How do YOU record your vinyl into Ableton Live?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

How do YOU record your vinyl into Ableton Live?

I just started the long process of getting all my vinyl ripped.

I started using Audacity, but I am thinking that I may just need to switch to Ableton Live so I can just rip into wav in Ableton and then warp right there on the spot, since the BPM on these vinyl rips seems to drift towards the end…

What settings, compressors, EQ settings, etc., do you apply to your vinyl rips captured in Ableton Live?

2

I use a FinalScratch2.0(Open) Asio interface.

It has all the inputs I need (Phono/Line) to record whatever source I would like.

You could grab yourself one of those USB turntables as well

3

I guess I should clarify that I already have turntables and needles and the Audio 8 USB interface needed for physically recording the record. I know how to plug everything in to record it.

…

I am really just looking for plug-ins, compressors, eq settings, generally wondering what device racks people are using in Ableton Live on their recorded vinyl.

I’m mainly interested in keeping the recording nice and warm with that nice warm bass that vinyl naturally gives you…

4

I record into Traktor… but surely there’s some kind of audio through in ableton.

I wouldn’t add any effects to it during the record, that defeats the point. When you rip vinyl you want all eq flat, etc so it sounds like the original vinyl recording in it’s original state.

Add effects after but not at the rip stage IMO

5

But you are going to color the recording because most of us just don’t use the right kind of needles and turntables when we rip vinyl. I see what you are saying about not putting any effects or eq on the rip, but saying that you can get the same sound as the original vinyl with (what I assume) are DJ level components is laughable. Your 1200 colors the sound, so does your DJ needle. The tonearm does as well. It’s almost impossible to rip vinyl so that the sound is an equal of the original record. If I had a million dollars I’d probably buy some stuff like this Grado Reference-1 and this Bergmann - Sindre Turntable. But those aren’t realistic solutions. I think that he wants to know what you could do to reduce the problems that are created by low end (as far as the High fidelity set are concerned) using methods already available.

6

I just try and make as transparent a recording as possible, given my gear’s limitations. I use a needle with a fairly flat response, and record in at 24 bits, 44.1 k. I definitely do not use any kind of equalization, maximizers, click/pop reduction, nothing. The recording should be as transparent as possible because it’s going to get eq’ed, effected, etc on playback. You don’t want to be over-accentuating certain frequencies, it can lead to a big mess later. The only thing I do is normalize (peak, not rms) the recording after it’s in Live. I’ll save a copy that’s unwarped, for archiving, and a warped copy goes into my djing library. Thats it.

7

Are those USB Turntables gigantic turds or what? I have a handful of records that need to come over to the dark side.

8

I bought a really cheap one a while ago for £50 and it was absolute turd, I lost the receipt too so in the end just threw it away.

Presuming you have a mixer and soundcard i’d just try and get a second hand technics deck, then at least it’s a worth it purchase.

9

In all honestly, this smacks a bit of 320mp3s vs WAV…

Personally i use a technics 12 deck and pioneer mixer. That’s how vinyl has been heard for years and so a good transparent recording with this set up will be your best bet IMO.

10

i just hook up my technic to my audio 8 and record in traktor, then normalize them in live