Converting records to cd?


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Steve LeVine

Member
Hi all

I finally hooked up my old stereo to my computer and am trying to transfer some records to cd form. Since I know some of you have experience at this stuff I have a few questions. My Roxio software claims it will stop and start automatically after each track on a record. I have not found it to work too well so I have been recording full sides at once. My first question is am I better off recording each track one at a time or recording a full record side at once and then splitting it after? If I record a full side at once is there any software that will allow me to mark the end of each track and split them all at once or do I have to cut and paste each individual track to split up the big one? Which software do you use to record and maybe clean up the records? If you want any of the files I convert I plan on posting many of them to the disney newsgroup.

Thanks for any advice

Steve
 
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sds910

Member
Steve:

There are numerous ways to accomplish these things (as I'm sure you're well aware), but here are a few tips:

1. Absolutely record your LPs to the digital format as complete sides only. You will save yourself a shipload of trouble in the long run by editing tracks *LATER*.

2. The first step to do once your recordings have been digitized is to clean them up. Work on clicks, pops and other "impulse noise" first, then move to the realm of overall noise reduction (the silence between tracks comes in handy here to create your NR filter). Finally, you can apply any necessary effects (such as EQ, compression, volume adjustment, etc.). The *VERY* best set of tools to perform this work on a PC is contained in Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge 6 software package. Some folks have had success with Cool Edit Pro, but I find that software to be a difficult learn and rather kludgy for anything other than multitrack mixing projects. Obviously, the hows and whys of cleaning up a recording as I describe above could be contained within a book, never mind a post such as this, but it should be enough of a start to give you a rough idea.

3. At this point, you can either a) slice up the individual tracks for CD burning purposes using your audio-editing software or, b) use a cue-sheet based CD burning software that will allow you to use the large files but manipulate precisely where the track marks should be placed. CDRCue is a fine cue-sheet creation tool that works well with either CDRWin or Fireburner. A more GUI-based solution would be Sonic Foundry's newly released CD Architect 5.0.

If you need assistance, feel free to give me a shout...

Steve Shorten
 
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Scarecrow

New Member
For recording... Use any wav recording software that you have or have the ability to "acquire".

Sound Forge
Goldwave
Cool Edit
etc.

Since you are recording full sides with numerous tracks.....try "acquiring" Sonic Foundry's CD ARCHITECT. I've been using this program with great success.

I record a 60min side with 10 tracks and use CD ARCHITECT to drop cue points (track markers) visually within the program and burn directly to disc without affecting the master .wav file.
 
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Alex K

Member
Hi Steve,

A late followup reply, but I happen to use NERO as my burning software. I capture whole sides of the record as wav files, then NERO allows me to drop track split points without actually altering the source file.

Now for a weird side note. I once captured an old Herb Alpert record (certified not available on CD) in this manner (okay, so this one wasn't an old Disney LP) and burned a CDR. Playing the CDR on a PC, the CDDB database actually finds the CD, track names and all!

This means someone else actually captured the same LP, split the tracks almost identically to the way I did, and submitted the CD info to the database. Spooky.

I wonder if any of our digitized old Disney vinyl is in the database.

-Alex K
 
X-S Tech

X-S Tech

Active Member
I recently got a cd burner and it came with Nero Express. Is this the same version of Nero that was discussed here? Someone mentioned that there was a Nero Wav Editor that would give me a lot more capabilities. I had a lot of trouble with the Nero that I have: ie: could not tell what the heck the splits and edit points did. I was able to insert them and supposedly split the track but when I played each individual track created from the split, there appeared to be no difference. Can anyone recomend a tutorial or just give me some hints. Thanks.
 
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sds910

Member
The explanation of your difficulties is worded a bit vaguely for me to answer you properly, but here are a few basics:

1 - "Nero Express" is a dumbed-down version of the full Nero software package. While the full version is an excellent tool for authoring CDs (and VCDs and DVDs for that matter), it is not (Alex's experiences notwithstanding, but certainly no offense meant) an ideal tool for either manipulating audio prior to CD mastering or for flagging index & track points.

2 - As I described in my original reply to Steve LeVine, the best way to break up large LP-side-sized chunks of audio for CD mastering is to either slice them up in audio processing software (I'd recommend Sound Forge for this, other people like Goldwave or Cool Edit, but IMHO there is no match for Sound Forge in this regard) or use a more sophisticated set of CD mastering tools (CDRCue and CDRWin would be a good combination or CDRCue and Fireburner -- or just Sonic Foundry's CD Architect 5.0).

Same offer I made to Mr. LeVine goes out to you and anyone else here on the board... if you need help, just send me a private message.

Steve
 
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