crackshot35

I am very green and have tried analogue to WAV using direct cartridge to Mac connection. How do i increase volume from the input so that the program will not skip but not record at sufficient volume for a good seamless analogue recording. Pat. patrickandreww@hotmail.com

 

A magnetic cartridge will not output enough voltage for direct computer input. Route your cartridge output through an amplifier with magnegtic phono in jacks and tape out jacks or use a phono pre-amp from radio shack or others.

Hi GR People

1. What are the best settings for getting GR to split files, specifically the noise floor and the recording level? My attempts so far have failed to have individual tracks created.

 

2. I have recorded whole sides of LP's but when I put cursor points in to split the file, the files do not split at the breaks I select, either by volume, or by the actual length of the track from the LP. So is this a problem on the trial version or generally.

 

3. If I "fast forward" the play function to save time the sound and the time stamp do not match at all, so cursor points become a waste of time.

 

 

Looking forward to some help.

Cheers

Woody

It's been a few months since I used GR, but as I remember; upon starting GR you are asked if you want to be guided for settings. Absolutely choose guidance for proper setting of levels.

 

When clicking to start recording from the main screen a dialog box appears asking if you want GR to separate recordings automatically. This box must be checked. There is also a choice of selecting the length of silence between tracks to trigger auto separation. Set initially at 2 sec. minimum, 3 sec max.

 

Trial to separate an entire record side into tracks by editing will fail. You are limited to 3 files (two cursor points) as I remember. If you must, separate two tracks, creating a third file of several tracks and then separate this file into three segments. Repeat as needed. Post again if this doesn't work.

Amp line out to line in on sound card should work best. Right click on the speaker icon in the right bottom corner of your PC and left click on Recording Devices. Make sure that your are configured to use line in. I once had the wrong input selected with weird results. Still got sound, but it was terrible.

Hi,

 

Using the GR freebie version, and I get a bad echo on playback of the mp3 copy. This is voice. Not using RIAA (although I have tried that and the other toggles available) and my bitrate is up at 256, stereo. Gear: Technics M6 to PC with C-Media audio card. Have tried all input configurations I can think of: cassette RCA out to mike in, RCA out to line in, headphones out to mike in, headphones out to line in. The cassette audio is top-notch, done in a studio, so I know the problem is not there.

 

Any experience you can share is appreciated.

 

Otherwise, I love the potential of this software and can't wait to get to my more than 5k albums.

 

Thanks, tomo

I had the same problem on a PC. Found that the PC wasn't set to use the recording input I was using. Result was weak recordings with terrible quality. Setting PC to use correct recording input solved the problem. Don't know if a Mac has sound input settings, but it's worth checking.

I'm using Golden 1.22 on an iMac G4 (800MHz) woith 384Mb memory. Yes, it's an old slow small machine, but it's one I can dedicate to doing capture from LPs.

 

I had been using Final Vinyl to do audio capture, but found it to be too simple and feature-poor. My first experiment with the trial version of Golden seemed to work well, but now that I've paid for it, I can't get it to make a recording that doesn't have audio dropouts every few seconds. The sound quality is extremely choppy; it reminds me of using a MacRecorder on a Mac II circa 1987. I expected a product that is labeled "Pro" and priced as it is would at least be able to make a recording without dropouts.

 

Is this characteristic of Golden on Mac, or is it just too slow on a PowerPC G4 800MHz to do the job? (When I can get a time slice on my quad Intel box with 3GB RAM I'll give it a try there, but that machine spends most of its time doing compiles). The recordings I make with Final Vinyl on the same machine are just fine, no dropouts.

 

I've filed a tech support incident with NCH as well, but I'm interested in hearing the experiences of other users, especially if changing the audio settings or hardware configuration (I'm recording to external 400Mb FireWire HD) might help.

I just purchased a new car with a cd player that recognizes mp3 and wmp files and displays Album, Artist, and

 

song titles as they play. About nine normal length audio CDs will fit on an mp3 CD making such disks a

 

wonderful and compact way to have lots of music available for listening during driving when istening time is

 

available, and extends the functionality of Golden Records to enjoy old favorites easily converted from the

 

music for tape players of much earlier technology. Golden Records seems to work even better converting tapes

 

than vinl. Cleaner sound and quieter separation between tunes allows GR to auto separate most tunes without

 

operator monitoring at least for the length of a tape side. Most tapes have sides so unequal in length that

 

GR will drop out of record waiting for audio to resume on players that automatically reverse. This requires

 

operator intervention only about every twenty minutes.

I have noticed that while playing solitaire and MP3s through media player, that audio from solitaire comes thru with music. If program you wish to multitask with generates no audio or if that audio would interact with the microphone or line input channel would be a great experiment for you to perform and let the rest of us know if it works.

A way to tell in advance of conditions under which auto-split won't work. When you place your record on the

 

turntable count the number of separated "cuts" and compare this to the number of tunes listed on the record

 

jacket (or record label). If they don't match, you may find that the record maker has combined related tunes

 

into a single cut. An example is a listing:

A James Bond Suite:

James Bond Theme from "Dr. No"

From Russia With Love

Goldfinger

 

Counting the cut separations, It came clear that the "Suite" of three songs was all contained in one cut. I

 

could then label the resulting file as "James Bond Movie Themes", however if I want the songs separated by

 

individual title auto-split should be turned off prior to the recording session, and the three songs manually

 

split into separate files.

