a decent eliptical hi fi cart.

So my eliptical nightclub is an excellent choice... Thanks, I'll get going.

B.

I'm using the Shure V15VxMR - but it might be too pricy for some @ $300 a pop. Very well worth the money though...

here is the link

www.needlz.com

whoa, $300?!?! :-O

I'll echo in on the V15xMR.

yep...v15 all the way.

side question... what software are you using to digitize the vinyl? Also, what OS? I'm about to pick something up.

I've used Peak 4 for Os X and it's been great... I had been recording mixes and demos for other dj's up until now. Good stuff.

If $300 is a bit too much for you, I would choose the Shure M44-7s or the Shure White Labels. Shure makes the best cartridges IMO :)

44-7s to encode vinyl??????

no love for the ortofons? Bad idea to use my $170 hi-fi elliptical cartridges? I would love to buy a v15 for the cause but honestly I'm already breaking the bank with this project.

Nightclubs will be good right? Always used them, guess I was just looking for validation or some ideas... but that $300 has to go towards the laptop/ssl combo.

The M44-7s are great cartridges. The fequency response of the M44-7 is actually quite good (20 - 17,000 Hz) and the M44-7s have a high output voltage of 9.5 mV.

As a comparison, the Ortofon Night Club (E) cartridges have a frequency response of 20-20.000 Hz ± 2 dB and an output of voltage of 6 mV.

Theyre great carts no doubt, but they're hardly the most audiophile things arounds. very bright highs, poor stereo imaging etc. A lot of people complain that the sound they give can be quite fatiguing.

Grado DJ 200 would be a good choice for recording... not as good as a Koetsu, but much cheaper. Shure's M44-7 would not be a good choice for recording (due to the fact that low-end is pumped up quite a bit)... your Ortofons would be acceptable, but this too would give an inaccurate reproduction because they pump up the mids and highs in those carts. Remember, this will determine the quality of your masters, so choose wisely.

what about this? - www.cs.huji.ac.il

:-P

Shure 447's are definately not recording carts. It'll hold the record reallly well, but the trade off comes in good sound.

A good sounding cartridge should have:

an extended frequency response... at least 20hz - 20kHz. The really good ones will go beyond that.

should have a flat response. That means that it does little as possible to color (change) the sound. Whats recorded is what you will hear.

Output isn't really relevant here... a high output is only useful for a mixer that has a low channel gain. But it isnt needed for recording purposes because you'll have a good phono pre-amp.

should sound good to your ears. Every cart sounds different, although they should all strive for a flat response. For example, to me.. the 447's have over exaggerated highs and bumped up lows, stanton 680s have a very warm sound with some rolled off highs, ortofons has a very raspy high with a funny sounding midrange.

-----

Just as important would be a quality phono preamp. You should be fine if you have a Rane mixer or allen & heath.. but most lower quality DJ mixers don't have very good phono preamps. If you don't have a quality DJ mixer and/or don't want to take your mixer out to record, you should invest in a high quality phono preamp, you can get a good one from $80 - $300. I use the Sumiko Project Phonobox.

--------

Check out www.needledoctor.com for the audiophile stuff i mentioned.

--------

Here is my choice of carts for recording

$50 Shure 35x $50 - deep lows, a little accented highs. great for the $$$

$60 Stanton 680EL - use to be the standard in broadcast and DJing. Relatively flat sound, robust and warm sounding.

$90 Shure M97xE - get this if you can't afford the v15

$300 Shure V15VxMR - probably the best car that us working DJ's can afford. You can go to the thousands spending money on carts, but this is a really good one for the price. Great sound, extemely low record wear, high sensitivity....



Oh... and get a good soundcard. :)

why not get a laser turntable? I think it's only.. $20,000

I can not repeat CAN NOT afford the v15 =P

djtrackie - thanks for the informative post... I would not mind spending $100 on a cartridge just for recording. I will look into the M97xE. So in your opinion this cart gives a better representation of the true sound than my beloved nightclubs?

Anyone else got ideas $100 or less?

Also, mixer is a Pioneer djm600, if I could do it over it would be and Allen & Heath xone:62 ... this mixer will be fine for recording no? I mean, I'm kind of a dork about recording, I would looooove to have a v15 and the xone, but I don't... I'm trying to achieve the best sound quality I can with what I have.

oh and the soundcard is m-audio's audiophile 2496...

www.gradolabs.com

This is for the Grado Prestige Red... all for $100.

