Turning Vinyl Into Gold (Part 2)

I’ve learned a good deal since writing Part one. The most important thing that I’ve learned is, if you can find a remastered or digitized version of your record on CD, then buy it! Remember Collectors’ Choice Music is an excellent source. However, if you enjoy the more “purist” sounds of your original record, no matter what the condition, then the “quick and dirty” method of making CDs is for you! Some people prefer it over the clean CD sound of today.The “quick and dirty” method records all of the pops, scratches, and hums!

In this article, I will be discussing what hardware you’ll need, the necessary software you’ll need, how to record, and what editing software to use. I’ve learned a good deal about the editing process since writing Part one.

Okay, let’s discuss the hardware part first. Obviously, you must be able to play your old records! So what if your old record player doesn’t work anymore? What to do? If you have a modern stereo system, you should be able to plug a turntable into your stereo receiver. I checked at Best Buy and found that you can purchase a record turntable for about 100 bucks. However, these “newer” model turntables will only play at 45 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM, so if you have old 78 records that you want to remaster, this won’t help you. You’ll need to find someone who has an older recorder player that will play 78s. I’ve managed to locate one that still works at school.

What do you do if your are not able to plug your turntable into a receiver, which amplifies the sound? You can purchased a preamplifier (available at most electronics stores for about $50.00) to do that job for you.

If you have an older Mac with only a microphone port, you’ll need to purchase a Y-cable, which has two stereo RCA plugs on one end and an 1 1/8 inch stereo minijack plug on the other. Y-cables are available from most electronics stores for about $10.00 or less. Jim Alley discussed, in his article Mac’s Makin’ Wax, the problems he encountered using the Y-cable recommended in the February 1999 issue of MacAddict. However, he finally found one that worked. Of course, as I mentioned in Part one, if you have an AV Mac like mine, you can plug your Y cable directly into the RCA ports of your Mac.

So far I’ve talked about converting records to CDs. However, if you have cassette tapes to record, the process is the same with the exception of plugging your cassette deck, instead of your turntable, into your Mac using the Y-cable.

What do you do if you have a newer model Mac that does not have a microphone port or AV ports? You must use a USB device to get the sound from the turntable or cassette deck into your Mac. Your options include Griffin Technology’s $35 iMic or $99 PowerWave (615-399-700). Alternatively, you can install a PCI sound card such as Creative’s $100 Sound Blaster Live (800 998-5227) or M-Audio’s $230 Audiophile 2496 (626 445-2842). Sunil Khushalani, a former SMUG member, who has moved away, has used the iMic and is pleased with the results.

The last piece of hardware that you’ll need is a CD burner. Many of the newer Macs include an internal CD burner. CD burners have come down in price so much since I purchased mine, I don’t even want to talk about them! Any of the Mac catalogs offer a wide variety of external CD burners, be they USB or SCSI devices.

Now, let’s discuss the available software which allows you to record the sound into your Mac. Several programs are made for this task, such as the free Coaster, $30 Sound Sculptor II, and $35 Sound Studio (215 482-6664) and Ultra Recorder v2.4.3 (shareware $20). Macromedia’s SoundEdit 16 (800 470-7211) is an older application but is still excellent. However, it is pricey at 300 bucks! Luckily, I have access to it at the school. SoundEdit 16 can be used to record as well as edit. However, you must record via the microphone port; therefore I can’t use it for recording because I record via my AV card.

I recommend CD Spin Doctor, which come with Roxio’s Toast 5.0 Titanium $99 (408 635-7694). I use CD Spin Doctor which came with my older version of Toast Deluxe 4.1.2. I’ve seen Toast 5.0 Titanium and the CD Spin Doctor application appears to be the same as the version that I’m using.

There are more expensive ways to go, but if you don’t have an audiophile’s budget, if you have more than a couple of records or tapes to convert, and if you want the easiest, fastest method and the best quality digital recordings, here is what I recommend: use CD Spin Doctor to transfer the analog recoding to your Mac, Arboretum Systems’ Ray Gun software to remove unwanted noise, and Roxio’s Toast 5.0 Titanium to burn the music to CD. The article on this subject in the December 2001 edition of MacWorld recommended using BIAS’s Peak LE (800 775-2427) to transfer the analog recording to your Mac. However, at 100 bucks, I didn’t think I needed that since I already had CD Spin Doctor. I did decide to spend a 100 bucks to purchase Arboretum System’s Ray Gun (800 700-7390) software for filtering out the pops, noise, and hums from my LPs. It was money well spent!

