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Digitizing vinyl in late 2016

sticky_dojahsticky_dojah New York City. 2,136 Posts
edited October 2016 in Strut Central
Hey there,

just wanted to see what the General concensus is on digitzing Vinyl getting into 2017. From what I understand, running a turntable through a dj mixer of any kind is NAGL as they have several pre-amps built in that kind of mess with the sound? I'm currently looking into cutting out my pioneer mixer and going directly with an Apogee Duet via a good phono preamp into Audacity. Directly into the soundcard on my old mac is probably not the best option. What are you guys using/suggesting? From several conversations I had I kind of understand that the Apogee Duet is still somewhat the best soundcard/AD thing but which phono preamp does the job best these days in terms of sound/money? Getting a little confused here and hope the Strut can help....thanks guys!
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  Comments

  • serch4beatzserch4beatz Switzerland 521 Posts
    I run XLR cables from my rane ttm56 to my roland cakewalk ua25-ex and record in 24bit/96khz in Adobe Audition. EQ is off on the Rane so i don't think that tampers too much with the sound. Needle used is a shure whitelabel.
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,793 Posts
    I used an oldschool Vestax 07 which didn't seem to do any harm - I've compared my home recorded WAVs with CD mastered ones and the only real difference is the loudness of professional digi files. The home rec ones look much smoother and less blocky too  

    Use a turntable weight and cork slip mat to dampen vibrations, I remember Astro had rubber bands wrapped around his tone arm to absorb even more which I hadn't thought of, use a magnetic headshell stylus thing, and sacrfice 3 chickens to the ghost of James Brown, and you're good to go.
    sticky_dojah
  • sticky_dojahsticky_dojah New York City. 2,136 Posts
    Thanks for the feedback, keep 'em coming! Will look into the chicken thing!
  • spcspc 534 Posts
    I'm using a Technics 1210 MK5G with Jelco SA 750 tonearm, a Nagaoka MP500 needle, Lehmann Black Cube SE II preamp and going into a Universal Audio Apollo 16 audio interface ( changing that into an SSL Alpha Link next week).
    A good needle and preamp is the key I guess, and leaving enough headroom for you AD converter.
    And clean your records properly.
  • dj_cityboydj_cityboy 1,481 Posts
    I have been using my "same ol" setup, 1200 w/ M44-7 cart's RCA'd into my Vestax 08pro mixer lined into a Mackie 1604 mixing board recorded straight into Cool Edit Pro (shout-out to peter quistgard, lol) I have been doing this for a while now and I find my tracks come out more bass heavy than normal and a lot louder than the OG, in some cases I do this to create short instrumentals - I just did this for Lyte - Stop, Look, Listen, I digitized the track from vinyl then used the MP3 through Serato to create a short 2 bar loop, I recorded it for 4 minutes (as per usual) into Cool Edit and it came out sounding amazing (in my opinion and was much louder than the OG vinyl) I didn't use any EQ or anything..

    I don't play any show anymore so I don't have a big system to test what I have done to see if it sounds good elsewhere but I can notice a big difference here in the studio, I am working on a mix tape for a friend and have made quite a few instrumentals this same way all with the same effect, I just cant tell if it a good thing or not.

    I am sure someone with an ear for "BETTER" audio can hear how fuct up my shit sounds, I just don't hear it....
  • the_dLthe_dL 1,531 Posts
    I run through an old Stanton SA8 which reportedly had quite good pre amps, but I have been waiting for a single channel phono preamp from Medhi (the man behind https://condesaelectronics.com/ ) I occasionally run my vinyl rips through a multi pressor in logic if i need to play them at gigs.

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