Anyone else ripping their old vinyl LPs?

I got an iPod in December last year and have been listening to my ripped CDs a lot. Even ones I had grown tired of and wouldn't pick to listen to a whole CD. I have about 2300 songs from CDs.

The last couple of weekends I "ripped" some of my old LPs using Audio Cleaning Lab (from Magix). Most of them are in good shape though the program can de-click and de-crackle the albums. It automatically figures out where the tracks begin and then you just need to name them and export them as separate WAV files. (Then I use iTunes to convert them to 128kbps AAC).

Songs that run together are tough for ACL so what I've done is just make a song that contains both songs (or the whole side like I did with Dark Side of the Moon). I like listening to them that way anyway, since that's how I (barely) remember them.

I mostly listen at a low sound level (at work, to mask the conversations I don't want to listen to) so the sound is just fine to me.

Some of these albums I haven't listened to since I got into CDs (20 years ago) so they are almost like new music to me. Free and legal too. Most of them I wouldn't buy a CD to get the music, but they are nice to hear once in a while in a playlist (I usually do 1/3 new, 1/3 least recently listened to, and 1/3 random).

I've done about 15 albums but have 100 more to go. The downside is the 1x ripping speed. Maybe if I played them at 45 rpm and somehow pitch converted them

Greg

Recent rips:

Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon.
Split Ens, 3 albums.
Alan Parson's Project, 2 albums.
Manfred Mann, 3 albums.

No insulting my 1980's taste in music. I bought them in the 80's after all! Late 70's too I guess.

Greg

Not much vinyl (except some old Firesign Theatre) but I've ripped a lot of tapes.My wife and I have many archival tapes of live performances we've worked on over the last 20 years. Mostly comedy shows. As you said, the 1x speed is a killer. I've also found that virtually all of the old Memorex cassettes we have shows on have dead pads. The tapes are fine, though. I bought a Head Cleaning Cassette that skrews together and put the tape in that. I then rip it, throw the tape away and put another bad one into the same body. PITA, but it works. I can't bring myself to use Memorex CD any more, though...

That's cool. All of my old tapes are dubs of my LPs or CDs so no need to rip them. If I still had my 8-tracks that would be another story

Greg

I've used Audio Cleaning Labs to transfer some old cassetes and reel-to-reel to CD, I was pretty happy with the results. The crack and pop eliminator works as advertised, but using too much filtering affects the sound noticably. I kept one copy as a straight unfiltered copy, and did the filtering on a second copy, just in case a newer and better program comes out, I don't have to go and re-record everything.

I thought about this just the other day. What would I need to even rip some vinyl to WMP? I think I could even handle the crakle and pops!

The sound card built into my PC (2001 vintage) has 16-bit 44.1kHz A/D converters so I didn't need to buy anything for that. I just had to buy a RCA to mini-headphone cable to connect the line out of my receiver to the computer. And the Audio Cleaning Labs software (http://site.magix.net/english-us/home/music/audio-cleaning-lab-10/).

The software can clean up the crackle and pops but there are limits before it affects the sound. One thing you can do is cut the track into sections and apply different filtering to each section. So if there is a scratch for the first two minutes of the first song, cut it into a separate section and crank up the de-pop filter, then for the rest of the side have it set low or off. That way you don't have to screw up the whole side just to fix a problem area.

Greg

Sub_Umbra:
(except some old Firesign Theatre)

Click to expand...

Wow, Sub...I should have known. :laughing: A friend turned me on to them in the late 70's...funny stuff.


Thanks for the software suggestions guys, I plan on ripping my old vinyl albums (about 150) and my old cassettes (about 200) after we move. I know it will be labor intensive but, hey, I payed for that music.

I'm not going to let the RIAA intimidate me into paying again for digital versions of the same recordings. :thumbsdow