[LAU] how to record Gramophone?

[Olivier Guilyardi]

Jonathan Gazeley wrote:
> Grammostola Rosea wrote:
>> frank pirrone wrote:
>>> Grammostola Rosea wrote:
>>>> frank pirrone wrote:
>>>>> Olivier Guilyardi wrote:
>>>>>> garry.ogle at tiscali.co.uk wrote:
>>>>>>> frank pirrone wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'd also look into Gramofile:
>>>>>>>> for pop/click filtering and automatic breaking of a continuous 
>>>>>>>> recording into "tracks" or songs.  It can be used for 
>>>>>>>> post-processing the recordings you make.
>>>>>>>>                         
>>>>>>> I'd recommend gnome-wave-cleaner for post-processing:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> http://gwc.sourceforge.net/
>>>>>>>             
>>>>>> +1 for Gnome Wave Cleaner. I successfully digitalized 50+ years old 
>>>>>> persian
>>>>>> music LP's using this app.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, me too.  It's a fine program, but my reason for referring the 
>>>>> OP to Gramofile was primarily its functionality for breaking a 
>>>>> continuous recording into individual tracks or songs based upon the 
>>>>> silence between as delimiter.
>>>>> Anyone have another program recommendation for that operation?

Gnome Wave Cleaner --> Markers / Mark songs

Not sure if you can save all detected songs into multiple files at once though.

Another thing about Gnome Wave Cleaner that I liked, is how efficiently it
handled large files.

>>>>> Of course it's easy enough to manually split a waveform where one 
>>>>> tune ends and another begins, but if one were digitizing an entire 
>>>>> record collection that would be beyond onerous.  Also DAO can 
>>>>> certainly handle impressing that continuous recording onto optical 
>>>>> media, but that's not the same as having individual files - for any 
>>>>> of a number of purposes.

Splitting can't be fully automatic anyway, you need to review it and maybe
adjust markers manually.

>>>> Thanks all. Interesting suggesting Frank...
>>>>
>>>> Btw. Does it matter for quality what soundcard is used?
>>>>       
>>> Not in my experience.  It's not a demanding audio task.  Others may 
>>> report differently.

IMO, the problem is at the preamp level. If I had some more LP's to digitized
today I'll certainly give a try using the amplified mics input of my Presonus
Firebox firewire device. From the voice/singing recordings I made, I can say
that the Firebox preamps sound excellent to me.

>> Can someone confirm or reject this thesis?
> Going back a few years I digitised a set of LPs using a SoundBlaster 16 
> card with a consumer Technics turntable, amplified by an ancient Inkel 
> MX-1810 mixer, hooked up to the line-in socket of the SB16 with a 3.5mm 
> jack.

IIRC I used a SB16 too :)

> Sounded surprisingly good given the bodged setup!

I had no amplifier/mixer, I think I plugged the turntable directly into the mic
input of the SB16. The sound was ok, but using a mixer or some sort of quality
preamps as you did is certainly much better.

However, there seem to be some other subtleties, especially about equalization:
http://www.tappin.me.uk/Linux/audio.html

> Obviously you will get better sound quality with a decent sound card, 
> but depending on your source, you can get away with a cheap sound card. 
> I don't recommend motherboard onboard sound chips though. They usually 
> pick up a lot of digital noise from the computer.
> 
> At the time I made those recordings, I was a Windows user and would 
> probably have used Steinberg Wavelab. I don't know what I'd use these 
> days under Linux though.

--
  Olivier