Thanks so much for your comments here. Clickrepair is quite accurate in its work (without affecting anything but the clicks) and does not require lengthy editing times, so you may want to try it.

Phil

For recording I use a B&O 3404 turntable with a MMC 20EN cartridge (I use a nearly new cartridge for digitizing vinyl) and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2.0 sound card.

For post processing, I use Adobe Audition 2.0. My process for removing clicks, pops, noise, etc. is to view the recording spectra (Spectral Frequency Display) and then remove undesired defects using the “Repair Transient” function. It is a VERY time consuming process but it results in virtually noise-free results. In particular, I found that in order to get superior results, I have to identify and repair/remove defects as small as two to three milliseconds. As a rule of thumb, I estimate 30 minutes of post processing time for every 1 minute of recording time AND that’s for the average quality LP.

For example, I digitized Thelonious Monk’s “Always Know”, two LP set. The first track is about two minutes in length. Removing the clicks, pops, etc. from that single track took nearly 40 minutes! Well worth it because “Always Know” was an is currently not available for sale in digital format.

Lacking the hard to find/out of print CD, one of my first efforts was to digitize “Lets Have a Party” by Roomful of Blues. Subsequent to spending a few hours on that labor of love, I came across a copy of the CD. I compared my digitized version to the CD on my high end audio equipment and found the overall sound quality of the digitized vinyl superior to the CD. I attribute that to (a) the quality of my post processing and (b) the CD was not remastered for CD, i.e., there are times when digitized vinyl is better and there are times when its not; your mileage may vary :-)

My advice – if you can buy a recording in digital format save your self a LOT of time and avoid digitizing LPs and other analog formated recordings.

Also, I found ClickFix click and pop removal software to be easy to use and lightning fast but provide inferior results, compared to what I could/can do using Adobe Audition. i.e., ClickFix is easy and fast but it either removes too little noise, too much music, or both. If audio restoration was akin to surgery, Audition would equate to using a scalpel; ClickFix would be equivalent to using an axe.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the transferring. I am finding a significant difference between 24 bit (which I now always use) and 16 bit, but can’t tell much of a difference between 44100 and 96000 (so I’ve been sticking to 44100, or 48000 for DVD concerts to wave transfers).

Phil

Peace.

Sorry I took so long to respond. As to your question, I believe that the quality of soundcard will be important either way (analogue or digital, although there will be less conversion involved in your planned approach).

Thanks for the suggestion re FLAC. I’ll check it out.

Phil

Glad you’re finding audacity works well.

Phil

I’ve just started using Audacity to transfer my LP’s and I totally agree that it’s a great programme and the results are brilliant. I even think the ‘Click repair’ works pretty well too!

My built-in soundcard has a digital audio input, so I am planning to get the music from my amp to my PC digitally. Does the quality of the built-in soundcard still matter when doing this?
And secondly, my turntable is a direct-drive Technics SL-6. It has a parallel/tangential tonearm driven by an electronic servomechanism. How does such a model rack up in terms of audio quality?

And then I might have one suggestion for you: instead of using WAVE or AIFF, I suggest you try FLAC. It is a lossless compression format, also supporting 32-bit sampling, and it is widely supported. Audacity can export to it, most media players can play it, and even my portable MP3 player supports it. Quality will be the same as for WAVE files, but the files are about half the size. It’s the equivalent of a ZIP compression, but optimised for audio data.

Cheers

I’m doing a high-res drop of Cobham’s “Spectrum” right now and was looking for info on whether/not to use “Pitch Protection” w/Click Repair and/or utilize the presets. I’ll give it a shot at level 30 w/pitch protection and see what gives.

Peace.