Vinyl Transfer with Cool Edit

[Doug Hess Jr.]

I know there has been lots of discussion on transferring vinyl using Cool Edit Pro. For those who choose to use the de-clicking feature (realizing many do not), here is an old E-mail message dating back several years with a helpful hint:

Submitted by: Joe Orgren (J.Orgren@questech.com)
I have found that the effectiveness of click removal is greatly enhanced (for vinyl source material) if I first run an "inverse RIAA" filter on the sampled audio. This filter undoes the high-frequency de-emphasis that is normally applied by a phono preamplifier. This is very important, because the high frequency de-emphasis smears the spiky clicks into rounded thuds, which are much harder for the software to distinguish from the program material.

After the click removal is done, I re-apply the RIAA de-emphasis, with a second filter. The result is completely click- and crackle-free.

Here are the filters I use (I created them in the Parametric Equalizer):

RIAA Inverse:
Low Shelf: 50.145 Hz, -10 dB
High Shelf: 20096 Hz, +19.5 dB
Band 1: 500.4 Hz, 0 dB, Q=1, Constant Q
Band 2: 2200.2 Hz, 0 dB, Q=1, Constant Q

RIAA:
Low Shelf: 50.145 Hz, +10 dB
High Shelf: 20096 Hz, -19.5 dB
Band 1: 500.4 Hz, 0 dB, Q=1, Constant Q
Band 2: 2200.2 Hz, 0 dB, Q=1, Constant Q


Again, this is not my message, but something I saved. Any comments are welcome. I personally found the settings helpful--however someone may have more accurate or refined settings.

[Grant]

I tried this on more than one occasion. It doesn't always work.

If configured properly, and if you have lots of time, Cool Edit's de-clicker will work wonders. I typically use many methods and plugins to de-click, even by hand.

[TSmithPage]

Speaking of Cool Edit, can someone walk me through how I can use this to index a wav file of concert music? I have an almost 2 hour wav file that I want to index for each of the 24 or so songs contained therein before I burn it onto a CDR. i.e., so it's a 24 track 2 CD set instead of a single or two track block of music. Can cool edit perform this function for me?

[Grant]

If you have 2000 or 1.2 you have to break them up for another application. If you have the new 2.0 you can just insert the track markers and burn the CD right there.

BTW, all you do is turn on the )fine) snapping by right clicking on the time ruler and selecting it.

Then, you just insert the markers where you want your tracks to start by using the F8 key in sequence. Zoom in if you have to to get it precice! Make sure that you FIRST marker is always at the VERY start of the big waveform, and the LAST one is at the VERY end. If you forget this, the function won't work!

Then open up the cue list in the view menu.

Highlight all the index points while holding down the shift key and afterward, hit the merge button. Then hilight the newly created ranges and hit the batch button.

Now, set the silence to "0". If it is greyed out, select the little dot first.

Now, below, enter a name for the tracks, the folder to which you want to store them, and what type of file to store them as, which should be Windows PCM .wav. Be careful about this! If they are other than 16-bit, make sure you use the appropriate option for type of file.

Press the start button. All your files will be saved as individual tracks in numbered order. You can now use something like CD creator to burn these to CD-R using the DAO, or Disc-at-once method to avoid the 2-second gap between songs.

[TSmithPage]

Thanks, Grant. I printed off your directions and will try to follow them when I'm at home. I just downloaded the free 30 day trial cool edit version off the internet yesterday- hopefully this version will suffice for the moment. A related question- I have XP and used their encoder to save the music to my harddrive, but it doesn't appear to be a wav file. Unless it can easily be converted over, I'm inclined to delete and rerecord from my source material (a DVD), as I think cool edit will allow me to define the type of recording as a wav file or otherwise. (I'm feeding the music from a standalone DVD player into the line in of my computer so as to avoid any problems with trying to rip the audio from the DVD otherwise). Do I have a clue as to what I'm talking about?

[Sckott]

By hand works wonders, as Grant says, for declicking. It's like pulling seeds off a strawberry, but on more important applications, it works best...

[Vivaldinization]

Re breaking the song up, if you don't have CEP 2.0 AND don't want to manually break the song into chunks (i.e. if you don't have the disc space), you can manually edit a CUE sheet file for most programs (CDRWin says how in its help menu, and that format works with several programs) that can burn multiple tracks from one WAV.

-D

[MagicAlex]

Originally posted by Sckott
By hand works wonders, as Grant says, for declicking. It's like pulling seeds off a strawberry, but on more important applications, it works best...

Do you guys normally declick in 16-bit or do you upsample to 24-bit?

[RetroSmith]

Does declicking in 16 bit mode affect the sound quality?

[JonUrban]

Originally posted by TSmithPage
Thanks, Grant. I printed off your directions and will try to follow them when I'm at home.

Thanks Grant, I did too!! I've been using CD Architect, but that has been discontinued. I will try CEP2.0, as I just got it!

:-jon

[Mike V]

Originally posted by Sckott
It's like pulling seeds off a strawberry,

Sckott,

You're a writer, aren't you? Great description!

Mike

[TSmithPage]

Hey, Grant. Your directions worked like a charm, so that I now have James Taylor's Live at the Beacon Theatre converted from DVD to CDR for play in the car stereo! Thanks much! Next up, the Prince concert DVD...:D

[Grant]

Originally posted by MagicAlex


Do you guys normally declick in 16-bit or do you upsample to 24-bit?

I ALWAYS change the bit depth to 32-bit float. It gives you an infinate dynamic range to work with. I keep it all at 44.1 because i'm going directly to CD anyway.