Hello everyone

I'm really not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question (or I should post on the Post Production forum instead) but I'm sure someone in here might be able to help.

I have been offered a job, digitizing some very old 78rpm gramophone/phonograph disks and then restoring them. Now I have worked a lot restoring audio, but frankly I have never used a gramophone before and I also don't have one or know much about it.

So I've researched quite a lot, and it seems that there are two ways to play back those old records.
One is using a gramophone, the way those records were supposed to be played back anyway, and the other one is using a modern turntable that can play back also 78rpm old records, using a special cartridge for that, like the Shure M97xE (which apparently is very good in reproducing mid-frequencies).
I am not sure if the cartridge is all that is needed or you also need to have special needles or anything else, and also if you MUST replace those needles every time you finish playing back a side of the old 78rpm record (as a website recommended).

I don't even know if this information is accurate or not, so anyone knowledgeable please enlighten me...

Now if I go the first route, that is buying an old gramophone, it seems that the best ones were the HMV and Columbia ones? Anything I should be looking in particular? Would a portable player be as good as a big one, and would a small "speaker" (I'm not sure what the correct word for that is) would sound the same as those enormous ones some gramophones have? Do you have any recommendations on which type of gramophone to buy and what in particular to look for?

Also, when I play the records, is it possible that the steel needle could damage the very old disks or they are fairly safe?
Lastly I guess I should record the sound of the 78rpm record with a mic, right? Would something like a SM57 or an AKG 414 be right for that?

Now if I'll go the other route and buy a turntable would this be much more expensive and would I gain anything by using it, than an old gramophone? Do you have any idea of what kind of turntable would be OK to play back those old records and how much they go for, plus all the other necessary things e.g. cartridges or needles or anything else I must get?

I'm open to suggestions. This will be an one-off project, so the budget is quite limited..

Thank you all

Not sure how perfect or esoteric this project needs to be, but...

A few years ago I transferred a lot of 78s using a Project Debut turntable and the optional 78 RPM kit - which included a different wheel and band for changing the rpm and I used their 78 stylus. All in (for turntable, stylus and 78rpm kit) it probably cost under £200. I then just took the line out from my phono stage into my DAW and EQ'd as necessary. Sounded pretty good to me.

Douglas.

Thank you Daglas

Do you have, by any chance, any audio file, unprocessed would be ideal, that you would like to upload here? If this is not a problem.
This is certainly a good solution even if it seems it would cost quite more than 200 pounds, after looking a bit on online stores.

Thanks again!

Ve sure to get that 78 RPM stylus. An LP stylus is 0.001 in its tip radius while the 78 RPM is 0.003. I am not sure if that is mm or inches. But you will only get a very faint sound using the LP needle in a 78 RPM record.

kay, so I finally did it, I transcribed an LP to digital (aka a 'needle drop'). It was a slightly frustrating, although ultimately rewarding experience which I thought I would share with you here. I trawled around a little on this forum beforehand to see if I could find any useful tips but gave up pretty quickly. The advice on offer seemed to mostly fall into two camps: "buy XYZ USB turntable/phono stage" or "don't bother/buy the CD" and I had no intention of doing either. Here is a short description of what I did do and a couple of lessons learnt along the way.

The Aim
My aim was to produce as high a quality digital transcription as possible, given my existing equipment, of one of my father's cherished LPs - Beethoven's Violin Concerto played by Alfredo Campoli with the RPO under John Pritchard, (HMV Concert Classic, SXLP 20043). I was prepared to invest a fair amount of time in achieving a good result as I saw this as a learning exercise. I only mention this to make the point that my approach and lessons may not be relevant to anyone whose goal is quantity (i.e. digitizing a given size of LP collection to mp3 in the shortest possible time) rather than quality.

Equipment
Part of the impetus for embarking on this project was the sudden realization that I had all the necessary equipment on-hand and there were simply no excuses for not doing it. No 'necessary investments' either , oh well. In fact the biggest problem I had was that the audio equipment and the PC equipment were in different rooms! Whether to take Mohammed to the mountain or vice versa? For convenience I decided to move the record deck and preamp into my study which probably was the wrong call, see later.

The specific equipment I used was:

• VPI HW-16.5 record cleaning machine, MoFi 'Super Deep Cleaner' and VPI Record Cleaning Fluid
• Nordic Concept Artist/Breuer 8c/Dynavector XV-1s (deck/arm/cartridge)
• Boulder 1012 (phono/pre)
• Dell XPS tower PC (2006 vintage) running Windows 7
• Lynx L22 sound card, Windows Driver 2.0 Build 017 Release Candidate 3e
• Rudistor RPX-33 and Sennheiser HD800 for monitoring
• Audacity 1.2.6 and later 1.3.9 (beta) for recording and editing (FREE!)

