Recording in Vinyl to be played in Ableton

[Terminal55]

Hi All,

I'm about to start recording a fair chunk of vinyl into my Mac as 320k mp3's, so I can play them in an Ableton set. I have a couple of questions before I dive in:

- Can i record directly into Ableton? I have Audacity, would that be ok, or would there be sound quality issues? Do I need a proper Audio Editor package to do this properly and not compromise quality?

- I have an Allen & Heath Xone64 mixer, but I'm sure I read on another forum that i would be better off going through the phono on a decent hi-fi amp, rather than a dj mixer, as the quality will be better. I have a pretty decent Marantz amp, so maybe I should use that?

- Should I normalize or anything like that? I know there's a case for allowing the sound to be close to the vinyl output (and therefore not treating the file in any way), but I'm wondering if there are other reasons for me to normalize, etc.

Hope you can help.

Si

[102455]

Can i record directly into Ableton? I have Audacity

If I was doing it, I'd use Audacity. It's audio editing software. You don't need a full blown DAW just to get audio onto your hard drive.

I have an Allen & Heath Xone64 mixer

better off going through the phono on a decent hi-fi amp

As it's an A&H mixer you should be fine using that. With lesser mixers, the hi-fi amp route would probably be wiser.

Should I normalize or anything like that?

Up to you. My advice would be to do any tidying up first (filter out rumble, remove any click & pops) then normalize to maybe 95% rather than maxed out.

[Terminal55]

thank you kind sir

[pepezabala]

you cxan also record straight into ableton. I did that a couple of times. My workflow was to record a long file into arrangement view, then turn off the grid, select a track, ctrl e to split it, then ctrl-j to consolidate it into a new audio file.

Live doesn't have some editor features, e.g. remove crackles., if you need this, then go for an editor

[subterFUSE]

Here is some advice for recording your vinyl, and some of these tips come directly from Tony Andrews of Funktion One.


1. Get a moving coil cartridge for your turntable. DJ cartridges are built for durability more than for sound quality. A good cartridge will make a difference.

2. Do not use a DJ mixer, period. I am an Allen & Heath owner myself, but I would still not use my Xone DB4 if I were recording my vinyl collection to digital format. Use a good home audio preamp. DJ mixers will always color the sound to some degree. Yes, Allen & Heath mixers are better than most.... but they are still not as good as a decent home audio preamp.

3. Get a good sound card for your computer. Tony Andrews at Funktion One says they have tested many sound cards and he thinks that the Echo cards are very good for the price. He actually says they have tested a $200 Echo card that rivals uber-expensive ones from Apogee and Prism.

4. DON'T RECORD TO MP3!!!!! Please record to 16 bit, 44.1 k WAV or AIFF, or better yet, 24 bit. MP3 files are unacceptable in a pro environment.

5. You should record into an audio editing software like Audacity, SoundForge, or Peak Audio. Be certain to watch the levels so they do not clip.

6. If you have slip mats on your turntable, replace them with the rubber mats that shipped with the decks. The rubber mat will give you more stable tempo during the recording.

[beatmunga]

This is perhaps one of the finest examples of both perfect sense and utter bollocks I've ever seen in one single post.

. Get a moving coil cartridge for your turntable. DJ cartridges are built for durability more than for sound quality. A good cartridge will make a difference..

Yep. DJ cartridges have to be cued backwards and forwards so the design is inherently compromised to allow this. But not so much that the average 32 bit-happy-with-rubbish-plug in delay compensation-Live user would notice.

2. Do not use a DJ mixer, period. I am an Allen & Heath owner myself, but I would still not use my Xone DB4 if I were recording my vinyl collection to digital format. Use a good home audio preamp. DJ mixers will always color the sound to some degree. Yes, Allen & Heath mixers are better than most.... but they are still not as good as a decent home audio preamp.

3. Get a good sound card for your computer. Tony Andrews at Funktion One says they have tested many sound cards and he thinks that the Echo cards are very good for the price. He actually says they have tested a $200 Echo card that rivals uber-expensive ones from Apogee and Prism.