:-)

ok hmmm I got one for Grado Prestige Red, and one for the Shure M97xE.. researching now... thanks for all the help gentlemen

Keep em comin,

B.

(found the Shure for less than $70 shipped.. Good stuff)

Make it two for the M97 unless you hit the lotto. :)

I don't plan on doing this again, so I just want to know... is dropping another $50 going to make a difference? I will do it if it will cause these are my digital copies, I don't want to be listening to them in a year and think, I should redo these. It's gonna be a pain in my a$$ the first time you know?

Mr. Detriot... Your professional opinion? It seems you really like the Grados.

So 2 for the Shure, 1 for the Grado.

did I mention this board rocks?

Grado has very good quality products... very flat and wide range frequency response. Google this as well as any other carts you are thinking about.

If I had the money, I would get a Koetsu, but I don't feel like dropping a few thousand on a cartridge.

:-)

What ever you decide to do, make sure you research it quite a bit - the quality of your music is very important. Just don't use a DJ cartridge for recording... please.

you have my word

*wink*

trackie's right. when selecting a cartridge for archiving vinyl, you really need one that has a FLAT response. this means simply that none of the frequencies in the recording are boosted or augmented. this way you get a near exact recording of the vinyl without any "added" frequencies. almost all of the DJ carts out there (447, ortofons, whitelabels, stanton, etc) boost certain frequencies and therefore are not going to be ggod for archiving your music. for example, if you archived your music with ortofons, your entire music collection sill have added lows, mids, or high (depending on which orts you use) and will not be true representations of what is actually on the vinyl. the v15 really is the BEST cart out there for archiving. i know it's expensive, but it is defintely worth it. especially if you are doing a lot of archiving (i have over 6000 records still left to archive). the v15s have actually beat out many of the high priced audiofile carts (such as koetsu for example). they only require 1 gram of tracking force and therefore introduce a minimal amount of hiss and rumble. you can find more info at: www.needlz.com

now if you really have money to spend and want the ultimate archival system that makes an EXACT copy of the noise signature on a vinyl record (ie> absolutely no frequencies added or subtracted and NO hiss or rumble added), you could buy a laser turntable. problem is that they run about $10000 to $15000 which is a little more than i have. someday though....

check em out here: www.elpj.com

pne more thing...if the v15 is still out of your price range, the Shure M97 comes in a distant second place but is still better than any of the DJ carts for archiving and is about half the price of the v15. just FYI...

Great info guys.

damn. well it's almost my b-day, I'll tell my papa to buy it.

=) Brooke

While I agree that the Shure V15s are quite good, there is no way that they are better than even the lowest priced Koetsu carts. Show me where they have gone head-to-head in an independent review (and the V15s have won) and i'll eat my words.

[quoteWhile I agree that the Shure V15s are quite good, there is no way that they are better than even the lowest priced Koetsu carts. Show me where they have gone head-to-head in an independent review (and the V15s have won) and i'll eat my words.

you're right...i have never personally seen an independant review comparing any of the koetsu carts against the V15. however i do know several sound engineers that swear the V15 beats the top end koetsu in almost every department. i'll talk to him and see if he's actually done a review on the 2 carts. of course i've never actually had a chance to compare the two either as i'm sorta against spending $4000 on a single cart. more to follow...

ooops....damn. that was supposed to be a quote up top.

Don't worry, feniks - understood your point. While we may personally disagree on the Shure V15s vs. Koestsu, I do believe we are on the same page regarding using audiophile carts for recording as opposed to DJ carts. Sound is very important and I, for one, am very glad that there are a few others here who are so passionate about it.

:-)

If you had to chose between the Grado red, and the V15 what would you chose? And do you have direct experience with these?

The wealth of knowledge here is amazing, I'm getting started archiving as soon as I have a respectable cart... thanks for the help.

B.

I think the V15 is a better cartridge, but there is a significant price difference ($300 vs. $100). I thought you already stated that three-hundred dollars was a bit too rich for your blood?

Yeah, thing is you have me all worked up about this =) No seriously, I want as close to perfect as humanly possible while archiving. I only want to do it once, feniks said the M97 is a distant second. I personally have never dealt with any of these, I've only used dj carts so I'm just soaking it all in. I mean if there REALLY is that much difference between the carts I will have to find a way to get the V15... (^i was serious about the b-day thing... Daaaaaaad!) I'm a freak about sound quality i'm thinking I gotta do .aif's too. That's a whole different subject.