CD Spin Doctor does have the filters which are supposed to do this job for you but there is no preview mode, and once you’ve applied the filters, you can’t undo the changes. Ray Gun allows you to turn the filters on and off and adjust them for the best results. I’m glad that I purchased Ray Gun.

CD Spin Doctor is supposed to allow you to define the tracks once you’ve recorded the music. However, I’ve found that it isn’t always accurate. I like to use SoundEdit to listen to the music once I’ve recorded it, and place cues where each track begins and ends. Then, I copy each track and paste it into a new SoundEdit document and save each track. After this procedure, I use the Ray Gun software to filter out the noise, pops, etc. Finally, I use SoundEdit to delete any pops that are still audible after I’ve use the Ray Gun software. A pop is so short that you wouldn’t notice the missing millisecond of the music.I would strongly suggest that you use headphones when you do your editing, as you can hear much better.

Quoting Jim Alley from his article Mac’s Makin’ Wax on the subject of editing, ?Tedious? You bet!? As Jim found out and as I have learned, this can be a rewarding but very time consuming process.

Another option available to you if you don’t want to “do it yourself” is to find someone who does it professionally. I decided to call the various recording studios listed in the local telephone book, to ask what they would charge to do it. Some of them would not do it at all, but others quoted me prices from $45.00 an hour to $65.00 an hour. I also did a search on the Internet, and found many companies in this country and abroad that specialize in converting records or cassette tapes to CDs. All work is quoted by the hour; therefore, it can become very expensive to have someone else do it for you.

Here is an approximation of how long this entire process takes, at least, the way I do it. First, you must record the music into your Mac. If you’re doing an LP that is approximately 30 minutes per side; it is not necessary for you to monitor this process continuously. You can check on the recording process from time to time. However, be sure you don’t forget to click the pause button when you’re ready to turn the LP over! There goes your first hour!

Second, you’ll need to listen to the recording using SoundEdit to mark cues where the tracks begin and end. SoundEdit displays the file in WAVE format so you can guesstimate about where each track ends and put in your cues. However, be careful when you’re doing this, because sometimes you might miss! It helps to look at the time of each track, hopefully, listed on the LP or tape covers. Once this process is complete, then you can copy and paste each track into a separate SoundEdit document and save them.There goes your second hour!

Third, launch the Ray Gun software to clean up the tracks.The time needed for this varies depending on the length of each track. You must first listen and adjust the filters. Then you must apply the filters. Then you must save the file. Let’s say a track is 5 minutes long. It will take 5 minutes to listen to it and adjust the filter. It will take another 5 minutes to apply the filter and write the track. There goes your third hour plus!

Fourth, if Ray Gun isn’t able to rid your recording of all of the unwanted pops, you now must launch SoundEdit, listen to each track, and delete all the pops that you have time for and the stamina to endure! This part is the most tedious of all and the most time consuming. Therefore, it’s very difficult to list a time frame for this process. At least another hour!

Fifth, and the final step. You must drop your tracks into Toast and burn the CD. I strongly recommend that you do a “simulation mode” first so you don’t make coasters! Simulation mode allows you to do everything necessary except burn the media. Sometimes, the write speed will be too fast for the data delivery speed, and you’ll get a message from Toast that you have a “buffer over run.” In plain English, this means that the CD-R can’t handle the data fast enough, so you must change the writing speed of the CD. Count on another hour for this process. However, it is not necessary to stay at the computer while the CD is actually being burned. You can go do laundry or something fun like that! Plan on about an hour for simulation, and an hour to write the CD!

With any luck, after all of the above, you’ll have a fully functional CD of your music! You can listen to it anywhere there is a CD player.

If any of you have a Sony CD/DVD player, I did run into a problem with recording media. It seems that blank Sony CD media works just fine. However, when I tried to use other brands of media, my Sony CD/DVD player would not recognize the CDs! I did discover if I used CD media specifically for recording music, that problem went away.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my two articles about “doing it.” If you have any questions concerning the process, please e-mail me and I’ll do my best to answer them for you. I am tentatively planning to do a presentation on the process at a future SMUG meeting, if enough of you indicate you would like to see me do IT!

Winston J. Willis is the Assistant Director of Information Services for the
Macintosh Computers at the Savannah Country Day School, the President and
CD Librarian of the Savannah Macintosh Users Group.