My experience with vinystudio
I have tried a number of times to convert analogue to digital without a satisfactory result, so this Christmas season I decided to try again. Lets face it, most of us only wish to do this once. So it follows to capture the vinyl at the highest quality, with properly formatted metadata and then save in a lossless format.
Congratulations on an excellent product, which has a good balance of instruction and workflow. A few observations:
A very unpleasant part of past endeavours was finding the metadata and assigning it to an album. VinylStudio's approach removes the drudgery and the amount of manual editing. Huge plus!
I will use the recording software infrequently, so ease of use is an important consideration. The linking in VinylStudio is great. It reminds be of Lister's Reunion where that company's aim was no printed manual. Similarly this has been successfully achieved in VinylStudio.
The non destructive Clean Up functions are a leap forward.
I have three questions.
MP3. I have been using the opensource LAME encoder with iTunes to convert CD tracks to MP3s with great success.
Is it possible to use LAME's preset setting called
--alt- preset insane.
Or is there an equivalent in VinylStudio?
Audio Units or VST. Any plans to integrate these effects?
Preamp. The large and heavy amplifier ( in an enclosed cabinet) connected to the home stereo has a preamp, yep it's old, but the idea of disconnecting the mass of wiring, pulling it out and moving to another room was a huge disincentive to transferring vinyl. Previously, I had tried a $20, 9 volt battery/mains powered preamp a few years ago and the output was noisy, so this time I decided to obtain a small (computer powered i.e. USB or firewire) preamp. After reading multiple reviews I decided on the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2, with the intent to only use its preamp input/output NOT the additional A/D converter and USB output. I connected the turntable to the preamp side of the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2, then to an Apogee DUET and finally via firewire to the MAC.
I have been to the link
www.alpinesoft.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18.0 concerning the disabled slider but couldn't find an answer to this macintosh specific issue (2.66 GHZ Quad-core Intel Xeon, OS 10.6.2). The Apogee DUET is mac only.
I have ended up with three scenarios and seek advice on the best option.
Option 1. As per the direction in the Apogee DUET videos, I routed from the turntable through the ARTcessories phono-preamp, then from its RCA line out into the Apogee DUET's XLR input, set to -10dBV (Apogee don't explain why they use XLR) and then out of the DUET via firewire to become the digital sound input/output for the macintosh. With this setup the gain trim knob on the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2 was adjusted to show minimal clipping on the "Clip Signal LED" (i.e. an occasional flash of red), the slider in VinylStudio was disabled and the VinylStudio "recording level indicators" were peaking at 25% of their maximum.
Option 2. I then tried using the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2 as both a preamp and A/D converter. While I was using USB to power the device it was also sending a digital output via USB so I switched to the USB codec (bypassing the DUET) and in VinylStudio the input and the slider once again was disabled but now the "recording level indicators" were peaking at 50% of their maximum, when the ARTcessories gain trim was increased on the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2 to show clipping on the "Clip Signal LED". (i.e. an occasional flash of red).
Option 3. Same as Option 1, except I took the ARTcessories USBPhonoplus V2 RCA line out and routed it to the RCA Line input on the Apogee DUET and then I was able to use the Apogee DUET's amp and increase the DUET's gain control until VinylStudios "recording level indicators" were showing clipping at about 75% of their maximum.
Because option 1 was Apogee's recommendation, I'm hesitant to change, but to the untrained ( i.e. me) it would appear option 3 will give a musical input well above the noise threshold. From my reading on this matter this gives the best possible input and potentially negates the need for normalising.
Also I cannot find a normalising function in VinylStudio.
Any recommendations on the best option.
Once again, a great product. I wish and you deserve success