The Joys of Vinyl

[richardfinegold]

Along with ordering the Technics 1500 yesterday (I splurged and ordered a Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge, because the seller (an audio dealer in British Columbia that took it in trade in) told me the included cartridge wasn't very good. The cartridge cost a few dollars more than the price of the entire table.), I had been sitting on my wife's old family Garrard G10, an entry level table from back in the day. Her mother is clearing house and thought I would want it. The thing is encased in dust, the belt and platter are worn to a frazzle, and the dust cover hinge is broken. It probably hasn't been played this century. The second hand lp store that I went to to buy a few albums for the Technics offers to retype styli, and my wife has a sentimental attachment to the belle of the ball, so I thought what the heck and did that. Now I'm becoming a real vinylista

[Lordgeous]

Audacity is pretty good as an audio editor, though I think some more expensive software might be even better for some things. DAWs are also very good - for example for adding in “ambience”, though they wouldn’t help much with over reverberant recordings. Also to get more out of DAWs it would help to have more separate inputs - something the recording companies do have access to with their multi-track recordings. OTOH many of the really good earlier recordings were made with only a few microphones. Really depends what kind of processing one wants to do with LPs. Probably click and hiss removal or suppression, and maybe also low frequency rumble or other LF noise suppression. I even had to do LF suppression on one EMI CD recording - I used Audacity - as there was audible mains frequency noise - but it has to be done “gently” so as not to remove all the wanted LF. That’s perhaps where a DAW could help by generating two DAW tracks - one with the unwanted LF noise removed and one “as is”. Then listen to the tracks combined, and whenever there is significant bass end “wanted” sound bias the mix towards the track without the noises removed - as the wanted sound should mask the noise. Too severe noise removal at the low end will tend to sound thin, but switching rapidly between tracks can also give very obvious audible effects. Trying to patch in “good” sections can be surprisingly difficult. One has to take a view on whether it is worthwhile as it might take quite along time to get a really good result, rather than one which is merely “good enough”. After all most of us are likely to be amateur music enthusiasts rather than recording engineers trying to make a living by selling remastered copies.

You're probably aware that there are plug-ins which enable you to tune mains hum & buzz out, along with associated harmonics. I have the Waves version which works extremely well. Also the noise, crackle & clik removal tools which I use with varying degrees of success on 78s and vinyl.

[Lordgeous]

I always enjoy comparing two Mahler Symphony recordings, of the Third and Fourth, respectively. Both feature Jascha Horenstein conducting, the LSO and LPO, respectively. The LSO recording of the Third was a pathbreaker in its day. It was recently rereviewed by Gramophone, and they complained that the CD transfer ruined the recording with greatly distorted balances. The Fourth with the LPO was released on CfP originally and those lps are terrible, very dim sounding documents. The CD version was much better.

So it can go either way

I'm suprised re Mahler 3. I still have the LPs (unplayed for years), but the CDs sound pretty stunning to my ears and though it WAS a multi-track recording (the first for a classical work I understand), I can't believe they would go to the trouble of re-mixing it for thr CD issue. Maybe someone here knows more???

[Bryn]

I'm suprised re Mahler 3. I still have the LPs (unplayed for years), but the CDs sound pretty stunning to my ears and though it WAS a multi-track recording (the first for a classical work I understand), I can't believe they would go to the trouble of re-mixing it for thr CD issue. Maybe someone here knows more???

There has also been more than one CD release of that recording of the 3rd. The one I have is part of a set of completed Mahler Symphonies in a Brilliant Classics boxed set with various performers. Which version was moaned about?