For this I do a two-part, and sometimes a 3-part method. For this you will need: LP Cleaning Kit (RadioShack Cat#42-117 $8, or Discwasher's) (It's basically some cleaning fluid and a padded velour brush. Make sure you use it in the right direction!) a new sponge, Fantastik cleaning spray, water.
Depending on how nasty the record is, you might want to try different amounts and orders of these methods: (or other methods entirely! Send me mail with your comments!
1.1 First, clean any easy-to-get oils and dirt off of the record. My turntable can only go up to 45rpm, So i set it on 45, with the record on the turntable, and the stylus "cued" or raised off of the record. Next get your sponge and squeeze a lot of the water out of it, leaving a fairly liberal amount still in it. Then lightly press the sponge down on the record. You should see the water sheen off onto the platter. slowly move the sponge in and out, until the sheen covers the entire platter. use the other side of the sponge too. I leaned an edge onto the grooves, with hopes that the little frayed bits would catch into the grooves and clean them. Depending on how dirty the record was, the sponge should be darkened. You might not want to use that part of the sponge again. ;) I repeated this, but this time with almost all of the water removed from the sponge, as to reduce the amount of water on the platter.
You might want to try different cleaning solutions to remove stubborn and excessive dirt. Not much can really damage records... STAY AWAY FROM ACETONE! Acetone (nail polish remover) will melt plastics, and i assume records as well. Fantastik seems to work well. Place the record (GENTLY) on a horizontal surface, and spray the Fantastik on the surface of the platter, coating it. Let it sink in, then gently massage the cleaner into the grooves in a circular motion. Then rinse it off, and spin it dry. (PHOTOS TO COME SOON.) This seems to work rather well, but just be careful when you spin it dry. the label in the center of the record can be damaged easily. Incidently, I've tried bleach, and it seems to do absolutely nothing.
1.2 Next, clean the remaining dust and oils off of the record. The amount of solution you use should be dependant on how nasty the record looks. In the past, i've used just the cleaning liquid, which softens up a lot of the caked-in hand oils, so the stylus passes right through them, but, after trying to play them later, i've found that the cleaner solidifies, rather than evaporates, causing nasty clicks and pops when you try to play it later. The only way i was able to clean that out was delicately cleaning it under cool water in our kitchen sink, lightly scrubbing with the groove with a fresh new sponge. (You might want to attempt this anyway if the record has a lot of caked-in oils and dirt.
In any event, after you put some of the cleaning solution onto the disc, use the cleaning brush thing and distribute it evenly over the surface. (i'll have pictures of it soon.)
You may also want to play the record once through completely, and then clean off the stylus. This will get out any residual grime left in the groove. If you have a crappier or cheap stylus, use it for this task. While playing the record, the stylus will pick up dust, and durt, collecting it, and distorting the sound significantly. Usually one pass will clean everything out.
1.3 Next, after it starts to dry a little, repeat step 1, to clean off the cleaning solution, and dry it up a little.
For this you should really use the sampling program you're
most familiar with. I personally use (and endorse) the awesome
Cool Edit from
Syntrillium Software. It is basically
Photoshop for your ears. And it's only costs about $60 to register it!.
You're also going to need a Dolby Pro Logic surround decoder with a line-level
Center Channel output. (You can simulate it with Cool Edit, but CE doesn't
do as good a job.
Hook your turntable into your pre-amp, and then that into the stereo in (if you have a discrete decoder) or just plug your turntable into the phono in if you have an integrated amp/decoder. Make sure it's set for the proper stylus type (Magnetic or Ceramic) for your turntable. Then hook the center channel line-level output into the line-level input on your sound card.
From Windows (assuming you're using windows here...) double-click on the little speaker icon in your task-tray. this should bring up the windows mixer. (alternately, from the start-menu, select "multimedia" then "Mixer"). Bring up the recording mixer: [OPTIONS]->[PROPERTIES] then click on [_]Recording, and make sure "Line-In" is checked in the window below that. and click on "OK". disable, mute or don't select all inputs except for the line-in. Select the line-in, and set its volume at about 95%.