Probably the only point I would like to make here is that the only equipment I deem absolutely necessary to make a good quality digital transcription of an LP is:

• A record cleaner
• A record deck and phono stage
• A PC/Mac with sound card

There is absolutely no need to get a USB-equipped record player or phono stage - your existing record player and phono stage will do the job just fine! Also, the advantage of using your existing equipment (both analog and digital) is that the resulting transfer should almost by definition be of the sound quality you are used to hearing. Almost all PCs have a built-in sound card and the Line Out of your phono stage (or Record Out of your preamp) can be connected to the Line In of the sound card (NOT the microphone input) with a simple RCA-to-3.5mm jack adapter cable.

IMHO, buying something new for this project (e.g. a USB-equipped phono stage) just introduces a big new sound-quality variable and risks disappointment. However if you insist on 'investing' I would suggest that you are likely to get better bang-for-the-buck SQ-wise spending money on a decent sound card (internal or external) than a USB-equipped phono stage. Let the flames begin!

Procedure
I hooked up the Record Out of the Boulder to the Analog In of the L22 (luckily both run balanced so no special cables needed). The first challenge was to figure out how to configure the Lynx card to record from Analog Ins 1+2 while simultaneously monitoring on Analog Outs 1+2 (which drive the Rudi). That took a surprising amount of futzing, especially since the UI of the Lynx Mixer did not correspond to the instructions in the manual which appeared to be referring to an earlier software version. Finally I found the magic combination of buttons to enable 'hardware pass-through' so I didn't have to use Audacity's 'software pass-through' which consumes precious CPU resources.

Next I set both the Lynx card and Audacity to work at 24-bit 88.2 kHz and tried to set the recording level. This is where I encountered my first big problem. The level was very low - despite the fact that the 'Input Level' slider in Audacity was at maximum. What gives? The Boulder was undoubtely outputting a line level signal which is what the Lynx was expecting, so why so quiet? Checked in the Windows volume mixer, same there - set to maximum - yet when I played the LP the average level was down around -25dB/-30dB and none of the peaks exceeded -12dB which meant that the files really had to be cranked up on playback. Finally I realized what the problem was (long after I was finished, meaning I ended up doing everything twice). The Lynx has two different 'Trim' settings for the Analog Inputs and Outputs (set in the 'Adapter' pane of the Lynx Mixer): +4dBu ('professional balanced') and -10dBV ('consumer balanced and unbalanced'). I had never really noticed these before but they were set to +4dBu, presumably by default. Switching to -10dBV did the trick* and brought the maximum level to the point where the recording only clipped in about 3 places. Two of those were on clicks that I removed anyway and the third was a very marginal clip that wasn't really audible. Nevertheless, if I had infinite time I would have recorded everything a third time taking the level down by 3dB-or-so but it was 1 am by this time and bed was beckoning! Oh well, next time.

* Incidentally, the 'Trim' setting has an equivalent effect on the Analog Out meaning I now need to dial in a fair bit less volume on the Rudi to get the equivalent volume level in the cans.

I saved the Audacity 'project' and listened to the resulting recording. Not bad, pretty damn good in fact! There was some minor vinyl roar and crackle at the start of each side, and of course some master tape hiss from the 1962 recording, but the audio was beautifully clear and clean right across the frequency band and with subjectively excellent micro- and macro-dynamics. In fact, the resolution was so good that I could clearly hear a very low level of mains hum I had never noticed before - from the original recording!!

Next job was to remove the clicks. I had run the record through the VPI twice before starting, following Stephen's recommended 'two-fluid regime' (see his blog - sorry I couldn't find the link, the 'Search' function doesn't seem to cover the blogs - weird!) and the result was very little surface noise indeed - some very minor crackles in a couple of places and only about four 'proper' i.e. scratch-type clicks in total. Kudos to the old man for taking good care of his vinyl - this record is older than I am! Anyway, Audacity has a Click Removal tool for this very purpose, however just like the old 'Unsharp Mask' in Photoshop it takes some practice to get the very best results. After much experimentation I found the default settings of 90 (threshold) and 20 (width) to be well chosen, eventually finding that I only needed to increase the width for the few really large clicks and decrease the threshold for some really small ones. Generally this tool rendered the clicks completely inaudible (nice job Craig DeForest!), however in a few cases there were audible artifacts (at or below the level of the programme, so pretty unobtrusive) that I was unable to banish, seemingly regardless how much I futzed with the parameters. If I start doing this more I may try a more advanced noise removal tool like Golden Wave or Sound Soap, but I suspect there is more mileage to be had from 'Click Removal', if I can only figure out how to extract it.

