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Nero WaveEditor bass and treble when recording

Discussion in 'Audio' started by vinyl299, Aug 12, 2009.

  1. vinyl299

    vinyl299 Member

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    I have been using Nero WaveEditor, to record music tracks from vinyl through my home stereo turntable/ receiver/ equalizer. The receiver is set with bass at mid point. The receiver is set with treble at mid point. The equalizer is set with all five frequencies (60, 240, 1000, 3500, 10000) at zero decibels (in other words, at a flat setting with no boost or subtraction of decibels at any frequency). The signal goes into a line-in jack on a Creative XFi Model SB1090 external sound card (since my computer was shipped without a line-in jack!) and proceeds from there into my computer via a USB port. Consistently, the recordings come out with way too much bass and slightly less than enough treble. I can edit the recordings in Nero Wave Editor to equalize to taste, but this is very tedious. I suppose I can do the recordings over again, experimenting with my home-stereo equalizer. But, as a simpler approach, if I leave the home stereo/ equalizer settings alone, is there some setting I am missing in Nero or Creative that would ensure that I get a flat recording without the over-emphasis on bass and the under-emphasis on treble? Any help will be appreciated.
     
  2. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    Since no one that actually uses your product has answered you, I will say this. I have always found Nero products to be marginal. There is always free software that does it better.

    Most picky users use audigy to audio capture. You could also try not using your amp just to see what happens. I have a preamp that I use it like you do, flattening everything. That works just fine. You just need to experiment taking peices out of the equasion. Maybe it is your sound card. As far as I can tell you are doing EVERYTHING correctly. Tweeking the waves is a bad idea. That is the worst solution. You will never get it 'perfect'. The hardware solution is better and easier but is still not a good solution.
     
  3. varnull

    varnull Guest

    If this is only on vinyl I have an idea what is going on and where the fault lies.. If it happens on every analog source then it's probably that creative thing.. I use a pair of old 24 bit yamaha opl soundcards parallel for capture.. They sound superb.. Haven't found anything modern to touch them for capture. I'm doing twin 48 bit hi-def audio these days at 88khz. Stunning.. just stunning.
     
  4. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    I am just trying to visualize what you are doing but can't. What you are doing is way over my head. I am guessing each card is doing half of both channels. How does one do something like that? You can be brief since I am guessing it is over my head. I try to expand my horizons. I do believe your product is awsome. I guess you have figured out how to actually use the extra 'bandwith' recorded in the vinyl.
     
  5. varnull

    varnull Guest

    Yes.. I'm effectively doing a frequency split 2 channel.. low and mid.. plus split everything off at above 8k and sampling that at a far higher rate.. It's incredible.. just like vinyl.. the thing is as yyou get closer to real 100% transfer the overall perception of distortion seems to rise. I noticed the same effect with incredibly high end audio equipment in the mid 80's messing with "litz" wires.. To hear frequency distortion on say just the guitar within a recording.. or a microphone overloaded on a snare drum off a 30 year old lump of vinyl is incredible. I'm experimenting.. right now I'm getting raw digital audio of incredible quality but the files are massive.. 250Mb's for 3 minutes average.. hehehehe

    OP hasn't answered.. we need to solve their problem.. sounds to me like it's either an impedance mismatch.. capacitive cables or a fault in the RIAA characteristic in the pickup preamp... could be using induced (moving iron) pickup into a MC/MM preamp.. that would cause it as well.
     
  6. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    @vinyl299

    I don't know how old the amp is but if it has tape out terminals, the audio coming out will normally be what is on the record. In other words, boosting bass or treble will be heard in the speakers but the tape out signal will not be affected. Are you playing these captured vinyls on your pc? If you have the bass and treble set high there, then it will be heard that way. Have you burned one of these mp3s to a cd and listened to the tonal quality through your stereo amp and not pc? JM2C
     
  7. varnull

    varnull Guest

    It does depend on the amp.. on a Leak stereo30/70 the tone controls and filters are before the tape outs... Some older top end amps actually had a tape loop pre-post eq switch ;)
     
  8. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    @vinyl299

    Did you try audigy as Mez suggested? Great little easy to use program.
     
  9. vinyl299

    vinyl299 Member

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    All good ideas, everyone. Thanks.

    Mez, I will try connecting my turntable directly to my external Creative soundcard (in other words, eliminating the receiver). Unfortunately, it may be a few days before I can get to that. I'll let you know what happens. (You are right that trying to tweak the equalization after capture is very imprecise.)

