"Needledrops for Dummies"? :)

It's your imagination. All the CD burning program does is converthose ones and zeros to electrical impulses that your laser burns into the disk.

 

Nero works great for authoring music CDs. Do they play as regular music CDs on your CD/DVD players? If so everything is fine. Nice thing about Nero is you can do track marks and CD text.

I use Sony CD Architect to make music CDs. It's much more sophisticated than Nero and much more expensive!

 

Thanks for the advice. I do appreciate the endorsement of Nero. I keep forgetting that these wav tracks need to be squeezed and converted onto a CD, so I'm grateful that Nero keeps everything simple so all I need to worry about is click-and-drag.

I just checked the .wav files for Black Sabbath Paranoid (180g Nems). Side 1: 180,175kb. Side 2: 468,607kb. Ouch! Why don't I have an iPod in the year 2010? Why am I still using floppy discs?

As always, thanks for all the input. I'll be sure to forget everything and ask the same silly questions eight months later .

 

Again, I use Audacity and ITunes on an IMac— like Guppy Sez:

And I'm used to having the best stereo in the house near the computer on account of having used computers for recording. The IMac/Auacity/ITunes arrangement is stupid easy and sounds better than anything else I've got right now.

 

Nero, SF, CD Creator, Adsobe, whatever, all do the exact same things. The differences with programs like Sound Forge is that it doesn't hide all the technical stuff, and gives the user complete control over the mastering. A program like Nero hides all that from the user.

 

Sometimes too much technical stuff in CD Architect, but I like it.

IMO the two things that differentiate CD authoring programs are:

(1) Can I split tracks? For needledrops I create one large file, which I want to then burn as a CD with many tracks. How easy is this to do? What's the UI for this? It's pretty good in Nero, it's freaking FANTASTIC in CD Architect.

(2) Does it support CD Text? I would not write a CD without CD text. Again, NERO supports CD-Text very well.

I've also used Cakewalk Pyro many years ago, it was cheap and offered me lots of power. Much closer to the power and flexibility of CD Architect than Nero. I like being able to assign dead non-track space between tracks, so that the track ends where the song ends, not where the next song begins. If you want a little more power / flexibility than the entry level CD mastering programs but without going to the great expense of something at the semi-pro level like SoundForge/CD Architect, Cakewalk Pyro is pretty good without breaking the bank.

 

Hello, the OP here again. Thanks to this thread, and the very kind help of terra1, I tried the phono>receiver>standalone CD recorder hookup last night.
After all this, it appears that my Philips CDR-765 has gone to the great electronics store in the sky. It just says "no audio" for everything I try to do. Thought I screwed up the connections at first, but then it even says "no audio" when I tried to dub internally in the player. Apparently the 765 is very touchy about what blank CDR's you use, so I made sure I tried a vintage '99 audio-only blank, and a CD-RW, and nothin'. So, I'll have to save all this great advice for a rainy day, because I certainly can't afford a new standalone CD Recorder right now. The CDR 765 gave me some years of great service for my $640, so I can't complain too much. NOW I'm thinking of the computer method, but as of now all I have is the record player, the receiver, and the computer, and that's it.

(As a side note, while researching the CDR 765 on the web last night, I found a fellow's web blog detailing his purchase and use of the recorder back when it was released in 1998, which is when I bought it. Finding blank CDs was a problem, but he located some at Tower Records for $8.99 each! Yowch, I had blocked that from my memory, lol.)

 

Adobe Audition lets you do the exact same things as SF.

 

First thing, hook up your computer and try a simple needle drop using lots of the advice here. If it's true what has been posted here about newer consumer grade sound cards having better abilities than older ones, you should be able to very easily achieve very good results.

You'll love the flexibility of setting up track marks and CD text and stuff on the computer.

 

Someone said that Audacity only "really" records in 16 bits even though it goes up to at least 192/32 in the settings. Can someone clarify?

 

I'm sure lots of software does. There's only so much you can do with CD authoring.

 

I don't believe that's accurate. Someone with Cool Edit or Adobe Audition, simply record something in Audacity then open the file in CE/Audition and check the stats. The actual real bit depth will be shown.

Maybe the person who reported this was using a sound card that only operated in 16-bit audio, or one of the old Audigy/SB-Live cards that claimed 24-bit audio but only stayed 24-bit if at 48kHz and with no effects (16-bit internal chip architecture for some signal paths). A file is only as good as its input stream.

 

But You Can Keep It For The Birds And Bees . . .

Does you computer have a built-in soundcard? If it does all you would really need is a line-level cable between the computer and the stereo. The two programs I mentioned—ITunes and Audacity—are free and easily downloaded.

