Vinyl Restoration - How to Get Professional Results, Part One

If you are a music enthusiast, high fidelity sound, a good team to hear every nuance of a musical performance, whether jazz, rock or classical, you probably have a large collection of CDs and some important part of it in vinyl. Probably these are highly prized and historic recordings have been reissued and in CD format. Without going into the discussion in which some purists say the sound of the vinyl LP, the analog audio sounds better than digital recordings, the truth is that the clean sound, great dynamic range and convenient CD format has Vinyl LP relegated to the past and disuse. Then we need to get those LPs to CD format that is more manageable and comfortable. But what we seek is more than just the transfer of LP to digital format. We want the blunders and the flaws inherent in vinyl and its wear and tear away or minimize the least, and possibly recover some lost dynamic range in the original recording. For this there are companies doing this work, but the cost may be too high if they are a lot of records, or the quality of the final product delivered by the company is not satisfactory or simply do not want to risk spoiling one who mistreat or LP we have stored with care.

Then, the most attractive alternative is to do this personally. If we work meticulously, truly amazing professional results. For this we need, of course, quality software and a lot of patience. In each of these stages is essential to hear the whole album and every detail very carefully, until you are satisfied with the result before moving on to the next stage (we recommend using quality headphones). Step 1: Transfer to digital format.

The goal at this stage is to achieve a clean reproduction as possible of each LP when recording on the computer. This will save cleanup later work in digital format and also achieve a higher quality end result. If the disc is dirty will need to soak it in water with a drop of dish soap and leave it for an hour or two. This will release the dirt. From time to time, wipe the disc in the direction of the groove, with a soft brush and rinse the disc in the cleaning solution. If you want to keep the label the water must be protected with polyethylene or other waterproof material taped. The process of washing with detergent and water does not damage the vinyl. If the disc is in good condition, a formula that works well is as follows: 65% distilled water, 30% ethyl alcohol, 5% isopropyl and a few drops of liquid detergent. Alcohol should be pure, industrial type, without any additives. To clean the disc can be rotated on the turntable and wipe with a soft brush dipped in the solution. Finally dry with absorbent paper.

In both cases the disk allow to dry for at least an hour, or even better, all day. It is not advisable to touch the disc wet. Apparently this technique appears useful for reducing the friction of the needle and reduce background noise, it produces more harm than good in the vinyl as it spreads the dirt in the groove and then play it whenever it is necessary to sound acceptable wet . The adjustments necessary to record the sound from the PC are simple. The cable from the stereo (connected to the output tape record) must be connected to the Line-In sound card (input light blue). You must configure the Windows mixer for audio input (double-click the speaker icon at the bottom right of the screen). Once you open the audio mixer window, open the Options - Properties, select Recording and mark the check box Line-in volume controls chosen. Ensure that the Line-in box is selected. Reopen the sound mixer and make sure that check box Line-in option is moved but no sound coming into the PC.

Adjust the input volume to about 70%. With these settings we can record from the stereo. For this purpose any basic software for sound recording will do. The generated file must be in WAV format, 16 bit, 44100 Hz, CD quality. It is desirable that the recording is in one file and the change of ends the disc, press pause and then resume recording. This allows us to then apply digital filters to the entire LP and track by track. It is recommended not to save the MP3 file compressed as this be reduced because of the sound quality is lost in compression. If you want to compress it to save space in a non destructive as FLAC or APE. This first part of the process is simple and requires no experience to achieve good results. To eliminate the CILSS, pops and background noise of the LP will be a little more skill that will be acquired with practice. So keep these tapes and leave them as a backup because it is very likely that, after more knowledge and wish to re-process these files for best results.

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