Load up Cool Edit.
select [FILE]->[NEW]. Select 44,100 samples per second, MONO, 16 BIT.
and hit [OK]. You should be presented with the CE waveform display.
Make sure your amp is set on "Standard Dolby Pro-Logic Decode" or the
equivalent. Also make sure that if your decoder has a selection for center
channel style, that you select "Wide" or "Widerange" or whatever will send
all frequencies to the center channel. (the other selections will only
send the highs to the center channel, as most center speakers can't handle
bass frequencies all that well.
Click on "monitor", start playing the record. You should hear the record
and see the level bar moving. Adjust the volume on your pre-amp and
dolby decoder so that it does not peak out. if it peaks out, it will sound
really really bad. When you're comfortable with this, click "STOP" and
get the stylus cued up at the beginning of the track, make sure your
turntable is at 45 (or 78 if it has it) and hit "RECORD".
Wait for it to finish.
You may need to clean the stylus off and re-do it if it picks up crud from the track while playing. (You can hear this as distortion in the highs and ss's sounding very distorted.)
Better yet, let the track (or side) play through once, cleaning the stylus when it gets dirty, then sample it the next time. It saves time, but makes it sound much better, and does not require splicing the track together from subsections, which I won't go into here.
Sounded creepy, didn't it. Well, we'll fix that now.
Zoom out all the way (by default it should be there already.) You can tell if it is or not by looking at the green position bar atop the waveform display. If the position bar fills the entire slider space for it, then you're looking at the entire waveform.
Double-click on the waveform. The entire display should now be highlighted. select [TRANSFORM]->[TIME/PITCH]->[STRETCH]. In the window that opened up now, for the "Ratio", type in "57.692". Select "Medium Precision" (you can go with High Precision, but it doesn't seem to matter.) and from the bottom three on the left, choose "RESAMPLE". Then click [OK], and wait.
57.692? Where did that come from? 78.0 * 0.57692 = 45.0 Voila!
SAVE THE WAVEFORM OUT!!! It's always good to go back to this in case ya mess up the file later, or figure out a better way to filter it later. Be sure to use a good name , something appropriate. Ie: "Trackname(Artist)_raw.wav". It's okay to have spaces in the name if you so wish.
This is perhaps the most time consuming step, because it is entirely human controlled. Unlike the next step, which you start then walk away from, and go read a book while you wait for it to finish.
Cool Edit 2000 has tools that remove groove noise. I have not tried it out yet, as CE2k was released a few weeks ago, and I have not upgraded yet. I'm waiting for a reply from them about an upgrade path for me to take. They have like two add-ons, both of which i want to buy. (one being the click & pop remover).
Usually it's only worth it to use the following method to eliminate the major pops and clicks, let other ones slide through to the noise reduction.
Insert description here.
Here's where it starts getting a little tricky. It's best if from here on out, you experiment with different methods, orders, values, etc. to find the method best for the track you're working on.
I used CE's Noise Reduction for a while without understanding how to use it, and hence my first transfers sounded watery and digital. Oops. Cool Edit's online help is pretty good. The selection they have for their Noise reduction is actually quite good. Read through it. Experiment with their NR routines a lot. LEARN THE TOOL!
The best way to do this is to zoom into the beginning of your track. When you see both the beginning of the track noise, and the start of the music on your sc Insert description here.
Experiment with applying different FFT filters on the noise sample before you do the "Get profile" on it. My experience shows that if you adjust the curve in the FFT filter so that from 0 to 55hz, drop it by about 5-10 db, then 55-65hz rail it down to zero. (reduce 60hz hum!), then go back up to 0db attenuation for 65hz up to 22khz. I'll put an image of it here eventually.
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Once again, SAVE THE WAVEFORM OUT!!! Be sure to use a different name this time, something appropriate. Ie: "Trackname(Artist)_filtered.wav"
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