 

The last time I used Audacity (a few months ago), this was true. On Windows machines, Audacity records in 16 bits, even though the settings make it look like you have set it higher (like 24 bits). As far as I know, this is still the case. For this reason, I gave up on Audacity and switched to Goldwave.
Audacity does handle 24 bit files properly as far as editting and such, but when recording (with Windows), it only records 16 bits.
Mac users don't experience this problem.

Terry

 

Here is a discussion on the Audacity forum about the 24 bit recording issue.
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8653&p=56507&hilit=24+bit#p56507
It seems like it is a well documented "bug" but no-one seems to care about fixing it.
This thread even discusses the software responsible for the "bug".
http://n2.nabble.com/24-bit-recording-on-Windows-td2505042.html#a2505042

The viewpoint on the thread is that no one can hear the difference between 16 and 24 bit sampling anyway. Besides, what do you expect from free software?


Terry

 

Okay, another amazingly stupid rookie question time.

If I did the computer method, I'd be using a laptop from circa 2004. So it's not TOO old. There don't appear to be any inputs directly for the soundcard on the outside of the computer, so do you have to open the computer up and do it that way?

Sorry for all the questions. I hope this thread has been helpful for people~!

 

As far as I know, most PC laptops (including both that I've owned) do not have a true line-in jack on the built-in sound card. There's usually only a mono mic input, which is inappropriate for needle dropping due to low quality (as well as only one channel). You would have to get an external sound card.

I think at least the newer Macbooks have a line-in?

 

Does it have a USB 2.0 port or Firewire? If so, you may be able to pick up an audio interface for one of those and use it for audio. Depending on the performance of the laptop and device, you can easily go up to 24/96k with acceptable performance. It won't be studio grade perhaps, but for a 2004 laptop, it'll be far better than the built-in soundcard.

 

De-Rumbling - a revelation for this "dummy"

This is my needledrop setup: Audio Technica PL120 --> AT440MLa --> Bugle Pro preamp --> SB Audigy external USB soundcard --> Audacity --> Click Repair --> Nero 6 --> CD-R

Recently I've been transferring at 44.1/16 after finding out that the Audigy doesn't go much higher than that.

Last week I decided to try de-rumbling for the first time. I took a short sample of the lead-in grooves, ran it through a low-pass filter in Goldwave to filter out anything above 250Hz, then used that file to de-rumble the LP tracks. I didn't realize it would be so easy to do, and I'm extremely happy with the results. Why didn't I try this before!

 

Rumble and motor vibration too, it'll take it out. If you're getting audible noise from the PL 120, (is that the right number or is it a 12D).. it's usually motor noise not bearing rumble. It's fixable but not easy (you have to remount the whole motor with new rubber bushes, or be more extreme and change the motor mounting entirely)

The only thing I like on my recorded discs is that I leave in the actual 'drop' at the start, sometimes as a separate track. Always reminds me that it's a record.

 

Actually, with Sound Forge, one can do quite a lot. Question is, do want or need to?

 

I leave everything on the needle-drop. I listen to everything when I play the record, so I don't have a problem with the occasional "click" when I play the cd-r.

 

Here's a silly question, but I really don't know the answer. I've always assumed that the best path for me would be to go:

Project Xpression I (with Ortofon MC10 Super MKII)--> Project Tube preamp--> Soundblaster Audigy2 (notebook card) at 24/48 (the max it will go)--> Audio Cleaning Lab--> (click repair at 24/48 if necessary)--> CD.

Now, with the present discussion, I'm wondering if I have a better converter in my stand alone RCA CDRW140? If so, it will only record at the standard 16/44.1, but if the sound quality is better, I wonder if I should import from *that* into Audio Cleaning Lab to divide into tracks, etc.

If anyone happens to have an opinion about this, I'd sure love to hear it. This is not an area I'm well versed in.

Thanks!

John

 

Record something on each and see what the difference is when played back. Differences between ADCs can in some cases be easy to tell. My first needle drops were awful because of a bad ADC.

Another option to consider if your Soundblaster Audigy2 has an optical or coax digital input, and if the CD-Recorder will output a digital stream when on pause/standby. Use the CD-Recorder only as an ADC, run a digital cable to your computer sound card. Record on the computer to your favorite program selecting the digital input as the source.

I did something like this for years. I got a $15 sound card that had an optical input. I used my MiniDisc player to do the analog-to-digital conversion, then recorded to a WAV file through the optical interface. I was able to get a fairly hi-fi ADC (at least hi-fi compared to the crappy ADCs in most cheap sound cards) and have the flexibility of a computer solution at the same time. My needledrops from this method sound very good!

Also, if you're doing CDs, I think it's better to sample at 44.1 not 48.

 

These days, as long as you use up-to-date sample rate converters, it doesn't really make any difference.

If you do CDs, I think it's best to go as high as you can, although I think 96k is quite adequate for very important jobs.