I'm fussing over this cause I want to at least decide on a cart asap. I have a pretty extensive collection of vinyl and I've been meaning to organize and clean it all up anyway. Now there is a greater purpose.

This is just the start of the long road to ssl... If I'm doing something productive in the meantime it will make the wait much less painfull.

Detroit - you've been so helpfull, you're name has me wondering ghetto tech type shxt or old school bootylicious-ness? You a dj or producer? Lemme guess dj/producer? got anything online?

word,
B.

In Detroit, no one uses the term "ghetto-tech". Here, it is either referred to as "booty", "bootybass", or "technobass". Also, in Detroit, everyone is a dj and a producer.

:-)

Let me try to sum it up for you. Differnces of opinion that people may have (think of feniks and I) are just that - opinions. The carts that we have mentioned are all very good audiophile cartridges that would give you a great master digital copy of your vinyl. Any differnces between the high-end carts are minimal. The difference between DJ carts and high-end audiophile ones is significant. Don't waste too much time mulling this over... as long as you choose a high-end cartridge for recording, you will be fine. Do a little research. Know your budget. Maybe buy some Gruv-Glide and a nice record cleaning brush for achival purposes. Then get started making your .aif or .wav files - just don't forget to make a CD backup of each track!

Thanks...

enough about that already huh?

got some gruv glide, need a brush... and whatever cart I can afford.

On to the next subject.

B.

seriously.. don't forget a decent phono pre-amp. It can make a world of difference.

damn it. thought i was done with this.

Pioneer Djm-600 should be fine right? I mean I paid $1200 for the thing it better at least do this.

no...

DJM-600 = terrible sound quality but superb effects. It's all about "Tradeoffs" in this world.

Rane = superb sound quality but no bells & whistles.

A phono preamp is not as simple as you might think, it's responsible for boosting back and equalizing the signal coming back from the record - this is called the RIAA curve.
------
RIAA Curve: "LP's are engraved with reduced bass levels and increased treble levels.

For the same sound level, a low frequency requires a larger groove which gives two drawbacks:
- Less recording time
- Difficulties for the cartridge to follow it and thus, higher distorsion

At the other end of the spectrum, the contact between the stylus and the groove makes noise, a high frequency noise. By increasing the high frequencies level during recording we can obtain a better signal/noise ratio as the noise is reduced by the playback curve. "
----

The phono preamp has a HUGE responsibilty... to undo those reduce and boosted frequecies - accurately and with little noise.

----

Seriously, the last thing you should do is to scrimp on your phono preamp and carts. Because i know for a FACT that better phono preamps and carts are out there, and you won't be able to stand the fact that you recorded your [favorite song] with inferior equipment.

Buy once, buy smart.

Oh, and cables... you don't need $80 monster cables. But get decent RCA cables that has a [read] FOIL shield. These offer the best protection against interference. You should be spending $10 - $20 for a pair of decent RCAs. Anything higher will only result in little or no improvement. Remember, the key thing is to keep the cables as short you need them to be. No need to run a 25 foot RCA if you don't need it. Your RCAs should be 10 feet or less, the shorter, the better.

BTW.. how do i know all this? I'm a good friend of a former Stanton product designer and a recording enthusiast, learning all I can about recording music for the past several years.

rane makes a superb stand alone preamp. but it runs about $180.

fucking fuck.

I know I need a different mixer, I'm not even on the effects... ever. I bought this one because I was promoting and a ton of djs specifically requested it on their contracts. I played on an Allen & Heath one night at a club and immediately fell in love. What is this, low-mid? high-mid? and beautiful warm sound emmiting..

did I say fuck?

ok good. Cause I hate to go by a stand alone preamp when that money could in theory go towards a new mixer. If I'm ever going to get going though I'm gonna have to just bite the bullet. Question... if I'm going through a preamp should I just record right into the computer? Can I run through the mixer on a "line" channel? Would that degrade the signal in any way? Already got the gold plated pimpness for rcas, at least there's one thing I don't have to replace/buy.

dj trackie - I appreciate your knowledge. Thanks for the honest reply.

