Converting LPs to mp3: Question re AmadeusPro

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mjzee
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:20 pm

Converting LPs to mp3: Question re AmadeusPro

Post by mjzee »

Hello. I have a number of LPs that I would like to convert to mp3's. I am considering AmadeusPro to assist me with this, but, after trying the program and reading the documentation, it is not clear to me that it has the aspects I'm looking for. My needs are not elaborate, though, so I'd like to explore whether Amadeus can accomplish them.

I have a turntable and a standalone CD recorder. I want to record one LP side at a time, so that the CD has two tracks. I then want to load the CD into my Mac (Intel-based), and open the first track into Amadeus.

I want to then divide the track into the individual songs from the LP side (since I listen to jazz, let's say 3 songs), trimming the blank space from the beginning and end of the LP side. I tried "Generate Markers..." in Amadeus, but it generates 30+ markers...it just gets it wrong. So I want to mark the beginning and end of each song.

I want to then play the song, so I can be sure I put the markers at the correct points. If needed, I want to easily move a marker to a better point. If I am satisfied, I then want to name the songs and export them to my hard drive in mp3 format (vbr q2). At that point, I can drag them into iTunes and complete annotating them.

I tried using Final Vinyl, which is a free download from Apple's website, but it is too buggy (it leaves electronic squeals on the final tracks).

So, can Amadeus do what I want, and, if so, how? The manual covers part of the process (in the chapter "How to create a CD from a tape or vinyl recording"), but it seems to me that placing the markers isn't very easy, and I cannot listen to each song (beginning to end) before exporting them.

I hope I was clear about what I'm looking for. I look forward to your reply; thanks in advance.

CDJonah_alt
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:57 pm

Converting LPs to mp3: Question re AmadeusPro

Post by CDJonah_alt »

Yes, you can do it.

What I would do is split the file into songs, save the different sounds
and then edit each one individually.

Splitting, setting markers -- that menu has options that lets you set
silence times and silence levels.
Did you normalize the tracks first? That would help.

If the auto-splitting won't work well for you, I would show the whole
sound. Usually the breaks are fairly obvious. I would move the window
to the reason of the break, click and see if it is a silent point. I
would play into the piece and then set the marker -- click at the top of
the sound to set the marker. The position is not terribly important
because you are going to split and edit each selection later. I
wouldn't play through the entire song, just make sure you have the
beginning and end. I would just put a marker between each song.

I would then split the music into songs as something other than mp3
(split according to markers).

I would load each song, trim the silence to something like 0.5 seconds,
select the short silence section and do a fade in. I would go to the
end, and trim to about 0.5 seconds and do a fade out. At this stage you
can then save them as mp3s.

You can use denoising or run click repair before converting to mp3s.

Summary:
normalize
put in markers
split according to markers
fix each selection and save as mp3.

Chuck

mjzee wrote:
Hello. I have a number of LPs that I would like to convert to mp3's. I am considering AmadeusPro to assist me with this, but, after trying the program and reading the documentation, it is not clear to me that it has the aspects I'm looking for. My needs are not elaborate, though, so I'd like to explore whether Amadeus can accomplish them.

I have a turntable and a standalone CD recorder. I want to record one LP side at a time, so that the CD has two tracks. I then want to load the CD into my Mac (Intel-based), and open the first track into Amadeus.

I want to then divide the track into the individual songs from the LP side (since I listen to jazz, let's say 3 songs), trimming the blank space from the beginning and end of the LP side. I tried "Generate Markers..." in Amadeus, but it generates 30+ markers...it just gets it wrong. So I want to mark the beginning and end of each song.

I want to then play the song, so I can be sure I put the markers at the correct points. If needed, I want to easily move a marker to a better point. If I am satisfied, I then want to name the songs and export them to my hard drive in mp3 format (vbr q2). At that point, I can drag them into iTunes and complete annotating them.

