SwingDJs

Hey Y'all-

I have a bunch of fine old 78s; alot of which have never been digitally remastered and re-released on CD. (One record is actually autographed by Glen Gray!).

I know all about the legal ramifications and arguments about copying/burning music- but my dilemma is that while I try not to encourage piracy, I can't find these songs on any of the released material.

Some of the records are in pretty good shape, others not so. What I need to know is this- who in this forum has burned from 78s, and if so, how do you do it? What is the best way to preserve the sound of the recordings?

Thanks in advance.

If you check the old Yahoogroups archive, I remember a discussion a while back where a stylus for 78's was mentionned. It reads from the side of the groove as opposed from the bottom of it. This way, it reads from the less damaged part of the groove.

You might want to get one of these before mastering your 78's.

If you are lucky to have two of a kind, you might want to record each one and line up the .WAV files. (One for left and the other for the right). This way, if you have a pop or a damaged part on one wav it might be undamaged on the other. (You could copy-paste the undamaged part over the damaged part).


Noise reduction:

I've used Cool Edit Pro for this:
To get rid of some of the background humm or hissing, Try to find in your recorded wave file a break in the music or a pause between songs where you can get a sample of the noise of the room (a part which is supposed to be silence). You can select that part with Cool Pro to eliminate the background hissing.

I haven't mastered 78's but I've mastered some songs from a few LP's and from audio cassettes.

Jacques

There's a whole thread on 78rpm records over in the tech section.

Capsule summary: you can do it, but you need to have a special needle, a speed-adjustable 78rpm turntable, and a microphone amp (versus the usual equalizing turntable amps). You'll also want software to clean up all the pops, clicks, and hiss.

Here is Marcelo's patented noise reduction trick for mastering scratchy vinyl. This is based off of Dolby's standards for type-B noise reduction, and is basically a roughed up version of that. You will need a sound editor for this (I recommend Pro Tools Free):

1. Cut everything above 8k and below 120 Hz. The 78 wouldn't be able to pick that up anyways.

2. Compress the sound to the point where you can't hear the background noise anymore. Save this audio file (so it's a different file than the original recording). Sometimes compressors might do more harm than good (lowering the gap between music and noise) - in this case, instead of using a compressor with a threshold, etc., just make a softer file - turn the volume down till the hiss is gone (or at least tolerable).

3. Expand the new file to a level comparable to the original. Use the softest musical note you can hear as your threshold. If you've done it right, the static and hiss should have fallen below the threshold during the compression and won't be expanded with the rest of the audio. Voila.

Yes, this actually works quite nicely.

Daddy Nailhead wrote:I know all about the legal ramifications and arguments about copying/burning music- but my dilemma is that while I try not to encourage piracy, I can't find these songs on any of the released material.

Just curious: how would copying music from a record and then burning it to a CD be different, legally, from copying music from a CD and burning it to a CD? In both cases you own the original recording, and you're not giving or selling the music to somebody else, but are copying/burning it for your personal use. Are there legal issues raised by records and not by CDs? Thanks.

Matthew wrote:Just curious: how would copying music from a record and then burning it to a CD be different, legally, from copying music from a CD and burning it to a CD? In both cases you own the original recording, and you're not giving or selling the music to somebody else, but are copying/burning it for your personal use. Are there legal issues raised by records and not by CDs? Thanks.

My understanding of the legal issues involved here is that you can copy that 78 to any media you want for your own use. In general, there's really no legal problem with this as long as you don't sell it. It's the same law for tape/record/vhs etc. Things are slightly different for digital media, but falls under the same basic rules.

Question on transferring from one media to CD.
If the original is in Mono, are you better off making the recording in Stereo or Mono?
Second, what it the best input volume level into you computer, in order to get the best quality recording?
If recording an old LoFi, what bit level and file size level is best?

Thanks
Bob