I was wondering if any of you guys could share your expertise and tell me what you think about Ortofon Concorde Pro Spherical Cartridges when it comes to scratch DJing. I've noticed that some records I buy brand new seem to have cracks/pops even with new needles. Can this be from the way they were pressed? What do you guys recommend as a way to remove cracks/pops when recording records? Thanks for you time!

depakote, I like the DJ S needles a lot, if you dont use too much weight, fill the loose holes on your scratch records with stickers, then they are good. Cracks/pops are usually cause by "damages" on the record.
You could use some plug-ins on your recorded files, some decrackling plugins. AFAIK (but dont have very much knowledge here) sonic foundry crackle does a good job. I usually use the noise reduction from sonic foundry, you can give a noise fingerprint, and it will remove that noise from your recorded files, then I apply the click and crackle plugin, it removes little pos and cracks.

Thanks for the feedback nik! Strange how some of my brand new records have cracks/pops. I have a Mac so sonic foundry isn't an option. Does anyone know of any decrackling apps or plugins for Apple? Thanks again!

I would imagine a bad needle could damage a record but how likely would this happen with only a few plays?

Would you be able to see some signs of visible damage if this occurred?

I realized that I am hearing cracks/pops with all my records with both turntables. I have brand new decks, needles and cords. Everything is connected properly including the grounds. I imagine there must be a problem with the mixer then? Something may be dirty? Feedback greatly appreciated. Thanks a million!

Techinically, you can go straight to the computer. However, you are going to find yourself adjusting levels and channel balance (the left or right side is going to louder). You make all these adjustments in your audio program though.

For convenience, it's good to have a mixer to adjust the levels. I use a Mackie 1402 - but any good dj mixer will do. It's not as crucial as the phono preamp, you still want something that is low noise (not the Pioneer!).

LOL... you think there is any real gold in those RCAs? They put a tiny spec of gold that wears off after plugging the RCAs in the first time. I wouldn't worry too much, if the cables aren't skinny like the ones that came with SSL, they should be cool.

here's what i use to give you an idea of what i consider a rather decent setup for converting vinyl into wav and mp3 formats. i think you'll see that it is a big pain in the ass as there are quite a few sequential steps involved if you want to get studio quality reproductions. here's the equipment i use:

1 x Technics 1210M5G Turntable
1 x Rane PS1 Phone Stage (preamp)
1 x Digidesign MBox with Pro Tools 6.4
1 x Waves Restoration Plugins (click, crackle, hum, noise reduction)
1 x Powerbook G4 1.5 GHz (to run the software)
1 x Shure V15VxMR Audiophile Cartridge
1 x HRS Analog Disk Spindle Clamp (to reduce vibration noise)
4 x Vibrapod isolation feet (to further reduce vibration noise)


and here's the process from start to finish:

the vibrapod feet are positioned underneath each of the four turntable feet to isolate the turntable from structural and airborne vibration (this is important because a vinyl cartridge is really a specialized unit designed to pick up vibration and why introduce unwanted vibration into your recording if you don't have to). the record is then placed on the platter and clamped down with the analog disk clamp (to also further reduce structural and airborne vibrations from being recorded). the track is then recorded into protools, adjusting the levels so that there is absolutely no clipping (also important to note that the track is NOT played through an external speaker as it is being recorded as this introduces lots of airborn vibration--i usually monitor the track through headphones). after, the track is edited in pro tools, which means that i isolate as much background hiss/hum/rumble with the noise reduction filters in the Waves plugins and remove it from the recording. i also run the track through a click and crackle removal algorhythm to clean it up as much as possible without removing key frequencies in the track. to ensure that only clicks and crackles are removed, the signal constantly checked by previewing the removed frequencies before actully removing them (some people call this "inverse signal monitoring" which allows you to preview the frequencies you are going to remove before actually removing them from the track). then the track is peak normalized to 0db (which means that the highest peak hits zero and ensures that there is no clipping). the track is then exported out of pro tools as a wav or aiff file. i then use an mp3 converter called LameBrain (because it uses the Lame encoder engine--quite arguably the best mp3 encoder in existence) to convert the wav files into mp3s (i use Lame version 3.93.1). these mp3s are then added to SSL and...voila...you have successfully converted your vinyl.

