Recording vinyl with either rekordbox, Serato, Ableton 9 Intro? How to Improve sound?

[JoBushwick]

I need to record some vinyl for when you show up in the club and the turntable is - DEAD.
I also can't lug records to every gig. SO...

My options to record are :
Rekordbox, Serato, Ableton Live 9 INTRO

But how do I improve the recording? Ableton Live Intro it doesn't have EQ8, so what would I use to improve the sound quality? Do I use Normalization? Or some sorta VSP that is like EQ8.

[the_bastet]

For anything that is available on digital, go buy it on digital. For anything that isn't. look into purchasing a mastering suite such as fab filter. Personally, my workflow is
Record tracks into Audition
Run a sideband EQ to bring back balance
Look for any areas which require volume automation and apply it
Run slight compression
Use EQ to maintain brightness
Run a limiter (at a low enough ratio to preserve dynamics, but high enough to keep loudness at an acceptable lufs).

[pacific808]

Using digital copies isn't a bad idea but if you insist on digitizing I'd recommend the following;

Use a quality recording interface. Now seeing that Ableton intro offers the greatest fidelity(max 192kHz at 32bit) out of your options I would use that. So depending on on your mixer or serato box I would set it to at least 48kHz at 24bit. Higher would be better but you start to get diminishing returns after 96kHz/24bit. Make sure the gain is low enough to not clip on the transients.

Honestly I wouldn't do any normalizing as you would be undoing the work of a professional mastering engineer who spent time doing the work for you. If anything adjust the gain after recording to bring the transients to 0db or just shy of that. Any eq'ing I would do during live playback in the dj mixer. It would be hard to account for coloration of the dj mixer and PA system ahead of time.

[JoBushwick]

Thank you! I am going to use Ableton Intro and I have a DJM 900 NX2 I can use and have some decent needles.
Some of my records are trashed but some are pristine. I will see. A lot of people are recommending to run it through
something like EQ8 type of thing? Is that necessary?

[JoBushwick]

Anyone use Platinum Notes? Or is that only for digitally made type of content?

[electroshock]

It's not in the software, it's in the hardware.
Good turntable,
good needle,
good phono preamp, not mixer,
good cables
good soundcard.
Then you can record in Audacity.

[JoBushwick]

It's not in the software, it's in the hardware.
Good turntable,
good needle,
good phono preamp, not mixer,
good cables
good soundcard.
Then you can record in Audacity.

Audacity does not work on my mac running Catalina so that option is out.

[electroshock]

Record on what you have, the good hardware still comes first.

[JoBushwick]

Needle wise I only have M-44G
I am looking for a different needle something in the range of Ortofon blue but maybe a lower price point. The vinyl I have is all house or techno.