loudness of vinyl rips (serato related)
finelikewine
"ONCE UPON A TIME, I HAD A VINYL." http://www.discogs.com/user/permabulker 1,416 Posts
Whenever I digitize a song from vinyl and add it to serato, the playback is lot more quiet than the songs I bought from online stores or the ones I ripped from cds. This happens even if I normalize the ripped track to 0 db in audacity and even I use the auto gain feature in serato. The wave forms of the vinyl rips look thinner in serato as well. Am I doing something wrong or is it because of difference in mastering of vinyl and digital formats? Is there an easy fix for this issue?
Comments
I guess the way to level out the difference in volume is to use some sort of limiting/compression on the ripped track.
Most likely something along these lines.
When I'm sampling/ripping vinyl, I do it through one of these:
ART USB Dual Tube Pre
It's a two channel tube preamp that also acts as a pretty transparent optical compressor/limiter. It also has a pretty decent usb audio interface, so you can go turntable --> preamp --> laptop easily. About $100.
for simple recordings I use Audacity and for more complex audio processing I use abelton with it's included audio effects units..
yea, im using a 62
Audacity probably has something similar, whether it's a compressor or limiter or what. I'm not familiar with the software though, so I can't help with it.
I don't know Audacity features all that well, but this is how you can fix it in Pro Tools:
- Use Normalize effect to "analyze" the track. You'll get a reading like "-1.6dB" if you didn't redline your recording.
- Locate the errant peak and highlight it.
- Use the Gain effect, apply somewhere like -5 to -10 dB.
- repeat as needed, Analyzing each time until there are no bad peaks.
- Normalize.
warning : it's a bitch to do correctly and you'll likely hear your patch ups when played loud.
2nd warning: if the pop/click is dead centre inside of the music, don't bother. Just add Gain to the track (it will redline in a few spots briefly).
I used to rip shit on my old fire wire m-box with audacity and was never happy with the results.
I'm updating my laptop and needless to say the fire wire m-box is out as well.
Anyone got any suggestions for a replacement ? Was looking at apogee but is it worth the dollars ?
I also had the same problem. I use the same Roland soundcard as you, some magnetic audiophile cart (name???), a Vestax 07 pro, and audacity. About 90% of my vinyl rips are noticeably quieter than a WAV or FLACC download. I didn't want to redline my files. Digitising records is a pain, because 99% of a track might peak just below the red, and if it's an old 60s-70s track, there can be one single bass drum kick that will suddenly go over and you have to re-record with just a little less gain.
So I went back to audacity and tried to find a solution there.
When you open audacity, the "default" display of your sound input is at the top of the screen, at the top right, sharing space with some other functions/another toolbar to the left of the screen.
So I dragged the input toolbar down a level, and extended it (made it BIGGER). Now I could see the input level in more detail, and set the gain louder without going into the red.
The last 10% of my audio rips are roughly at the same loudness as my digital files. I don't think I'd be able to hear a difference. I have noticed as well that digital files I've purchased look huge. I suspect that vinyl surface noise, that "warmth" that we love, is contributing an additional layer of sound which means you'll never be able to digitise a record into a sound file that looks as large/sounds quite as loud as a straight digital file.
For the purpose of using Ableton or something, slightly quieter files won't be much of a problem as you just turn them up... better to have recorded cautiously than going for volume and getting distorted peaks IMHO.
For burning WAVs to CDs for mixing, which is what I intend to do, I guess I'll just have to check the volume levels by ear when I'm cueing up tracks. It's a minor inconvenience.
And for the missing volume difference at the end just use your faders.