My method of converting LP's to CD.

Dave Alfstad · Post by **Dave Alfstad** » 3 Jun 2002 7:58 am

I just had some correspondance with a guy asking me about my process for converting LP's to CD. I wrote him back and then I thought that since this topic comes up from time to time here, I would share with y'all what I wrote him. I'm sure everyone has a different way they do this and still have very good results. I'm not saying my way is the best but after a LOT of messing with it this works best for me. Here is what I wrote:
-----------------------
Here is roughly the process and programs that I use to convert LP's to CD. Nothing is set in stone, this works for most LP's but sometimes I run into something that makes me change the way I do it.

1. I record the LP onto my computer. I plug the turntable into a reciever/amplifier and then run out of the record out from the receiver into the Line In jack on my soundcard. I use COOL EDIT 2000 for recording and for most of the editing that I do.

2. After the LP is recorded I use COOL EDIT 2000 to edit the space between the songs. I want dead silence after the songs and right up to where the next song starts. I always put .33 (one third) of a second of dead silence before the first song and I put 3.33 (Three and one third) seconds of dead silence between each song. I also like to put about 2 seconds of silence after the last song. The reason that I use 3.33 seconds between songs is so when I split them up I can have .33 second before the song and 3 seconds after it. Also, I fade the ending of the songs to dead silence so it is a more subtle change. I don't necessarily fade during the music...I usually fade during the silence follwing it. This is a very quck fade, maybe a third of a second at the most. If the song itself fades out, I might do a long gradual fade during the ending so that it sounds normal.

3. After I've edited the space between the songs I de-click the entire WAV. I use one of two plug-in programs that I have for COOL EDIT 2000. One is called Audio Cleanup and is made by the people that make COOL EDIT. The other is called De-Click for Cool Edit 2000 and was written by a guy named Michael Paar from Germany. When I can get away with it I use the Audio Cleanup because I think it is more thorough. However, sometimes with things that have harmonica, female vocals, or horns it makes it sound funny. This is when I use Michael Paar's De-Click program because it won't do that. After the automatic de-clicking is done I go through and look for clicks that it might have missed (I usually find some) and if they are bad enough I will manually remove them. I am in the process of converting over 300 LP's for a buddy of mine right now so I can't be too picky. Luckily, the automatic de-clicking programs that I have work really good.

4. After the WAV sounds clean I save it and move on to another program. It is called CDWAV and its only purpose is to split the big WAV into individual tracks. This is VERY easy to do...put the marker where you want the split and hit the split button. Do this between every song and check all the track boxes and save it, voila! I always (unless it is a live recording with no space between tracks) split the tracks so that I leave about one-third of a second of silence before the music starts. This will leave three seconds of dead silence at the end of the previous track. That is why I put in the dead silence as I described earlier. After saving the split tracks move to step 5.

5. I use CDex for the next task of normalizing the WAV's individually so that they are at the proper volume for a cd. You can normalize with COOL EDIT but you will have to open each track individually and normalize it then save it. When I use CDex I just select all the tracks and check the normalize box and let her go. When you have all the tracks normalized you are ready for burning them to a cd. By the way...if I am doing a live album I normalize the whole WAV file at once with COOL EDIT before I go onto splitting the tracks. You can do this with a non-live album too but you may not get the proper normalization level for each individual song. That's it!

This may sound like a LOT of work, and sometimes it can be. But I've got it down to a routine now and I can do a whole album in about an hour...maybe an hour and a half. Sometimes the results are AMAZING...I've done some stuff that you would never guess came from an old LP. Such are the Strangers' LP's. They cleaned up WONDERFULLY! Other times you just get it as good as you can and get on with life. I always keep in mind that these ARE coming from vinyl and most of this stuff is out of print. It's funny...I used to listen to an old scratchy LP and it never bothered me. I just enjoyed the music. Now when I hear a pop or click it drives me crazy because I'm used to listening for them to remove them. I'm not sure this is entirely a good thing. It's not hard to get overly anal about all this...but it's hard to go back once you've been there.
--------------------------

I hope this helps those of you interested in this.

Dave Alfstad
Indianola, Iowa[This message was edited by Dave Alfstad on 03 June 2002 at 09:01 AM.]

Tommy Mc · Post by **Tommy Mc** » 5 Jun 2002 6:42 am

Dave, Thanks for that info. As you say, there are many ways to do it. I use a similar routine, but with different software.

I use 'Polderbits' to record AND split the files. I like Polderbits because it is simple to use, and will auto-split, or let you set the track splits manually. I do the manual split, and that is when I edit out the silence between tracks. With Polderbits, you can also set start and end points to the fade, although I rarely use that. Cool Edit is great software....and I use it for other things, but Polderbits is made specifically for the purpose of recording LPs and splitting them into tracks.

Then I use 'DePopper' for noise reduction AND normalization. Again, a real simple but effective program. It does as good a job as Cool Edit, but is simpler (IMHO) and you can batch process the already split tracks...and normalize at the same time.

For burning, I use Nero.....just because it's the burning program I have. Actually, I have CDex too, but only use it for converting formats.

For what it's worth, if I had found CoolEdit first, I wouldn't go out and buy Polderbits ($12) and DePopper ($19) But having the choice...... for recording LPs, I find this routine simpler.

Frank · Post by **Frank** » 13 Jun 2002 1:58 am

Hi Tommy And Dave, I appreciat your sharing your techniques for rerecording.
I have close to 200 albums, not to mention the old 78`s from the big band era, and over 250 cassets. I`d like to put some if not all on cd but have been unable to find the programs to do it.
Can you advise where to purchase the programs that you use, I`ve tried Comp USA and Computer Warehouse here in Memphis.
Thanks for your help. Frank.

Tommy Mc · Post by **Tommy Mc** » 13 Jun 2002 4:56 pm

Frank, I'll email you some links. All of the programs I use are small downloads.

Also, there are tons of freeware/shareware music programs here: http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/
[This message was edited by Tommy Mc on 13 June 2002 at 07:17 PM.]