 

Counting the "cuts" allows you to pre-plan your recording session strategy and avoid wasting the time you

 

might otherwise spend in post-session editing.

When low recorded volume levels interfere with auto-file separation, rather than re-set the background noise level, simply uncheck the auto separation box and separate manually. I keep learnin'.

Practical thoughts on using Golden Records:

 

Like many who subscribe to this forum, I am a new user. In the course of four days, I have encountered most

 

of the problems talked about here and solved most of them, and offer pointers and practical concepts that

 

were omitted from the documentation.

 

One of the big considerations is whether to record in mp3 or wav. Mp3 allows the tag information (album,

 

artist, etc.) to be output as part of the file. Editing file names, changing them from untitled # to a

 

meaningful name, works both in wave and mp3; but only mp3 keeps you from the drudgery of rewriting this

 

information in media player's database or creating disk labels. Wav format and its output to disk as a .cda

 

file excels in quality of sound over mp3 (a highly compressed file). The casual listener will probably be

 

happy with mp3, but audiophyles,musicians and critics will demand better quality. About 24 (more or less)

 

cda files will fit on a CD. This is plenty to keep track of and enter label data for at one sitting. About

 

200 or more mp3 songs will fit on a CD which is more than practical to manage. I strive only to convert part

 

of an extensive instrumental library to digital format for inclusion as background music for slide shows. If

 

the same music albums have been re-mastered to disk and you count your time as minimum wage, it is probably

 

cheaper to re-purchase the tunes than convert them. In playing an album listed in an internet database, data

 

is automatically downloaded and you are saved from manually entering song titles, album and artist data into

 

media player.

 

One important item omitted from GR documentation is how to transfer converted files from GR to a computer

 

folder without the need for first writing to disk. The second omission is how to clear files out and start

 

anew. Here's the solution. The command bar in the interface window has "View" First click on this then

 

click on "View Recordings Folder". You may treat the window that appears as any other file folder. Cut and

 

paste to another computer location, copy to another location and delete unwanted files from a previous disk

 

write. I sweated blood writing to disk and back to the hard drive until I found this simple solution.

 

By far the greatest problem I had, and from reading this forum, other people have is recording six or seven

 

tunes and ending up with twenty files. This occurs when very soft passages at or very near the background

 

noise level cause the program to drop out of recording, begin, and drop out again. An occasional short drop

 

out can be repaired by highligting two or three files and joining them with "Control-J" This creates a new

 

file. Source files are left highlighted and can be safely deleted with "Control-Delete", leaving only the

 

joined file in the list of files. Repeated drop outs will effect the overall content length of a passage.

 

When encountering this type of music it is easiest to start over. In the recording menu, click on the

 

toolbox icon, the click on the "current noise floor" On the screen that appears check the "manual setting"

 

box and adjust noise floor to -50db. Restart the recording while carefully monitoring the sound, and click

 

on the "split" button during the silence between songs. It ain't automation, but it's the quickest route to

 

a good transfer. Simularly, when record makers were faced with too much music for a side, they sometimes

 

shorten the silent spaces between cuts resulting in a dropout too short to be detected by GR and causes two

 

songs to be recorded in the same file. If the record side had six songs and you end up with five files, you

 

will know this happened. The solution is to play the file. In the play window, click the pause button when

 

you recognize the space between the end of one song and the start of the next. Click the "add a cursor

 

point" button and then click "split a file at cursor point". By and large, GR does a competent job of

 

automatically separating songs when amplitudes are well above noise threshold levels as found in the bulk of

 

popular music, but for pesky symphonic passages with great dynamic range the solutions above will save much

 

teeth gnashing.

 

Occasionaly, individual selections on a platter, will exceed the amplitude first set by so much as to

 

endanger clipping, or conversely diminished input amplitude. Here's how to set input sound levels on the

 

fly: In the lower right corner of the computer screen (not program screen) there's a speaker icon. Right

 

click on this, then left click on "recording devices". There will be a green checkmark on the input device

 

you are using. Left click on this choice, then click on "properties". Choose the "levels" tab and adjust

 

the device volume up or down as needed. (small changes, please) Click OK and continue recording without

 

interruption.

This is my first post here. Hello !

 

I have many 45's and 78's and want to make some CDs from them. I have both Macs (10.4 and 10.5) and Dell PC (Win XP). I own three standard turntables, one with a Grado cartridge.

 

Which platform is the better one to use ?

 

Should I feed in my turntable into the audio input, or should I feed it in through the USB port ? Should I get a USB turntable or a USB interface device and use my regular turntable ?

 

Is the GR software just as good on either a Mac or PC, or is one preferred ?

 

I've also heard of "Disc Jockey" for the Mac (by Roxio). How does that compare to Golden Records ?

 

At what bit rate does one record vinyl when saving it to a hard drive ?

 

I bought a little gadget made by Behringer called U-control (UCA202) for $30 which hooks between the amp line output and USB port. I kept my old amp cause it has RIAA compensation and low level phono inputs. It's plug & play and works like a charm.

Thank you !!