Impressions after switching from Audacity, ClickRepair and MP3Tag

[Andy Morris]

Up until now I've been using a combination of Audacity, ClickRepair (from the late Brian Davies and MP3Tag to record, clean up, convert to MP3 and tag all my records and a few crates of 78's inherited from my father.  After seeing the recent video and having a nagging worry about ClickRepair being unsupported, I took the plunge and bought the pro version of VinylStudio.

Reason to switch

Too many stages
With my old workflow I had to swap between recorded into Audacity at 32 bits to avoid being too fussy about levels, amplify down to 0db, export as a wav.

Then I processed that thru 3 (LPs) or 4(78s) stages of the ClickRepair process for Equalisation (78s), Low frequency noise, ClickRepair itself and then Noise reduction.

Then reimport into Audacity, normalise, split tracks and export mp3 into a new folder.

Open that folder in MP3Tag to get info from Discogs, look up using the release code, convert the filenames to match the tracks

Drag the new folder over to where my music player will find them

ClickRepair is unsupported
Since the death of Brian Davis no one is supporting it, and no one can get a new license

Too many Files and Folders
Each of the of the stages in the ClickRepair suit creates a new file, so when I have finished, I have four of five wav files and the Audacity file itself. All big chunky data, that I'm loth to delete

Rework and spot fixes were painful.
The ClickRepair programs work well when processing the full file, but do not really allow spot fixes. So, if there is a short section that needs more aggressive processing, I split the track around it, export a short wav file, process that as heavily as I need, reimport that back into Audacity and cut and paste it into the right place. 

If I hear a click that I have missed I have to find it in Audacity, split the track, export, process it in ClickRepair, drag it back to click repair, redo the export and tagging and copying to my player. 

First Impressions

Speed
Its as quick or quicker than ClickRepair and Audacity

Focused
Just about everything is there with none of the options that have no use in ripping records.

Looks old fashioned
The look out the box is a bit Windows 95. I'm an old fart, so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it might put off younger users.

The 'classic' look does give the impression that it's not an actively supported system.

Learning Curve
It always takes a while to get used to new tools, but after a few hours playing with it I was confident that I could produce results as good as my old setup.

Its not obvious how the filters, normalisation, equalisation and click repair interact with each other. I'm assuming that click repair is done first and then the filters are applied on playback or when tracks are saved

The manual repair works well to deal with any clicks missed. It took me a while to discover how to use patch repair to deal with longer defects.

Impressions after using for a while

Stuff I Miss from my old process.
ClickRepair has a program DeNoiseLF 2.8 that removes a 10hz rumble from my turntable that the VinylStudio rumble filter does not get. I couldn't make sense of the help file entry under "Editing Files Outside VinylStudio" but worked out that its relatively easy to drop the wav file from the collection folder into DeNoiseLF and then pick up the new file using "check for changes"

I set up a macro in Audacity that would allow me to listen to the differences between my original recording and the fully processed file. This was handy to see if the processing had taken a dislike to rimshots and the like.

In MP3Tag I could use track identifiers like A1, A2...B1,B2. I could fill in the Disk Tag and I added a custom tag to store the Discogs release ID, which I can use in my player to open a browser window on the releases Discogs page. Vinyl Studio seems to be limited to numeric track numbers, I tried to add custom tags for disc and release id but they did not get thru to the MP3s 

Stuff I love
The way one can go back and forth between repairing and reworking is great. Getting the Discogs data before recoding or importing works really well and the way it will export into my music player in the correct folder makes it much easier to correct defects not caught at the time of the original ripping.

One thing I hate
Brass Protection show up as green lines on a blue background, which is very difficult to see.

Overall
I got used to the new process very quickly, I am a convert, the overall process is smoother, uses less disc space and allows for rework is great. I will probably keep using DeNoiseLF 2.8 until my turntable dies

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi Andy,

Thanks very much for providing such a detailed rundown.  I will respond in more detail when time permits.  Other contributors please feel free to chip in - Paul.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hello again,

Now that I have a bit more time, here is a more considered response to your post.  Thanks again for contributing.  So:

> Its as quick or quicker than ClickRepair and Audacity

Quicker, surely.  The click scanner is really fast, for example.

> The look out the box is a bit Windows 95. I'm an old fart, so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it might put off younger users.

> The 'classic' look does give the impression that it's not an actively supported system.

This is true but there's a reason for it: we need to do things a certain way to (also) support the Mac.  At least it's better than it used to be!  And the software is most certainly actively supported, as you will see in a moment.

> It always takes a while to get used to new tools, but after a few hours playing with it I was confident that I could produce results as good as my old setup.

Good to know, because Click Repair sets a high bar.

> Its not obvious how the filters, normalisation, equalisation and click repair interact with each other. I'm assuming that click repair is done first and then the filters are applied on playback or when tracks are saved

Im a nutshell, yes.

> The manual repair works well to deal with any clicks missed. It took me a while to discover how to use patch repair to deal with longer defects.

Noted, TU.

> Stuff I Miss from my old process.

> ClickRepair has a program DeNoiseLF 2.8 that removes a 10hz rumble from my turntable that the VinylStudio rumble filter does not get.

That should be fixed in VS 14, due out some time in the coming week.

> In MP3Tag I could use track identifiers like A1, A2...B1,B2. I could fill in the Disk Tag and I added a custom tag to store the Discogs release ID, which I can use in my player to open a browser window on the releases Discogs page. Vinyl Studio seems to be limited to numeric track numbers, I tried to add custom tags for disc and release id but they did not get thru to the MP3s

Strange, that should work.  We need to follow this up, please ping me through the website.

> Stuff I love

> The way one can go back and forth between repairing and reworking is great. Getting the Discogs data before recoding or importing works really well and the way it will export into my music player in the correct folder makes it much easier to correct defects not caught at the time of the original ripping.

Excellent, that's exactly what we were shooting for.

> One thing I hate

> Brass Protection show up as green lines on a blue background, which is very difficult to see.

OK, will review.

> I got used to the new process very quickly, I am a convert, the overall process is smoother, uses less disc space and allows for rework is great. I will probably keep using DeNoiseLF 2.8 until my turntable dies.

> Yes, that's the whole idea.  And VS 14 should fix the rumble filter.

[Andy Morris]

> Brass Protection show up as green lines on a blue background, which is very difficult to see.

OK, will review.

I should have mentioned I'm working on a 4k monitor 

 I found the "thick lines" option - works a treat 

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Cool, thank you.  I got your email and will respond in a day or two.