Post #105942 by Digitiki on Tue, Aug 3, 2004 10:34 AM

Another note on recording from vinyl:
Signal strength is another consideration when trying to get a good recording. Too soft and you hear more noise, too loud and the audio distorts or "clips". What I do is find the loudest song or part of a song on the LP side. Then, play it a couple of times and watch your computer's recording software input level meters (if the software has it--most do). You want the loudest part of the music to go almost, but not quite to the "0dB" marker. Remember, in digital audio 0dB means the point where the audio will clip, it can't take any more signal. By getting the signal as close to 0dB withou going over, you can get a good signal to noise ratio. That is, more signal, less noise from the record player, etc. However, a lot of exotica like Arthur Lyman is very quiet, so make sure you don't boost the recording too much as to make it un-natural.