The result was a pretty clean file, clearly identifiable as an analog recording (I made no attempt to remove the master-tape hiss) and even as an LP transcription - but the latter only really in a few places. I did notice that there was a very slightly higher level of vinyl roar than I am used to, but I initially dismissed this as a subjective effect of monitoring through headphones (I almost always listen to vinyl through the speakers on the bigrig). However when I was done I did some checking and realized that the noise floor was indeed noticeably higher with the record deck on the desk in my study than on its usual rack in the living room. I will not claim to have eliminated all the variables here but as far as I have been able to ascertain the difference is down to the support. Compared to my Grand Prix Audio Monaco four-shelf stand (with Apex footers) the noise floor was about 3-6dB higher when I moved the turntable to my IKEA study desk - despite the fact it was standing on its dedicated Base Technology constrained layer isolation plinth. I was quite astonished at the magnitude of the difference - quite an endorsement of the Grand Prix Audio rack!

After trimming the lead-in and lead-out grooves (but not too much - they establish an important aural 'context'), adding a short fade in and fade out, and splitting side 2 into two tracks (using Audicity's neat 'Label' feature) I tried to export the resulting project to FLAC. This is where I encountered my second problem: the export just gave a useless error message, something like "Exporting to FLAC failed". Great, thanks! I looked in the help and searched for the error message on the Audacity Wiki. Nothing. Damn! After much frustration and poking around I chanced upon the solution in the release notes of the still-in-beta Audacity 1.3.9 (up to that point I had been using the 'latest stable version' 1.2.6). Bingo! There it was in the release notes: "Export to FLAC - now working in Version 1.3.3". Jeez! After upgrading Audacity and opening the project in 1.3.9 the export worked fine (once I'd figured out how to set the parameters correctly - I ended up with a 24/44.1 file first time I tried it).

Eventually I ended up with three 24/88.2 FLAC files with the correct metadata (Audacity fires up a metadata editor on Export - again, pretty handy) however for some reason they wouldn't play in foobar, giving some unhelpful error message about not being able to set an endpoint. By this stage I was beginning to feel the same way! In order to see if foobar was the problem I resampled the files to 16/44.1 using dBpoweramp Music Converter. The conversion worked fine and the resulting files played both in foobar and on the Sonos indicating that the problem might be related to the high sample rate. I initially suspected a bug in the hi-rez FLAC export routine of the still-in-beta Audacity but this turned out not to be the case as the problem disappeared when I upgraded the Lynx device driver from Build 017 RC3 to RC3e. Turns out foobar was just having a problem opening a 24/88.2 stream to the soundcard, well why the heck didn't it just say so!

Conclusions
All-in-all I am very happy with the results I obtained here. I feel I have achieved what I set out to and learnt a great deal in the process - although I wouldn't say I have any more scars on my mighty audiophile derrière than after other similar projects! It is quite possible that the process would have gone more smoothly if I hadn't been using beta versions of Audacity and the Lynx device driver, particularly where this rendered the documentation, how-to guides and Wikis out-of-sync with the software. However based on this experience I would say that next time the process of ripping LPs needn't be time-consuming at all. I reckon I should be able to achieve the same results in the time it takes to play the target LP through twice (once for recording, once for de-clicking) plus about 20 minutes for miscellaneous futzing.

So I hope relating this experience hasn't frightened off anyone contemplating a similar project but rather gives them the confidence to roll their sleeves up and go for it! Just don't forget to give that vinyl a really good scrub-a-dub-dub first. And remember, no USB turntables or phono stages needed!

Happy Thanksgiving all.

