too small). For safety,
aim at not peaking above about -4dB, and not having the signal well below
-20dB all the time.

I've tried connecting left/right analogue into the PC and recording
using (would it be Audacity?) and to me it was complicated to get it to
work at all and distorted when played back.

You'd need to give more details for me to have a chance to work out what
went wrong.

Any advice?

Initially as above. If buying a new soundcard or recording device
(particularly USB) you may also need to check that the samples are being
made and transferred in a uniform manner.

BTW I've recently been using the Iyonix sound input. Although it limits you
to 48k for decent results, it can then make surprisingly fair
recordings[2]. (But not as good as a decent dedicated recorder.) That said,
if you want to put the results onto audio CD, go for a recorder/soundcard
that genuinely works at 44.1k if you want to minimise having to furtle
about with sample rates, etc.

Slainte,

Jim

[1] can't recall if you use a RPC or an Iyonix. Either way, if you have
CDBurn you can generate properly dithered test signals with !WAVGen and
make your own test audio CDR that way. Or do the equivalent with 'IBM type'
software if you know it will create good quality test waveforms.

[2] Well, it surprised me, anyway! :-) At rates other than 48k it makes
awful recordings as it suffers from one of the traditional problems with
'computer' sound hardware. The sampling clock runs at a fixed rate and it
just drops samples to get other rates.

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

To reverb or not?
 

"Iain Churches" wrote in message

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...

I'm going to chuck a cat in amongst the pigeons here.
I've just tried this. I recorded some speech, then
applied both delay and reverb in Adobe Audition. No
matter which order I apply them, the result is
identical. In other words, they commute.
http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/listen/delayreverb.mp3

Can you hear a difference between the two versions? If
so, which do you reckon got the delay first?

But did you do it correctly?

Attacking the competence of people you disagree with, or who show you up, is
not good form.

As mentioned above, when you delay the reverb, you do not
bring the delay back to the return signal loop, but use
to feed the reverb, the output of which is then brought
back to the mix. The result is the original dry sound, followed by a
pause, but no
repeat, then the reverb.

That depends on how long

This is probably not possible in Audition, and is the
reason why it is best experimented with using standalone
hardware units.

Iain, you have no clue at all what Audition can or cannot do. You're just
blowing wind out of the back of your neck.

The experiment is proper and it shows what well educated people know - which
is that the order in which you apply linear transformatins is immaterial.

To reverb or not?
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

TBH, for what they cost, if you have a number of albums to do I would
suggest grabbing a USB record deck to record the albums to PC via USB
for fuss and complication-free and then use a burning programme like
Nero to create the CDR.

Thanks for the honest and sensible advice.

Trouble is, I want to record from my turntable/arm/cartridge because I
like the way it sounds. I hesitate to admit it on this newsgroup but it is
more pleasurable to listen to than CD and I would like to capture its
coloration. Yes, I have a Linn, so live with it / deal with it. :-)

Bob.


Totally agree for the same reason. Different deck (Michell Gyrodeck/SME5)
and like you I don't fancy entrusting my LPs to any of the USB turntables
with el cheapo arms currently around. I'm leaning towards the Brennan,
which appears to provide a simple one-box solution which would be ideal for
a complete non-techie like me.

Geoff

To reverb or not?
 

In article ,
Bob Latham wrote:
No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an essentially
identical *convenience* version of an LP.

How do you guys do this?

I have a PC with a sound card and my amplifier has a ADC inside giving
spdif 16bit 44.1K out. Should I get a sound card with spdif in?

I've tried connecting left/right analogue into the PC and recording using
(would it be Audacity?) and to me it was complicated to get it to work at
all and distorted when played back.

Any advice?

You can make perfectly respectable copies of an LP using analogue -
assuming you have a half decent sound card on your PC. Arny is somewhat of
an expert on these and is more likely to be up to date on what's available
than me. Nor do you really need any sophisticated software. Unless you
intend trying to 'clean' things up. Which I never bother with.

--
*Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

To reverb or not?
 

On 03/12/2010 12:34, Keith G wrote:

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

I've got both a CD and an LP versions of Brothers In Arms and I
defy you
to tell them apart!

Only time I've not been able to tell a CD and LP of the same material
apart is when the CD is a dub of the LP.

No argument from me - a cdr is a good way of making an essentially
identical *convenience* version of an LP.

How do you guys do this?

I have a PC with a sound card and my amplifier has a ADC inside giving
spdif 16bit 44.1K out. Should I get a sound card with spdif in?


You may well find that the audio input on the PC is an analogue/digital
3.5mm jack combo.

I've tried connecting left/right analogue into the PC and recording using
(would it be Audacity?) and to me it was complicated to get it to work at
all and distorted when played back.


It's difficult to tell, trial and error may be the best way. What's the
amp, and which outputs are you using?



TBH, for what they cost, if you have a number of albums to do I would
suggest grabbing a USB record deck to record the albums to PC via USB
for fuss and complication-free and then use a burning programme like
Nero to create the CDR.


I had a look round John Lewis yesterday (having waited for the bus that
never turned up) and
they have four turntables on display - two of which USB, and I think
they were all under £100. There must be quite a demand to give up that
much shelf space, I'd have thought.

I still prefer the PC route though, having finally found a way for it to
work easily and reliably. This with deference to Jim's idea of a
standalone CDR - didn't really get on with the NAD and Yamaha machines I
used. Whatever compromise my method entails, I'm at a point where
reliability and ease matter. Results still impressive IMO - hard to tell
the difference between LP and digitised version.

Just a thing - I use the Picard version of this:

http://musicbrainz.org/

to tag the files (saved as Apple lossless, so the files accept tags).
It's well worth spending 90 seconds reading the instructions - getting
it to work involves a couple of simple but counter-intuitive stages.

Rob