I tried using Final Vinyl, which is a free download from Apple's website, but it is too buggy (it leaves electronic squeals on the final tracks).

So, can Amadeus do what I want, and, if so, how? The manual covers part of the process (in the chapter "How to create a CD from a tape or vinyl recording"), but it seems to me that placing the markers isn't very easy, and I cannot listen to each song (beginning to end) before exporting them.

I hope I was clear about what I'm looking for. I look forward to your reply; thanks in advance.




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heaton
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:18 pm

Converting LPs to mp3: Question re AmadeusPro

Post by heaton »

I see that Chuck Jonah has already answered you. But I will send this
anyway. If it differs from what Chuck said, follow his advice. :)

Yes, Amadeus Pro has all the aspects you are looking for. They are
all basic Amadeus functions.

The fact that you started with LPs seems irrelevant, since you end up
with two CD tracks. Trimming blank space is easy; drag through it and
hit Delete. You don't want to use Generate Markers, which generates
markers at fixed intervals, not at the beginnings/endings of songs.

The beginnings and endings of songs should be visually obvious.
Placing markers is in fact easy, and the documentation tells more
than one way to do it. For example, you can click in the thin
horizontal grey band above the track, and a marker will be created at
that point. You can grab the marker triangle with your cursor and
drag it right or left, to get it where you want it. I would suppose
that you would want it in the middle of the blank space between
songs. You don't even need to listen to the song to know if you have
put the marker at a good point; it is visually obvious. You can also
insert the name of the tune in the marker at this point. You can use
a denoise function to get rid of the LP surface noise in these blank
spaces.

You can click on the blue button in the upper right corner (with an
"i" in it) and, in the window that opens, click "Metadata" and insert
album and artist. This will save you some time "annotating" in iTunes
and will enable you to find the songs in iTunes.

When finished, use Save As and save as MP3, using whatever quality
level you wish.

Under the Sound menu, use Split According to Markers. This will put
the tunes into a folder on your desktop. They will be in alphabetical
order unless you have numbered them as you go.

You did not ask this, but I use the Normalize function under the
Effects menu to normalize each song separately to level -0.1 dB. Or,
more quickly, you can select the track and normalize the whole track
at once. But doing the songs separately is better.

I am saying all this from memory. I believe it is all in the
documentation. That's where I learned it. It is all very easy in AP;
otherwise I could not do it. :)
CP


Hello. I have a number of LPs that I would like to convert to
mp3's. I am considering AmadeusPro to assist me with this, but,
after trying the program and reading the documentation, it is not
clear to me that it has the aspects I'm looking for. My needs are
not elaborate, though, so I'd like to explore whether Amadeus can
accomplish them.

I have a turntable and a standalone CD recorder. I want to record
one LP side at a time, so that the CD has two tracks. I then want
to load the CD into my Mac (Intel-based), and open the first track
into Amadeus.

I want to then divide the track into the individual songs from the
LP side (since I listen to jazz, let's say 3 songs), trimming the
blank space from the beginning and end of the LP side. I tried
"Generate Markers..." in Amadeus, but it generates 30+ markers...it
just gets it wrong. So I want to mark the beginning and end of each
song.

I want to then play the song, so I can be sure I put the markers at
the correct points. If needed, I want to easily move a marker to a
better point. If I am satisfied, I then want to name the songs and
export them to my hard drive in mp3 format (vbr q2). At that point,
I can drag them into iTunes and complete annotating them.

I tried using Final Vinyl, which is a free download from Apple's
website, but it is too buggy (it leaves electronic squeals on the
final tracks).

So, can Amadeus do what I want, and, if so, how? The manual covers
part of the process (in the chapter "How to create a CD from a tape
or vinyl recording"), but it seems to me that placing the markers
isn't very easy, and I cannot listen to each song (beginning to end)
before exporting them.

I hope I was clear about what I'm looking for. I look forward to
your reply; thanks in advance.




