Q re: Cleaning up LP sourced wav files

[JonUrban]

How do you guys get rid of the noise created by a stylus tracking through the record grooves.

It's not a hiss, it's not a pop, it's not constant. It's that sound that almost sounds like a fire burning and you can almost "feel" or see the stylus moving through the record as you hear it.

You know what I mean?

 

[Key]

I leave it in. I don't even notice it. To me stylus hiss or woosh is much less percievable than say tape hiss.
Or am I not talking about the same thing? You say it's not constant?

 

[jdmack]

This really only bothers me during fade outs and the spaces between songs. One of the things I do to reduce that noise involves Adobe Audition 1.5 or later. In the "spectral" view, I zoom in on the noise under 150 hz. I outline a bit of that and use that to create my noise profile in the noise reduction plugin. Then, I run the noise reduction on the quiet parts of the song, fade outs and the spaces between the songs. If you run this on the whole file, you'll lose some of the low frequencies in the music.

Won't remove the sound completely, but it helps.

J. D.

 

[Bob Romano]

First I clean up the "noise" with Wave Purity. Then I do the fades on each song between tracks. Lastly, I will do a slight bit of NR if necessary. That's what I did with both Court & Spark and Paranoid that were from CD-4 sources.

 

[Lucanu]

I have Virtos Noise Wizard. I select a part between the songs that contains noise and gently preview what I'm removing and tweak values and then when I'm satisfied will apply to the whole wave file.
That will NOT remove crackles or clicks, only most vinyl noise.
I recently upgraded to Wavepurity and it works very well.

 

[ChristopherLees]

I never get much bother at all.
experiment with all parameters, but with your described problem start with your anti skating, sometimes less is better.....and many times the anti skating gauge on the tonearm is not correct (e.g. technics sL1200 mk2 tonearm..can be out by as much as 30%...e.g. 2 grams tracking force can equal 1.5 grams on the anti skate guage)

playing the non grooved , blank side of a one sided record (old 12 inch disco single) can also tell you lots about your tonearm

experiment with tracking weights...you don't have to always follow the recommended tracking weights..a little extra weight adds bass (e.g. 2.45 grams on the white stylus version of a new shure m44-7 works wonders)...less weight can sometimes be helpful to eliminate sibilance(e.g. just under a gram on a stanton 500).

also many overhang guages can be a compromise between 33 rpm and 45 rpm records..if you set it to the correct overhang on the guage then move the cartridge ever so slightly forward by about a mil ,you may very well get improved top end on cymbals.....

the correct guages and recommended settings are the starting point, but from there you can move to changing overhang ,then weight/antiskating etc..your ears will soon tell you if it was the right thing to do..

vta is also important..some tonearms may not be easy, but you can always do it in other ways..e.g. increase or decrease the height of the turntable mat..very critical on the old decca cartridges.

many of the more upmarket moving coil cartridges (e.g. ortofon) tend to pride themselves on being quiet in the grooves to start with , so set up seems to be easier with them...and if they sound ok to start with you tend not to bother with experimentation.

 

[JonUrban]

Thanks everyone. I will check out those products mentioned above.

Also I had forgotten about using the grooves of a record with no music in them for setting up the tonearm. I used to use the John Lennon LP that had a track called "2 minutes of silence" for that very purpose. (I think it was Life with the Lions, or something like that)

 

[ChristopherLees]

Thanks everyone. I will check out those products mentioned above.

Also I had forgotten about using the grooves of a record with no music in them for setting up the tonearm. I used to use the John Lennon LP that had a track called "2 minutes of silence" for that very purpose. (I think it was Life with the Lions, or something like that)

mind games lp utopian national anthem.

but that still has grooves , just grooves with no noise for a couple of minutes.

I mean a blank side with no grooves....

 

[ndiamone]

Or, simply transfer off a Willi Studer (Revox for you consumers) linear tracking turntable, or a Nakamichi Dragon or a Denon Rosewood (both with the auto-centering feature in addition to the linear tracking.)

I like the Denon better than the Nak for the pure simple reason that it anticipates where the stylus will need to be in order to achieve perfect linearity, rather than like most linear arms that go a tiny bit out of kilter, trip a small worm drive, correct themselves, and go through this process throughout the play of the disc, always being ever-so-slightly out-of-kilter.

The Denon has a series of ``eyes'' in the ``lid'' which scan the groove pack to determine eccentricity and correct therefor in advance of play. These same ``eyes'', will continuously scan the groove pack while the record is playing, picking up not only the basic groove pitch, but also any variable pitch that may be applied and give an advance notice to the cartridge and ``tonearm'' drive so that by the time that part of the disc gets around to the stylus, it's already been corrected for, hundreds or thousands of times a second.

Never owned one myself, but one of the chief engineers at one of the radio stations I worked at years ago in college would bring his in so that we could tape all the records onto reel to reels from which we would make on-air carts. That way he could get the station to buy him new styli and fork over for maintenance and repairs.

Sure would like to find one now though.

 

[ChristopherLees]

most linear arms that go a tiny bit out of kilter, trip a small worm drive, correct themselves, and go through this process throughout the play of the disc, always being ever-so-slightly out-of-kilter.

.

yes and the effect can be a little like the soundstage going from side to side.....almost makes me seasick

for addresing the issue that ndiamone talks about,without the seasick effect, and without spending a small fortune on the rather collectable nakamichi turntable ,a Garrard Zero turntable works very well and amazingly it has a non linear tracking arm. ..and found easily and cheaply on ebay..
but personally i'd try your tonearm settings first.

 

[ndiamone]

...A Garrard Zero turntable works very well (in place of an expensive and highly collectible linear turntable) and amazingly it has a non linear tracking arm. ..and found easily and cheaply on ebay.

Except there you have the various positioning strings moving the cartridge to continuously realign itself, making its' own form of errors in the process.

 

[ChristopherLees]

.

it's a small point but why do you change my quote around? the collectable nakamichi is not linear tracking in fact it has
2 radial arms ..one for the cartridge and one for the centering.

The Garrard can best be explained here.. http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/garrarde.html ...I have owned several and do not understand your comment about "various positioning strings moving the cartridge" the headshell freely moves between the 2 arms ,so that it is always tangentially to the grooves in the same position,whereas the arms are the ones that change position....

 

[ndiamone]

I have owned several (Garrard Zero) and do not understand your comment about "various positioning strings moving the cartridge" the headshell freely moves between the 2 arms ,so that it is always tangentially to the grooves in the same position,whereas the arms are the ones that change position....

That one in the link is different from mine, which is considerably older, and has one arm, jointed at the headshell and two thick strings, similar to radio tuning dial strings wound onto a spring-loaded bobbin at the back of the arm. As the record plays, one string is unwound gradually while the other string is wound up equally gradually maintaining some semblance of a zero tracking error.

As far as quotes, I do just like any other text editor, i.e. edit for content and clarity when reproducing the quote in order to avoid long strings of quoted material.

 

[ChristopherLees]

That one in the link is different from mine, which is considerably older, and has one arm, jointed at the headshell and two thick strings, similar to radio tuning dial strings wound onto a spring-loaded bobbin at the back of the arm.

wow...with all the Garrard sites on the web , they only mention and show pictures of the 2 arm Garrard Zero Models similar to the weblink I mentioned , which all started with their launch back in 1971...So is there any chance of you posting a picture of your turntable with 2 strings attached to one arm and a spring loaded bobbin?