Vinyl records to CDs

jrf6404

I have just purchased WavePad to convert my vinyl records to CDs. I have successfully done one. I would like to have any tips that anyone has for doing this. I don't want to get 30 records done and then find out something I should have been doing all along to get the best possible quality. I may have made a mistake, but I purchased WavePad reather than Golden Record because I assumed that I would be able to correct more deficts in my recordings with WavePad since it cost more.

musikone

Jack Finney wrote:

I have just purchased WavePad to convert my vinyl records to CDs. I have successfully done one. I would like to have any tips that anyone has for doing this. I don't want to get 30 records done and then find out something I should have been doing all along to get the best possible quality. I may have made a mistake, but I purchased WavePad reather than Golden Record because I assumed that I would be able to correct more deficts in my recordings with WavePad since it cost more.

The difference between WavePad and Golden Records is not one that has anything to do with "correcting deficits." Rather, it is in the _recording interface_; i.e., in the manner that this conversion process is handled. I prefer to use Golden Records instead of WavePad for _recording_, since there is far less "clutter" in the interface. When recording with Golden Records, no audio waveform is shown during the recording process, unlike the presentation when recording with WavePad. You simply press the "record" button to begin recording and press the "stop" button to stop recording. There is a simple little display which tells you how long the recording has been going on. Why do not need to look at the waveform of the signal that you are recording?

What you _do_ need to do, however, as with any recording process, is ensure that the signal level is high enough but not too high--high enough to avoid a poor signal-to-noise ratio but not so high that it overloads the sound card and produces audible distortion. This is the most significant problem that you are likely to have when recording _either_ with WavePad or with Golden Records. Both of these programs have small sound-level bars that give you a rough indication of whether the signal level is in the appropriate range. However, I like using an auxiliary signal-level indicator that is available free (as in free!) at the website

http://www.darkwood.demon.co.uk/PC/meter.html

I use version 1.6, which is an excellent digital display that you can use along with any other program (assuming that you are using Windows XP) to monitor your signal level as you record. Once you learn how to control your input level to your sound card, the rest is a piece of cake--using Golden Records. You can, of course, also listen to the output from your sound card while you are recording. But you do not need to do this, since you will know about how long it will take to pick up as much of that recording as you are interested in.

Something that is peculiar to the Golden Record interface is the storage of the audio sound file (after you have stopped recording) in a temporary file on your hard drive, whose location you can choose if you do not wish to use the default location that is chosen automatically for you. After recording, the file shows up in the Golden Records window, with a default name.

Any single file is limited to two hours. However, you can record several records in one window (i.e., without shutting down the program and starting up again). Every time that you stop and then press the record button again, a new file is started. So, if you have started and stopped five times, you will end up with a list of five files in the Golden Records window. When you close the window, these five files become temporary files, so you have to remember to process them before they evaporate after perhaps a couple of days; I am not sure exactly how long they last. I always get to my files within a day or so.

With these files stored away temporarily, you can now open them, one at a time _using WavePad_. You may now edit a file that has been recorded using Golden Records with WavePad. Then you save the edited file to the location of your choice, which makes it permanent; i.,e it is no longer a temporary file and will not evaporate while your back is turned.

SUMMARY

Golden Records and WavePad can be used together; at least this is what I do. I know that you can use WavePad alone to do what you are doing (if you have the proper equalization to straighten out the frequency response from your phono pickup), but I prefer to use WavePad for editing, which is its primary purpose in life. If you are happy with this, then so be it. However, you might download the trial version of Golden Records, just to get some idea of how it goes about things. You may just change your mind....

Musikone

nchtj

excellent answer there !

just to add to that, if I am to assume the 'temporary' files you refer to are the ones you see in the Golden Records main window, then those files are stored in the Golden Records Application Data folder (Documents and Settings\[windows user name]\Application Data\NCH Swift Sound\Golden), and they do *not* expire ever, they only get removed if you remove them.

the *real* temporary files are the files that Golden Records saves to your Windows temp folder, that happens while recording is taking place. We do this because, irrespective of whether you want wav or mp3 files as the 'final product', we need to save the recordings in wave format first in order to apply any audio restoration tool processes on them (assuming you have selected any tools, you dont have to). these temporary files are removed whenever you exit the software.

musikone

nchtj wrote:

excellent answer there !

just to add to that, if I am to assume the 'temporary' files you refer to are the ones you see in the Golden Records main window, then those files are stored in the Golden Records Application Data folder (Documents and Settings\[windows user name]\Application Data\NCH Swift Sound\Golden), and they do *not* expire ever, they only get removed if you remove them.

the *real* temporary files are the files that Golden Records saves to your Windows temp folder, that happens while recording is taking place. We do this because, irrespective of whether you want wav or mp3 files as the 'final product', we need to save the recordings in wave format first in order to apply any audio restoration tool processes on them (assuming you have selected any tools, you dont have to). these temporary files are removed whenever you exit the software.

If I understand what you are saying here, this does not explain the operation of _my_ Golden Records software (paid for and registered). As an illustration of the working of my program, suppose that I start and stop the recording process three times, which results in three separate files in the main program window, following the conclusion of the third recording session; i.e., following the short time interval devoted to "converting" these files, as announced at the bottom of the window. Thus, after the third recording session, there will be two files which show up in the window as "untitled01" and "untitled02". After a few seconds of "converting," the third file "untitled03" will be added to the list.

This list of three files appears in the window, even though I have not yet chose to do anything with these files; i.e., I have not yet opened them in the WavePad window for editing. At this particular stage of the process, the "files" which I see displayed in the main recording window are not files at all, but are rather "pointers" to the _temporary_ files stored (by default, since I have not changed the storage location) on my C-drive. These temporary files are _not_ named as untitled01, untitled02, and untitled03; therefore, they cannot be found anywhere on my computer with this name at this time, although they of course do exist on my hard drive as temporary files.

If I choose to close the Golden Records main program window which contains these three file-pointers, these temporary files will remain in place (for how long a period of time I do not know), but there will still not be any files on my hard drive with the filenames untitled01, untitled02, and untitled03. However, if I now reopen the Golden Records main recording window and edit one of these files (such as untitled01, for example) and then save the edited file as a .wav file in a location that I select, this file will _now_ appear as a .wav file in that selected location and the temporary file to which the file untitled01 was pointing disappears.

However, if I do not choose at this time to edit the remaining two files, they will _not_ appear anywhere as .wav files but will remain as temporary files in their original locations. So, at least as I understand it but have never waited it out to see just how "temporary" they will be when there is no saved file to replace them, I assume that these files will not last until they _are_ replaced by such files. But I could be wrong. Perhaps "temporary" does not mean temporary in the sense that they are due to expire after a limited time, but rather that they are temporary until replaced by a permanently saved file created through the WavePad editor.

I may be wrong on all of this, but this is the way that it appears to be working, until I make some further tests to determine what exactly is going on here. Perhaps it is not important, but I like to know just how things work, so that I can keep them under control.

Musikone