Vinyl to mp3 Help Needed

King.Lewey

Easy all,

I've decided to try and organise myself in an attempt to up my game, by spending the last while or so logging all my wax onto my Discogs collection, as well as getting digital copies of all my records. Not going the Serato route but, well a) you never know I might flip one day and decide to so I'm getting the legwork done now and b) much more likely I can have my records on the ipod for listening to in the car etc. and have a more informed knowledge of my records and be the most amazing DJ in the world (as this is definitely what's holding me back).

My question, though, is about recording the records. At the moment I'm using a 1200 mkII, Butter Rug slip mat, M-44 carts to a Vestax PMC-07 into a Tascam US-122 via USB to Sound Forge 10.0, Windows 7 64 Bit. I'm recording at 44,100 Hz 16 Bit Stereo.

I'm also setting the volume low so that I can increase the volume and not have it peak out as obviously I'm not watching the EQs all the time, and the first record I recorded sounded shite so I'm compensating and will raise the volume to just below peak on the program before chopping into individual tracks. What I'm wondering, though, is am I doing myself a mischief by doing that (recording low)?

If, for instance, I ever do decide to use the mp3s in a Serato set will it then sound awful over a PA or club soundsystem? Am I using the right settings as far as recording? I've only ever recorded mixtapes which have been played at their loudest in the car (if not travelling through FM airwaves beforehand). I'm also saving them at 320kbps mp3 as I believe this is good enough for club use? Or am I shooting myself in the foot? Not sure I have the HD space for FLACs or .wav's, plus I already have quite a lot I've downloaded in 320kbps anyway.

This is a very long winded way of asking, "how do I record a vinyl to mp3" I realise, but then I've been entering data into Discogs for while, staring at it like it's my Wilson...

Any help appreciated, although I'm hoping for a 'yeah you're fine'

mannybolone

Is that the *best* possible chain? No. If you were really going to sweat sound quality you'd want to upgrade your carts, and replace both your pre-amp and digitizing unit. But that said, if your main goal is ripping stuff for club use then yeah, you're fine.

I wouldn't do MP3s, I'd do lossless. Personally, I can't tell the difference but the working DJs I know swear by it.

Hard drive space is like nothing so I don't think this should be an area of concern. It'd be a relatively small expense compared to upgrading a better needle/cart or replacing your analog-digital converter with something like an Apogee Duet.

Horseleech

A simple upgrade you could do is to put the rubber mat back on the platter. Archiving should never be done with a slip mat. A lot of people don't realize how much better a 1200 sounds with the rubber mat, in fact the engineers who designed the 1200 spent more time on the mat than almost any other part.

As far as recording, I always do it as loud as possible without any peaking - there's no advantage to doing it quietly. And I would replace the 44 with a White Label if you feel like spending the money.

mannybolone

Horseleech said:

A simple upgrade you could do is to put the rubber mat back on the platter. Archiving should never be done with a slip mat. A lot of people don't realize how much better a 1200 sounds with the rubber mat, in fact the engineers who designed the 1200 spent more time on the mat than almost any other part.

As far as recording, I always do it as loud as possible without any peaking - there's no advantage to doing it quietly. And I would replace the 44 with a White Label if you feel like spending the money.

These are all winning ideas. Especially restoring the rubber mat.

King.Lewey

Thanks gents. That Apogee Duet looks nice I'd love to get one! Seems they're only for Macs though??

Good point with the rubber mat, will have to have a look into getting one, the decks didn't have them when I bought them (second hand). At the moment I'm using those Thud Rumble Butter Rugs which are paper thin so yeah probably not doing myself any favors there.

As I say though, I'm not recording all this to play in a club but want to make sure I'm not shooting myself in the foot should I ever want to. I think I'll stick with the 320 mp3s as I can whack them on the ipod that way (don't think ipods play lossless??)

The only reason I was recording quietly is so I don't have to keep an eye on the levels; if it peaked out I'd have to re-record it and as I'm sitting there ripping 12's anyway listening to radio, street, instrumental I'm trying to keep it to a minimum I'm going to turn the level up a bit more though so I don't have to add so much gain when chopping into tracks and saving. Sounds like I haven't completely wasted my time with what I've done so far but can definitely improve what I'm doing, thanks again chaps.

ost

Go loseless for the audio files. mp3's will probably be obsolete somewhere in the near future. In terms of loseless choices go with something that can hold tags such as Flac or Aiff. If you plan on using Serato, the flac might be an issue because they only just started to support that format. I made the mistake of going with .wav in the past & just ended up getting irritated to death having to retag the files everytime I imported a library from my external hard drive. In terms of signal chains I would get at least one good cartridge or needle for ripping. M44's may be good for scratching but the sound isn't that great imo.

overflo

I wouldn't record in low. You want to record the level as "hot" as possible without it peaking/clipping.