Spreading the aloha of Macintosh, Hawaiian music and island culture from the sunset side of Haleakala volcano on the wonderful island of Maui

Last update:
5/2/05; 6:27:17 AM

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Make Digital Masters of Old Vinyl - Pt.1 How To Make Digital Masters From My Old Vinyl " I was trying to make 'digital masters' from my old vinyl collection. I spent the big bucks for an audiophile card and it's compatible with Windows or a MAC. I can't use the full resolution of the card in Windows and folks ...say that everyone involved with digital music uses a MAC. If a Mac will get me a digital copy at 48KHz with 24 bit conversion then I'll go for it. The best windows will allow is a 16 bit conversion and that's not good enough. Any info or ideas on this? Once again I'm bucking the trend since compressed audio is all the rage and here I looking for bigger files that won't play on anything." About the Macs - yeah. they are the choice for any creative work - good standards support all the way up to full professional production on just about every model. They come with enough free software to do almost anything and with the addition of a few simple interface tools like a Griffin USB adaptor, which I have you can accommodate just about any interface. The Griffin device is specifically designed for grabbing audio D/A from a mic or vinyl - it even has a built-in RIAA filter (!) The resolution, bit rates and post-processing depends on the software settings. After a loss-less (AIFF) bit-grab you can then compress with something like iTunes' AAC (mp4) for critical listening then burn the AIFF files off to DVDs for archive. The whole process is quite straight-forward and hi-quality because Steve Jobs himself is an avid, wealthy audiophile. Right now, I'm doing all my digital production with 'Audacity' - a free Mac port of a UNIX app. I've seen plug-in scratch-filters and ditherers that will squelch CD nasties or clean up records. There's little need to add any cards because the audio engine and I/O are integrated into the a standardized OS and hardware system. A lot of the best Mac software is included, free or shareware. All new Macs include Garage Band, QuickTime, iTunes, iMovie and iDVD which are kick-ass applications. The secret to any Mac though is to add a SHIT-LOAD of RAM the day you buy it. A stock 40-60-80 gig drive will be fine, especially if you include the DVD burning 'SuperDrive' to offload work files, but without at least half a GIG of RAM you can't appreciate the speed of the system. I'm running 1.25 gigs and a pair of hard drives, two 800mhz CPUs and the standard Firewire bus and audio circuits for audio I/O. One of my clients MADE me buy a neat little Tascam Pocket Studio so I have 4 channels analog in with mix-down to mp3 and a USB interface to transfer the mix into my big Mac for further assault. Take a look at the new iMac desktop, it's a very slick machine, especially the 20" model. Apple's standard built-in speakers are usually Harmon Kardon drivers so adding a $49 HK subwoofer called the 'iSub' you can get surprising results out of just a standard Mac. It'll take more than one post to get to the backside of this issue, so check back soon for more info on preserving vinyl for people who can hear the difference. 2:14:14 PM    comment []