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CDJonah_alt
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:57 pm

Converting LPs to mp3: Question re AmadeusPro

Post by CDJonah_alt »

I shouldn't come back into this, but ...

A couple of minor corrections.

Generate markers can either be at fixed intervals or at silence.

Normalizing -- I would normally normalize an entire side and then split
-- that takes into account the possibility that you have a quiet band
and a loud band and you want them to retain their relative volumes. I
tend to assume that someone carefully balanced the levels of the
different bands before making the record -- but this is question of taste.

Chuck

Cherrill Heaton wrote:
I see that Chuck Jonah has already answered you. But I will send this
anyway. If it differs from what Chuck said, follow his advice. :)

Yes, Amadeus Pro has all the aspects you are looking for. They are all
basic Amadeus functions.

The fact that you started with LPs seems irrelevant, since you end up
with two CD tracks. Trimming blank space is easy; drag through it and
hit Delete. You don't want to use Generate Markers, which generates
markers at fixed intervals, not at the beginnings/endings of songs.

The beginnings and endings of songs should be visually obvious.
Placing markers is in fact easy, and the documentation tells more than
one way to do it. For example, you can click in the thin horizontal
grey band above the track, and a marker will be created at that point.
You can grab the marker triangle with your cursor and drag it right or
left, to get it where you want it. I would suppose that you would want
it in the middle of the blank space between songs. You don't even need
to listen to the song to know if you have put the marker at a good
point; it is visually obvious. You can also insert the name of the
tune in the marker at this point. You can use a denoise function to
get rid of the LP surface noise in these blank spaces.

You can click on the blue button in the upper right corner (with an
"i" in it) and, in the window that opens, click "Metadata" and insert
album and artist. This will save you some time "annotating" in iTunes
and will enable you to find the songs in iTunes.

When finished, use Save As and save as MP3, using whatever quality
level you wish.

Under the Sound menu, use Split According to Markers. This will put
the tunes into a folder on your desktop. They will be in alphabetical
order unless you have numbered them as you go.

You did not ask this, but I use the Normalize function under the
Effects menu to normalize each song separately to level -0.1 dB. Or,
more quickly, you can select the track and normalize the whole track
at once. But doing the songs separately is better.

I am saying all this from memory. I believe it is all in the
documentation. That's where I learned it. It is all very easy in AP;
otherwise I could not do it. :)
CP


Hello. I have a number of LPs that I would like to convert to
mp3's. I am considering AmadeusPro to assist me with this, but,
after trying the program and reading the documentation, it is not
clear to me that it has the aspects I'm looking for. My needs are
not elaborate, though, so I'd like to explore whether Amadeus can
accomplish them.

I have a turntable and a standalone CD recorder. I want to record
one LP side at a time, so that the CD has two tracks. I then want to
load the CD into my Mac (Intel-based), and open the first track into
Amadeus.

I want to then divide the track into the individual songs from the LP
side (since I listen to jazz, let's say 3 songs), trimming the blank
space from the beginning and end of the LP side. I tried "Generate
Markers..." in Amadeus, but it generates 30+ markers...it just gets
it wrong. So I want to mark the beginning and end of each song.
I want to then play the song, so I can be sure I put the markers at
the correct points. If needed, I want to easily move a marker to a
better point. If I am satisfied, I then want to name the songs and
export them to my hard drive in mp3 format (vbr q2). At that point,
I can drag them into iTunes and complete annotating them.

I tried using Final Vinyl, which is a free download from Apple's
website, but it is too buggy (it leaves electronic squeals on the
final tracks).

So, can Amadeus do what I want, and, if so, how? The manual covers
part of the process (in the chapter "How to create a CD from a tape
or vinyl recording"), but it seems to me that placing the markers
isn't very easy, and I cannot listen to each song (beginning to end)
before exporting them.

I hope I was clear about what I'm looking for. I look forward to
your reply; thanks in advance.




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