    In answer to garmoon: When I play the captured MP3 through my computer and listen with headphones, I do not detect too much bass or too little treble. When I burn the MP3s to CD and play the CD through my home stereo or in my car (with flat equalization settings), I get way too much bass and slightly less than enough treble. I made a CD for my sister, who described the same problem when played on her home stereo/ car.
     
  10. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    If your turntable is a good one, then it should have a magnetic cartridge on it; and not using a pre amp or amp will not work just plugging the turntable outputs into the sound card.
     
  11. varnull

    varnull Guest

    Even a ceramic cart won't work properly.. they need 2M ohms to work into.. not 600 ohms even though they produce about the right voltage.

    I'm suspicious of that creative thing.. I don't like their products
     
  12. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    varnull, 24 bit yamaha opl cards are hard to come by. You you have any suggestions for a card that can be bought today or what to look for? That would be valuable information and I can't think of a better person to make the suggestion.

    This is the most interesting thread for me in the audio forum this year. I am learning something. Up to now I thought, with reservation, that because the card was not amplifying much they were pretty much the same. I am not the least bit surprised to hear differently.

    I have done little vinyl capture and what little I did was a bit dissapointing and more work than I had expected. I intend to do a better job the next time I try. In the interim, I have been aquiring rips from other places.

    This was also a nice bit of a blast from the past. I hadn't heard the term litz wires in this century.
     
  13. varnull

    varnull Guest

    Now then.. from the modern batch of junk what can I suggest?.. don't know.. haven't bought a soundcard this century.. mine are isa's lol..

    Really I guess I would look for something plain 2 channel.. forget this 5.1 nonsense for high quality 2 channel capture.. too much compliation and synthesizing going on.. my ears don't like anything from creative.. sounds gritty and false to me.. hence the pair of antiques. I may have a pair of Aztech 24 bit cards hanging around somewhere (from before creative anticonsumer asshats bought them out).. next time I delve into my big box of bits I will see if they are still working. Also I can praise the old crystal cards.. just the 2 channel simple pci ones.. I have a few of those and they seem to be OK .. I will give one a spin and see what it does for my ears.

    Computer fairs and junk selloffs are probably your best bet for good pro quality gear these days.. consumer grade is all multi channel garbage.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2009
  14. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    That is exactly what I was afraid of! The anticonsumer asshats were quite successful. That was the last peice of the puzzle. Sound cards made in this century may be pretty much the same. At the turn of the century, my opinion of music coming from a computer was junk. Why look for a good sound card since I assumed they were all junk. It wasn't until I got some good ear buds for my ipod that I changed that opinion. Not that is was the be all and end all for audio but I remember doing a double take. The music was not trash!

    No one is going to make a quality card now. They don't make quality audio for anything these days unless it is custom speakers. "The speaker factory" will make a good speaker if you have the money. They have been in busineess for 50 years and now work out of a house because they do not have much business.

    I was too late to buy a new good sound card. We used to have a computer flea market where a card like what you mentioned could have been purchased. You had some very expert vendors along with the morons. That is long gone. I guess I need to be thankful for what I have. I WILL keep my eyes opened now.
     
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2009
  15. varnull

    varnull Guest

    Nice old 24 bit capable Crystal cards should be £1 .. they may be a little hissy tho.. bipolar not cmos input stages.. I will have a good subjective listen later.. I have a stack of cards and an audio job on. I'm not averse to changing the odd component for better s/n ratio if needed.. some of the older cards have composition resistors in the signal path.. and they suffer shot noise. Better replaced with metal film if possible.. and the old bc series transistors are easily replaced with modern mos devices.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 24, 2009
  16. garmoon

    garmoon Regular member

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    Don't feel too bad, my new Dell XPS 630i from May 08 came with integrated sound on the motherboard no sound card. One of their top of the line pcs with no soundcard.
     
  17. Mez

    Mez Active member

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    You old dianosaur! You are showing you age. No one enjoys extreme audio now except for the dinosurs. Now it is all about how many speakers you have.

    When you grew up, TV had a few channles and the programming was mostly trash. They was no such things such as movie rentals, computer games, video games, gameboys ect. The only refined outlets we had were listening to music and reading books. Most young men subscribed to at least one audio mag. The finer points of audio would be discussed at parties. How boring we were back then. Fortunatly, we didn't know it.

    I still build my own. I am too old to set up the MOBOs because I can't read the tiny writing but there is a shop that did my last for $50. Even though it is more expensive than a cheap one, I know exactly what I am getting.
     

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