This is where we start to dangerously tip our toes in that most wretched of territories - that of The Audiophile. There may be some truth in this, but most sane people would trust Allen & Heath's worst preamp over Radio Shack/Maplin's best.

All analogue circuits theoretically 'colour' the sound to some degree. Whether the average audiophile dweeb can really perceive a difference between varying circuits is a fascinating area of psychological study.

4. DON'T RECORD TO MP3!!!!! Please record to 16 bit, 44.1 k WAV or AIFF, or better yet, 24 bit. MP3 files are unacceptable in a pro environment.

5. You should record into an audio editing software like Audacity, SoundForge, or Peak Audio. Be certain to watch the levels so they do not clip.

6. If you have slip mats on your turntable, replace them with the rubber mats that shipped with the decks. The rubber mat will give you more stable tempo during the recording.

4. Absolute arse for most popular music presuming the bandwidth is high enough.

5. Why? Because these packages only handle a track or two, therefore they must convert a voltage to binary code better than a multitrack DAW? You already said that the 'sound card' was the weak link, anyway.

6. Arsey Soapy Tit-Wank. Good beatmix DJs use slipmats. Slight fluctuations in tempo (minuscule) should ruin the mix. And yet slip mat wielders prevail in the world of absolute precision vinyl beatmatching. The accuracy of the deck's direct-drive timing control is much more of an issue, and renders this worry insignificant. Technics SL1200s use strobes for calibration. Shit audiophile gold plated phono plug emporer's new clothes decks do not. Slipmats are the least of your worries.

[JES]

Well, if you're going to time stretch, warp or archive the audio, uncompressed may hold up better. MP3 can be fine to listen to -- and lots of snobs who think they can tell the difference actually cant -- but mp3 audio degrades when it is re-encoded. So if you make an mp3 of you Live set of mp3s, there may be more artifacts. OTOH, if you can't tell the difference, it probably doesn't matter.

[outsidesys]

Keep in mind that Ableton Live does not play MP3s directly. Live will convert your MP3s to uncompressed WAV files before they are played back. From the manual:

Live can combine uncompressed mono or stereo samples of any length, sample rate, or bit depth without prior conversion. To play a compressed sample, Live decodes the sample and writes the result to a temporary, uncompressed sample file.

You're better off saving your recordings as WAV files, and then convert them to MP3s for other purposes.

[Terminal55]

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

Last night I compared the quality of my amp versus my allen & heath mixer, and the amp won..but not by much.I made an identical recording with each them dragged them into separate audio tracks and cross-faded between them. The decision wasn't instantaneous.. i'd say about 20-30 secs of concentrated listening led me to my conclusion.

Regarding Mp3 vs Wav, i will be using wav going forward, simply for the reason below (thanks outsidesys!).

Keep in mind that Ableton Live does not play MP3s directly. Live will convert your MP3s to uncompressed WAV files before they are played back. From the manual:

Live can combine uncompressed mono or stereo samples of any length, sample rate, or bit depth without prior conversion. To play a compressed sample, Live decodes the sample and writes the result to a temporary, uncompressed sample file.

You're better off saving your recordings as WAV files, and then convert them to MP3s for other purposes.

i did also buy myself a new needle and cart.. a relatively pricey ortofon one that claims to be specifically for Vinyl to digital recording. It was a purchase worth making as my existing ortofons, though good ones, have seen a lot of djing action.

Audacity seems to be working fine and I can imagine recording via ableton might me a little bit more cumbersome workflow wise.

so far so good.. thanks again

[freshdrumma]

i think 320 are acceptable and pro enough, but the main thing is that ab. is going to convert them to wav again before playing so basically is a waste of time, space and quality, use wav or aiff with ableton, 320 are good for tracktor, serato torq...

[simonlb]

Keep in mind that Ableton Live does not play MP3s directly. Live will convert your MP3s to uncompressed WAV files before they are played back. From the manual:

Live can combine uncompressed mono or stereo samples of any length, sample rate, or bit depth without prior conversion. To play a compressed sample, Live decodes the sample and writes the result to a temporary, uncompressed sample file.

MP3s are always decompressed as they're played, they need to be coded back to PCM audio into a buffer on-the-fly for a soundcard to process.