Category: analog->digital conversion

Well, my first crop of LPs -> CDs are coasters, unless anyone really wants to listen to mono recordings.

My problem with the soundcard was all to do with it defaulting to the mic input for recording, and mic is, of course, mono. Feh. So after some discussion on the freebsd-questions list, I found that mixer(8) can be told what port to listen to.

To change the recording device you use one of:



^rec toggles rdev of possible recording devices


+rec adds rdev to possible recording devices


-rec removes rdev from possible recording devices

=rec sets the recording device to rdev

so I set the mixer to use line as the rdev (mixer =rec line).

Then of course, I found that the signal from the receiver was overpowering: the needle in the leadin track was in the red. Hmm. So I took the receiver out of the circuit again, and plugged it straight into the card. Levels are low but the sound is OK. I have to assume the turntable has a pre-amp or it wouldn’t work from all I’ve read about it.
Continue reading “analog -> digital conversion issues solved”

Well, this is not going as well as I thought. It seems I’m only recording a mono signal. Some reading of the support area at Creative‘s website and found out I have a SoundBlaster Live! Gamer card (same guts as the Platinum but without the Live! Drive): I also now know what all the connectors are for. Turns out I was using the mic connector, not the line-in. I’m now using an amplifier between the turntable and the card to the line in.

But now if I use that, I get no audio at all. The indicators don’t move in gramofile. It’s not cabling, since it all works through the mic jack. If I listen in headphones while I record, all sounds fine. Of course, I thought that before. I wonder if the turntable is kaput on one channel? I have no way to plug headphones into the receiver (mis-matched connectors), so I’ll dust off my Advents and see what gives,

<grumble>

In the process of burning these CDs, it occurs to me I’d like to tag them so that freedb.org can return title and track data for them. But I’m not having a lot of success finding out how that’s done. So I have emailing dev-support at freedb and we’ll see if it’s possible.

Google Search: U2-3 Boy/Girl

I have a copy of this first U2 release from before they were signed. According to this page, I have the second pressing.

The sound is a more raw version of “Boy.” Interesting for collectors and fans, and I note from my Googling that the otherwise unpublished track (Boy/Girl) gets played in their shows pretty often. If you’ve seen them a few times, you may have heard it.

Wonder what else I’ll find?

More on how this not-so-rarity came to be here.

I had some problems with cdrecord making audio CDs and some helpful person on the FreeBSD-questions list suggested I use cdrdao(1) instead. Well, that turned out to be the solution. I did try using ATAPICAM and cdrecord with an IDE burner I had on hand, but it doesn’t seem to be able to write (good thing it didn’t cost anything, though perhaps I see why).

The biggest problem I had with cdrdao was the need for a TOC file and the correct syntax. Turns out there are some samples in the distribution’s source files. They don’t work for me (you can’t specify a driver as I need to do, just a device, and the device is expressed in a linux-ish style), but it’s often easier to work from something that’s broken than to start from scratch.

It’s basic as can be, but it saves me from trying to remember this stuff, and isn’t that what scripts are all about?

[/usr/home/paul/bin]:: more wav2toc.sh
#!/bin/sh
# usage: $0 <dir where wavs are stored>
DIR=$1
TOCFILE=`basename $1`.toc

echo CD_DA > ${TOCFILE}
echo >> ${TOCFILE}
for i in ${DIR}/*.wav
do echo TRACK AUDIO >> ${TOCFILE}
echo PREGAP 0:1:0 >> ${TOCFILE}
echo FILE “$i” 0 >> ${TOCFILE}
echo >> ${TOCFILE}
done
echo File ${TOCFILE} written

Running with a path grabs all the WAV files, creates a file based on the basename of the path, then writes out all the particulars.

(paul@red.paulbeard.org)-(09:18 PM / Thu Dec 26)
[/usr/home/paul/bin]:: ./wav2toc.sh ~/cdimages/That_Summer
File That_Summer.toc written
(paul@red.paulbeard.org)-(09:20 PM / Thu Dec 26)
[/usr/home/paul/bin]:: more That_Summer.toc
CD_DA

TRACK AUDIO
PREGAP 0:1:0
FILE “/usr/home/paul/cdimages/That_Summer/new.wav” 0

TRACK AUDIO
PREGAP 0:1:0
FILE “/usr/home/paul/cdimages/That_Summer/side_1.wav” 0

TRACK AUDIO
PREGAP 0:1:0
FILE “/usr/home/paul/cdimages/That_Summer/side_2.wav” 0

Dunno if it will be useful to anyone (like anyone else is converting vinyl LPs to CDs) . . . .

and the incantation for cdrdao is as follows: I need to specify a driver for this unit (it’s branded as a Pinnacle CDR 5040S and is allegedly supported by cdrecord as a workalike for a similar unit).

sudo cdrdao write –eject –device 0,1,0 –driver teac-cdr55 toc

This is going pretty well. Only one coaster so far. I forgot that audio CDs don’t have file systems so using mkisofs to make one would be a Bad Idea.

Gramofile handles all the dirty work of converting the audio to wav files, locating the tracks, and processing them. I have yet to move beyond the basic filter. But so far I have been working with vinyl that’s in pretty good condition.

An example. I took Stay Awake, a collection of Disney tunes done by popular (as of 1988, anyway) artists and converted it. The LP clocks in at 64 minutes and change. Here’s what you end up with.

The side[1,2].wav files are converted from the audio in. The processed files are the tracks, and the number and start/stop points are in the *.tracks files. Those can be edited if the track locator didn’t work the way you expected.

[/usr/home/paul/cdimages/Stay_Awake]:: ls -l
total 1316724
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 56747928 Dec 17 21:51 processedA01.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 36479568 Dec 17 21:52 processedA02.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 34045248 Dec 17 21:52 processedA03.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 36091492 Dec 17 21:53 processedA04.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 18839564 Dec 17 21:53 processedA05.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 147646852 Dec 17 21:55 processedA06.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 232407048 Dec 17 21:59 processedB01.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 44858568 Dec 17 22:00 processedB02.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 59623248 Dec 17 22:01 processedB03.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 338690092 Dec 17 20:36 side1.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 153642 Dec 17 21:37 side1.wav.rms
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 1377 Dec 17 21:37 side1.wav.tracks
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 341704748 Dec 17 21:35 side2.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 155010 Dec 17 21:37 side2.wav.rms
-rw-r–r– 1 paul wheel 1070 Dec 17 21:37 side2.wav.tracks

Takes up a lot of space.

Then it comes down to this:

/usr/local/bin/cdrecord -vv -eject speed=2 dev=0,1,0 -audio -pad processed*.wav

And then I have a new CD to dazzle the children with.

<UPDATE>Aaargh. Two coasters so far. The burner seems not to like something here. The wav files are fine: I played them through a couple of times already. Highlight: Sun Ra’s Arkestra doing “Pink Elephants on Parade” from Dumbo.

GramoFile Home Page

GramoFile is a computer program, running under the Linux operating system (and some other UNIX-like OSses — and even DOS/Windows now!), with the main goal of putting the sound of for example gramophone records on CDs. It is able to record hours of CD quality music, split long sound files in separate tracks, and remove ticks and pops from recordings.

I finally got this working. The pesky indecipherable symbols on the sound card had me fumbling around with trial and guess to connect the turntable up. That and trying to work out how those hieroglyphics translated to what xmixer was telling me about I/O sources took far too much time. But now it works and it sounds fantastic.

Some of my Christmas gifts are going to be CDs made from old vinyl records (all under the doctrine of Fair Use, of course). It’s going to fun to hear some of those old sounds again.