Ripping Vinyl to Flac....Help!

[barnsleydave]

Hope this is the right forum but here goes.

BACKGROUND

I buy CD's which I rip to flac files using dbpoweramp on my windows laptop. I then listen to them via Sonos. Either via the one plugged directly into my amp and speakers in the living room or the one in the study (converted bedroom) upstairs .

I have a collection (not large) of old vinyl records which i would like to listen to via the same system so I want to rip the vinyl to flac (or apple lossless) and copy the files to my external hard drive (where dbpoweramp puts them and sonos can acces them).

I wont make much use of the turntable after ripping them so after much debate I plumped for a audio-technica AT-LP120-USB as this had a built in phono pre-amp and a USB connection not to mention lots of good reviews for the cash.

I set it up, installed Audacity on the mac and connected it to the apple mac in the study.

Its fairly straight forward and I ripped a few tracks (using Audacity), exported them to flac files and copied them to the hard drive that sonos uses.

However the sound is....dissapointing. Its about half as quiet as exactly the same track ripped from CD using dbpoweramp.

Ive messed around with the settings but to no avail.

OBJECTIVE

So Im trying to find out how to improve the sound.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[tino]

I used one of these (Creative Sound Blaster X-FI HD) which allowed me to fine tune the gain during the recording process. The included software is also pretty good at WAV editing and noise removal. In your case, are there no options in Audacity to increase the gain? Alternatively your playback software could allow you adjust replay gain per track or across the whole album?

 

[pauln]

In the manual there's a section on recording from USB turntables - did you look there? Sorry if I'm stating the obvious.

"The right-hand input volume slider (by the microphone icon) can often be used to vary the loudness of the recording, but it may not function with all turntables. If it does not, try adjusting the input level on the turntable (often, there is a gain control under the chassis). Alternatively, you may be able to set this in the operating system mixer (right-click over the speaker icon by the system clock). "

 

[abacus]

Here is a video to help you use the mastering features of Audacity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcEQJBO1Kj0

Hope this helps

Bill

 

[barnsleydave]

:cheers: :cheers:

Thanks very much guys for all the advice. I think the probelm thankfully lies with audacity. I did stumble acroiss the normalise feature and the recordings went much louder. But that video you kindly provided Abacus looks great and I now will have a great sunday afternoon ahead of me playing around with software and music :rockout:

Its been an awful long time since I posted on here. Good to see the help is still as great as ever. Thanks again. :wave:

 

[MajorFubar]

Was about to say that it sounds to me like you haven't normalsed the volume, but you seem to have sussed that out.

 

[barnsleydave]

Yep.. Feel a bit daft now. But it was down to user error.

Im sure buying a better turntable with a better stylus, getting a better external pre-phono amp, a better sound card and better music manipulation software will all improve the quality even more but as this is a one off exercise the benefits dont justify the cost.

Im quite happy with my normalised output.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Yep.. Feel a bit daft now. But it was down to user error.

Im sure buying a better turntable with a better stylus, getting a better external pre-phono amp, a better sound card and better music manipulation software will all improve the quality even more but as this is a one off exercise the benefits dont justify the cost.

Im quite happy with my normalised output.

Still got the same home cinema system Dave?

 

[barnsleydave]

Ha Ha . hello mate. Hope you are well.

Yes i do. I stopped playing about with it and now just use it for watching stuff.

Only difference is I removed the harman kardon amp and cd player. The amp as it broke twice and is currently waiting repair. The cd player because I just never used it. Think it only played 1 CD. Once the amp is repaired I'll stick em both on ebay. Then later I'll get another stereo amp just to drive the front speakers and for music (which is currently being played through my pioneer AV amp).

Had it 5 years now. 3D doesnt interest me, so in no rush to upgrade any time soon. I'll wait another 5 years till 4K TV's come down to a reasonable price

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Ha Ha . hello mate. Hope you are well.

Yes i do. I stopped playing about with it and now just use it for watching stuff.

Only difference is I removed the harman kardon amp and cd player. The amp as it broke twice and is currently waiting repair. The cd player because I just never used it. Think it only played 1 CD. Once the amp is repaired I'll stick em both on ebay. Then later I'll get another stereo amp just to drive the front speakers and for music (which is currently being played through my pioneer AV amp).

Had it 5 years now. 3D doesnt interest me, so in no rush to upgrade any time soon. I'll wait another 5 years till 4K TV's come down to a reasonable price

Ah nice one! :cheers: I am good - cheers! Yep, I got my eye on the LG OLEDs but not for a while. I think £2000 would be the most I would spend and it would have to be reliable too. It will have 4K thrown in too.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Ha Ha . hello mate. Hope you are well.

Yes i do. I stopped playing about with it and now just use it for watching stuff.

Only difference is I removed the harman kardon amp and cd player. The amp as it broke twice and is currently waiting repair. The cd player because I just never used it. Think it only played 1 CD. Once the amp is repaired I'll stick em both on ebay. Then later I'll get another stereo amp just to drive the front speakers and for music (which is currently being played through my pioneer AV amp).

Had it 5 years now. 3D doesnt interest me, so in no rush to upgrade any time soon. I'll wait another 5 years till 4K TV's come down to a reasonable price

Had my TV calibrated about 6 months ago, who did you use for yours? I used Canary Jules from THX calibration.

 

[barnsleydave]

Good. Yes once you spend a s**t load of cash on something you tend not to be in a hurry to replace it.

For calibration I used chap called Gordon Fraser of Convergent AV (he's based in scotland but travels all over).

Really nice bloke but dont get talking to him too much or he wil have you looking at Lumagen scalers (I'll let you google them )

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Good. Yes once you spend a s**t load of cash on something you tend not to be in a hurry to replace it.

For calibration I used chap called Gordon Fraser of Convergent AV (he's based in scotland but travels all over).

Really nice bloke but dont get talking to him too much or he wil have you looking at Lumagen scalers (I'll let you google them )

:cheers: