Digitizing Vinyl, Part Five: Preamps

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the most obvious wild card in my initial efforts to digitize records was my Vestax mixer. Its a good mixer with a clean signal, but I never felt like I was hearing what was actually, ONLY recorded on the vinyl. DJ mixers do have built-in phono preamps, but they also pass everything through a gain control, an EQ, and three different volume controls. Every step of this sends the audio signal through all kinds of circuitry that can add color the audio. Even with everything set to zero, it never sounded truly neutral. In a club setting, this is no big deal, but my goal with this project is preservation and restoration, not simply jacking up the bass. So operating under the assumption that less is more, I bought a dead simple Rolls VP29 Phono Preamp... the trouble with that unit was it went too far in the other direction. Because I'm digitizing mostly older records, sometimes I do need to have access to a single volume knob to help get the signal to the sweet spot. I finally settled on the Bellari VP130 Tube Phono Preamp which had all the features I was looking for, plus the added cache of having a tube. Everything sounds better with a tube right?

The standard Party Line regarding audio is that analog is always better. It's "warmer and punchier" while digital is "cold and harsh." I'm not going to embark on a rant (8-track) about this (cassette), but I will sum up my experiences. The tube preamp I bought does two things. The first is it has much more low end response, probably between 4 and 8 dB if I had to guess. It also has a much smoother curve to the low end frequencies. The second thing I have noticed is a definite difference in the sound of the mid and high end. Sadly, I just don't know how to describe it. So I'll say this... I think the tube preamp sounds better. At the end of the day, I'm an obvious heretic who is methodically converting beloved records to digital, so I'm not a hater of the 1 and 0... But passing the signal through a tube on its way to being frozen forever on a hard drive seems to produce a pleasing result. That said, I have noticed it is easy to accidentally get slight distortion on bass drum hits and sub bass parts, so I have to be really careful with the volume knob. At which point it is probably worth offering another tip: test what you are doing. Specifically, record small sections, and play them back. It's better to use up 5 or 10 minutes double checking your settings than to record a whole side of a record and find out later you had some distortion.

While writing this, I just noticed that Bellari now makes a USB version of its tube preamp, which might be worth trying. I'll be writing about A to D converters in my next installment.

Digitizing Vinyl, Part four: Needles

I don't really have much to say about phonograph needles and cartridges, so here is the only piece of solid advice I have... buy the best cartridge you can afford, and use a new needle before you start to digitize your records. Grado and Ortofon both have a good rep on the streets right now.

Dancecrasher: A Cool Blog on Jamaican Music...

Dancecrasher is way more than just a music blog, it has label art scans, show listings, interviews from old magazines, and a good bit of info on the latest re-issues.

I'm enjoying reading the "greatest 100 Rocksteady tunes" article now.

Digitizing Vinyl, Part Three: The Turntable

People have devoted their entire lives to the hard science and analog voodoo of The Turntable. Huge tomes have been written analyzing the virtues of the straight VS curved tone arms. Wars have been fought over the different configurations of cartridges and types of needles... and the design of them can go from extreme to weird to beautifully architectural. If you looking for that level of debate, please keep surfing. The following is strictly my opinion, for educational use only, buyer beware, don't try this at home:

My first set up for digitizing records was a Techniques 1200 MKII turntable with a Stanton 680 EL Cartridge, plugged into a Vestax Mix Stick mixer, using an M-Audio Firewire A to D converter into my Mac Laptop running Peak LE to record. And it sounded OK. Sorta. The 1200 MKII has been a standard club turntable for decades. Its a direct drive workhorse with loads of torque and solid timing... but its not an audiophiles dream come true. The deal is, you want to keep noise out of the signal, and with a direct drive unit, the platter is essentially sitting right on top of the motor. If you use a belt driven unit, it makes it easier to isolate the motor from the platter, helping reduce vibration that might be picked up by the needle. Thats the theory anyway, the reality is that it isn't easy to hear that kind of noise during the loud parts of the music, but I wanted to get the cleanest grab that I could. Like I mentioned earlier, digitizing records is a pain, so I wanted to do it once, and get it over with. Frankly, the Vestax mixer was a bigger part of my equation, but I'll be addressing that in a later post.

Once I realized that I needed to upgrade, I started looking into USB turntables, this was in early 2007. At the time Ion was starting to get a name for is products, so I read some reviews. Several of them noted that the unit didn't have a grounding line, and there was a very slight hum. In the olden days, turntables had a ground line that was connected to the receiver to prevent an electrical hum. If the reviews were correct, it seemed like USB didn't quite fully ground the Ion units, but I wasn't sure. Being a gadgety guy I decided to jump into USB anyway. I bought a Stanton USB turntable at Guitar Center... And you know what? It hummed. A very soft 60 cycle hum. It went back to the shop the same day, and I swore off USB until they had real ground lines.

So with that option done, I decided to buy the cheapest new turntable I could that would still produce a clean signal. I found two contenders, the Rega P1 and the Sumiko Pro-ject Debut III. After reading reviews, I couldn't decided between the two, so I bought the first one I found in stock at a neighborhood Hi-Fi store. I'm a proud owner of a Rega P1. Generally I'm happy with it, although switching between LP and 45 means removing the platter and moving the belt from one pulley to another. Which is actually kind of cool. It comes with an Ortofon cartridge which sounds good, but it can't take too much weight. Some of the old Jamaican 45's I have been restoring need 3 or more grams of weight to get them to play through, but really that is my problem, not Rega's. I do still believe I'm picking up some rumble from the motor, but It's acceptable. It damn sure doesn't hum. So With the turntable issue solved, next came the preamp.

New Pressure Sounds Release: Pleasure Dub

I'm so going to get this...

Duke Reid died from cancer in 1974 and his nephew, Errol Brown, who had been a junior engineer at Treasure Isle and who would go on to become one of the key engineers at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studio, took over the studio controls. He mixed three dub albums at Treasure Isle that dressed down and dubbed up some of the best of the Bond Street catalogue. Snatches of the original vocals were woven in and out of mixes that sound as fresh and as vital today as they did when they were first released, both in their original sixties incarnations and their seventies counteractions. 'Treasure Dub Volume One' and 'Treasure Dub Volume Two' have been available in various incarnations ever since. However, 'Pleasure Dub', the best of the set featuring Errol Brown's cuts to rock steady classics such as 'The Right Track' by Phyllis Dillon, 'The Tide Is High' and 'Riding On A High & Windy Way' from The Paragons and 'Things You Say You Love' by The Jamaicans has never been re-pressed since its initial release. 'Pleasure Dub' is a record we have wanted to release for a long, long time and we are all delighted to be able to finally add a Treasure Isle album to the Pressure Sounds catalogue.

Pressure Sounds, started in 1994, is up there with Blood and Fire and Soul Jazz, producing some of the best Reggae re-issues available. It is affiliated with Adrian Sherwood's On-U Sounds.

I found a review of Pleasure Dub Here.

Digitizing Vinyl, Part Two: An Overview

I'm going to apologize now, because the following write up is a vast oversimplification. People can and do write volumes on every minute aspect of audio playback and recording. If you find any of my descriptions lacking in detail, you can find lots more information on the web.

There are literally hundreds of different ways to set up a system to digitize records, but most of them will have 4 main parts. Even if you have one of ION's all in one units, one way or another it will have the following things:

A Turntable -> A Preamp -> an Analog to Digital Converter -> A device to record on, probably a computer.

The turntable AKA "record player" can come in a variety of configurations, but most are either direct drive or belt driven. The preamp's job is to raise the volume of the turntable up to "line level" like your CD player or iPod. For decades, the job of preamplification was usually done by a stereo receiver, but new (cheap) receivers have omitted this option. The A to D converter takes the analog signal generated from your record, and converts it into digital glory. You can choose to do this with tons of different external boxes, or just roll with the built in audio input on your laptop. Finally, the recording device might be a computer, a minidisc player, a DAT deck, or a score of other devices that are on the market. As I mentioned above, some devices can combine one or all of these things. For example, if I had a spare 500 bucks, I'd pick up a Sumiko Debut III USB, which combines the turntable, preamp, and A to D converter. In the following posts, I'll be providing more detail about what I've tried, what worked, and what didn't.

Digitizing Vinyl, Part One: The Big Question...

Before you spend a single minute digitizing a record, make darn sure to ask yourself one question... "Why am I doing this?"

If your answer is along the lines of "I spent all this money on my records, and I don't want to buy this junk again for my iPod" then stop right there. If you are seriously longing to hear Eliminator by ZZ Top again, go buy the damn thing used on CD. Why look, Amazon has it for sale for under $3.50. Unless you just have an overwhelming need to keep busy, digitizing music from an analog source is a time consuming process at the best of times. Even if you buy a kit that comes with free software and a USB turntable, you still have to play through everything in realtime... Thats about 40 minutes per LP, not including clean up and splitting the audio file into named tracks with artist info. If you are dealing with an old record that is dusty and might skip, things can go downhill quick. Seriously, read a book or build a ship in a bottle. You should really try to only digitize records that aren't available for a reasonable price elsewhere. Believe me, I've done it and it just doesn't seem worth it at the end of the day.

Now what if your answer is "But records sound better." To that I can only suggest that you dim the lights, fire up the McIntosh amp, and enjoy your nice album. Digitizing a record because you like the way analog sounds, only to play it back on a digital device... well, if that floats your boat, more power to you. I personally can't recommend it for everyone.

Years ago I read that a shocking amount of records are not and will never be digitized and re-released. So If your grandmother left you more than 5 records in her will, the chances are good that you might have something that in the digital age, does not exist. Or if you're like me, that dusty old Well Charge 45 from Kingston might be the last survivor, and the quest for those gems makes all the trouble worth while. Further, some of the inexpensive audio restoration software can produce stunning, if not magical results, proving that math can actually be cool.

Stop That Train by the Spanishtonians

So, Lots of people have been coming to my blog looking for Information on the Spanish Town Skabeats A.K.A The Spanishtonians because of my post last year about my 2 of my favorite tracks on the Stop That Train Rhythm. Well now you can enjoy the original:

Digitizing Vinyl, Part Zero

I've spent countless hours digitizing hundreds of old records. It is one of the most irritating and rewarding projects I've ever encountered, and lots of people have expressed an interested in learning my tips and tricks. Over the next few months when I have time, I'm going to post some of what I've learned. I'd like to say, upfront and loud and clear, that I do NOT consider myself an audiophile, so some of my techniques might not suit all peoples needs, exacting standards, or expectations. Further, I am not using expensive gear or mastering software, so if you have a large disposable income, well... maybe I should be asking you for advice.

Grame Goodall and Federal Records

I have heard a rumor that Tuff Gong is the last running vinyl pressing plant in Jamaica. I have had no luck finding out if this is true, but I did stumble upon a really cool write up on Gearslutz about working in the Federal Records pressing plant. It's credited to Graeme Goodall who was the Chief Engineer. Here is a quote:

At one time we ran out of the pure wood soap used to clean the masters..I think the Ja. Govt put a ban on importing soap as Colgate Palmolive had opened a soap factory on Foreshore Road. Nothing daunted, I grabbed about a dozen L.P's from the factory, took a sample of the wood soap and located the chief chemist at CP, and asked him to analyze it and see if he had something similar. Guess what....they used a coconut based oil

But WAIT, there is more. Searching for Grame Goodall pulled up a 5 page interview with him at reggae-vibes.com. This interview is a who's who of reggae artists and loaded with first hand accounts of the Jamaican music scene going all the way back to the 1950s. This is a must-read interview.

Small Axe Files on Dee Jays...

I've been digging around on the Small Axe web site again, and found a fantastic "top 100" guide to reggae DJ's. It was written in 1992, and goes all the way back to the early 1960's. For each entry, it has an excellent although really short summery of each artist, and a crucial track or LP to look for. Here is what they say about it:

It is not a history of DJ's, the amount of information needed for something like that is not at the moment available. Its purpose is to act as a guide to all the major DJ's over the last 30 or so years.

...and since I'm on an I-Roy kick, here is that entry:

I.ROY

Roy Reid, While working on his own sound Son's Junior. He was discovered by Harry Mudie in Spanish Town. With Harry Mudie he had a big hit ›Drifter‹ released in 1971. While Gussie Clarke produced his classic ›Presenting‹ LP [Trojan] in 1973.

Thanks for all this work, Ray.

More On I-Roy

I found an interesting write up on I-Roy, referenced in the Wikipedia entry. Its from 1999, and looks like the kind of information that falls off the web all to frequently... It seems to have been written around the time of his death in 1999. Very informative.

Jah Lion Jungle by I-Roy

So, my favorite track lately is Jah Lion Jungle by I-Roy. I picked it up as the A side on a Mafia re-issue, and it kicked my ass. Some quality time with Google indicates that this track was initially done for Keith Hudson, and it shows up on the second disk of the massive Keith Hudson- The Hudson Affair on the Trojan label... and here is a word for the wise, Sanctuary Records, who owns Trojan, was bought by Universal Music Group in late 2007, so I would pick up any of the current releases in your wish list sooner rather than later.

I-Roy's lyric's on this track can't be beat. His flawless delivery takes you on a trip through the concrete jungle of 1970's Jamaica. The production is loud and clear, and the backing rhythm is a real rocker. I didn't have any luck tracking down the original riddim yet, but I'll post when I figure it out. In the mean time, here are a few words about I-Roy from the book Solid Foundation by David Katz:

By the time of Alcapone's arrival in Britain, I Roy was firmly in ascendancy back home. Born Roy Samuel Reid in Saint Thomas in 1944, I Roy operated a set called Soul Bunnies in the rock steady era, playing Friday nights at Rose Lane in downtown Kingston A civil servant working at Customs and Excise, Reid had more ready cash than some of his peers and made a point of always being immaculately dressed...

His verbal skills drew the attention of producer Harry Mudie, who cut the toaster's debut disc, 'Hearts Don't Leap', towards the end of 1970. I Roy voiced further songs for Mudie, including a version of Dennis Walks' chilling 'Drifter', and helped distribute Mudie's product on a Honda motorcycle. As he started to branch out and record for other producers, the quick-witted toaster began chatting on the Clarendon sound V-Rocket, and ended up temporatily filling U Roy's shoes on King Tubby's Hi Fi in 1972.

It kind of makes me wonder if I-Roy might not have been partial inspiration for Horsemouth's character in the film Rockers...

Stop That Train, an Update

If you read my post about the Stop That Train Rhythm last year, you might be interested to know that Ernie B's has some of those tracks in stock on 45 really cheap... Take my advice, Act now:

Stop That Train by Keith and Tex on Trojan imprint.

Cool Breeze by Big Youth on Big Youths own label Negusa Negast.

These are re-issues, but you never know when the stock will dry up.