78 cartridges

LP Gear: 78 RPM cartridges

Just a couple of quick comments-
1) the turntable is the first place to start. I'm a big fan of the good direct drive tables as the drag of the large stylus on a 78rpm disk during large transients causes speed variations on low mass belt drive tables. Look at the KAB modified Technics SL-1200 or for a step up the SP-15 (varispeed ) or the SP-10 (better w&f but no varispeed).
2) Stlyus/Cartridge- The good old Stanton 580/680 has many different stylus profiles and dimensions available. The Shure is fine as well, but you should have several different diameter stylus available to get the cleanest plays. Many times a larger stylus will ride higher in the groove, above all the accumulated junk in the bottom of the groove. The quieter you get the disc to play, the less restoration you need to do......
3) Cleaning- THis is a hot button topoc because many times you can do more damage cleaning a record than the benefit or removing the dirt. If these are pressed production discs and not lacquers/acetates, then get one of the better VPI or Nitty Gritty vacuum cleaners. The Monks is the holy grail, but VERY expensive. Look a the Library of congress site here for all the info you will need about cleaning and storing.
4) Preamp- There are several specific preamps available that have the correct playback equalization for transcribing old 78's.
If they are from the acoustic era, then you will need a doctorate to figure out the correct horn transfer function to apply to the signals. Tom Stockham did this for the famous RCA Caruso recordings. I believe that there is an AES paper on the topic. Otherwise, just play them flat.
If they are from the electric era, you should look into one of the preamps with variable playback equalization. The GSP Jazz Club, KAB EQS MK12 and the TDL 4010 are really good choices. One of the best ways to clean up this stuff is to digitize it flat and go about the cleanup, then pass the signal back out through the playback EQ. You get much better click and crackle removal from the flat output, but you need to monitor the signal through the preamp th check for anomalies. All of the above preamps allow for processor loops.
Do a lot of reading and remember, once you put the wrong stylus into the groove, it is damaged for good. If you really want to go all out, get a groove microscope so you can measure the groove to choose the correct stylus.

All the best,
-mark

Wow! Thanks a lot for all the information!
The client said will have the disks cleaned for me, he will send them out to a special "disk laundry" before giving them to me. Regarding the dilemma get a real old HMV or Columbia gramophone or a modern turntable, what's your view? It will be way cheaper I think to buy just an old gramophone instead of a modified 1200 plus preamps etc, right?
It also seems that the client is concerned about the sound coming out "original sounding" and not so "modern sounding". So I'm leaning more into buying an old-fashion gramophone and mic it's horn... I haven't decided on anything yet of course, so I take in serious consideration all the suggestions from people that know what they are talking about!

Thank you all again!
Please keep the ideas coming!

I can't think of an idea that I would run faster from than putting a one of a kind disk on a 90 year old turntable and grind it down with a steel needle. The disk will be ready for the trash can after a couple of plays, which was the case back when they were made. So, the short answer is no, the Victrola is not the best idea. The folks that are doing this VERY specialized kind of transfer are working with modern tables and custom made horns using modern stylus technology. I know of only 2 or 3 places that you can get this kind of work done at a professional level.
If they are acoustic and you are really interested in replicating the horn transfer function, you should play the record out flat and then use an impulse to sample a horn with a convolution reverb and use that.
All the best,
-mark

Not sure this is the right thread, but it's a good starting point seeing a lot of the people here are quite tech savvy.

I've started to do a bit of this sort of work for our local Jazz Archive

For transferring old 78s check out these people:

Audio Restoration Software, Noise Reduction Software, Record and Tape Restoration, Audio Forensics

These people got their start transferring old Edison Diamond Disc vertical cut discs from the Edison archives. The handbook that comes with their DC8 product helps deal with the question of equalisation and other transfer techniques. They also have some interesting hardware. One product is their flat phono preamp (and they document a lot of the old 78 equalisation curves - but if the records are acoustic, there is no such thing as equalisation, every cutter had his own favourite 'soundbox' or cutter head and you just find the curve that makes it sound good.)

Check out this thread - https://gearspace.com/board/remote-p...-ny-times.html - for the NY Times recent article on Doug Pommeroy and video talking about transferring of some recently discovered off -air jazz recordings.

One of the doyens of transfer and restoration, the late John R T Davies, advised me that 90% of the task is mechanical. Get the best possible pressing you can, clean the disc appropriately, a good turntable and arm, and the right stylus diameter. (For the latter, see these people - Phono cartridge, custom stylus, 78 rpm stylus, LP stylus, record needle - note a set of 5 Grado cartridges each fitted with a different stylus diameter.) The ability to play a record backwards can also help.

From there on, restoration software is as you find it. The crowd above have their own. I have just started using iZotope RX (now RXii) with interesting results. And while it may not be necessary for 'fidelity' transferring at 96K gives programs like RX a greater amount of information on which to work their magic. But be prepared to spend a lot of time on 78 recovery, and 'little and often' seems to work better than 'all in one go'.

Have fun and good luck.

My nephew recently gave me four 78s his grandmother recorded in 1946-48. I found this website to be very useful.
"HOW TO EQ OLD RECORDS" https://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/mixphono.htm