as you can see, this takes a good amount of time. but it is worth it as you end up with crystal clear copies that actually sound better than the vinyl. in fact sometimes i'll convert a track to wav just to use the wav file rather than the vinyl in a mix.

one final thought...

it's probably not the best idea to record through a mixer unless you have a way to defeat the mixer's EQ function. if you don't defeat the EQ you may inadvertantly be adding and subtracting some frequencies from the track and not getting a flat response recording (remember...just because the knob is turned to "0" doen't necessarily mean that that EQ knob is completely off). this would sorta defeat the purpose of buying a high quality "flat response" cartridge don't you agree?

anyways...enough babble. i hope this helps.

just wondering why are you using a direct-drive turntable? i'd imagine you can get rid of the rumble of the motor using software, but if you're going to great lenghths for sound quality, belt-drive is actually quieter.

SpinThis, why is a belt-drive driven motor actually quiter? If you have a direct drive motor, then there is only one centered contact and else than then you dont have any mechanical noise, because the movement is done with magnetical power w/o any thing which transfers the movement power from a motor with a belt. (Sorry for this horrible description, but I think the main point is clear)
Am I wrong?

actually, i'm pretty sure that a direct drive Technics is quiter than a belt drive turntable. the reason is because with a belt drive table, there are several moving parts that can introduce noise and vibration. with a direct drive table such as the 1200/1210 the platter is part of the motor itself (in fact it's the only moving part of the motor as the rest of the motor is composed of magnets and wiring). but you're right, i can compensate for most of the turntable noise with the Waves noise reduction plugin i have.

one other reason i would recommend a direct drive table over a belt drive is because the Technics offer a quartz lock which ensures that you get exactly 33.33333333 rpm. you would never be able to get this kind of rotational precision with a belt drive.

true if you're talking about low-end turntables, but most audiophile turntables own technics quartz lock when it comes to precision. technics may own the market for DJing but they're hardly innovative when it comes ot the audiophile market. the main strength of a 1200 is its motor--because it more or less fights like hell when your hand is on the platter to maintain the right speed. however its direct-drive is also reponsible for noise. great for DJing--not so great for sound.

look at any high-end audiophile site and most of the better turntables sold are belt-driven. i remember producer optical in a magazine awhile back on sampling said "the noise of the motor going round really comes through" and if you play on a big rig you can really hear it. there's no way a run of the mill $400 technics is going to sound as good as $2k to $5k audiophile belt-driven turntable. i'm not saying the 1200 is a bad choice, but you just have to be aware of the rumble. i'd say for purity of sound, the technics direct-drive system would introduce more motor noise into your sound (because the motor is integrated into the platter). that's the point i was trying to get across.

with that said i'm just going to add for all the reading i've done of reviews of turntables, you can't buy a better turntable audiophile wise for under $500 than you can with a 1200.

you could be right. to be honest, i've never had a chance to test a high end belt-drive in person. however, i can take out almost all of the turntable noise from the Technics with the waves plugins so this seems to work pretty well for me. just for the sake being true and informative, i'll talk to a sound engineer frined of mine and see if i can get anymore info on the direct drive vs. belt-drive issue. thanks.

Sooo, all this thinking about this has lead me to what I consider a great idea.

I'm thinking about starting a vinyl archival/restoration buisiness ;) I could purchase all the needed equipment, and put a few ads out, maybe a website... Something I could easily do around work, and I get to write off all this equipment I want anyway. If it doesn't take off, Who cares!

Going to meet an accountant on Friday, the wheels are spinning.

Brooke.

i'd definitely be interested in this as it takes soooo long to convert my vinyl over to digital format. it'd be worth it to pay someone to do this for you...as long as they did it correctly of course.

No diss, but there is no way that I would give out my records into someone elses hands ;)

Allright my first customer! No seriously, all this talk has me going 95 miles an hour...

feniks - even if I had a sweet mixer you'd suggest just using a preamp? if this biz happens I would have an allen & heath but I don't know if they have eq bypass or not. I understand the logic completely there.

nik39 - no diss taken, actually I would market this more towards baby boomers with old lps collecting dust. Really I'm just uber excited about the possibility of writing off all of the equipment. Sending even 50 12" back and forth with a dj would be almost retarded. I wouldn't let my vinyl out of my sight either ;)

I would love to pick up a VPI HW-16.5 (or equivilant), and offer a vinyl cleaning service for djs as well. Locally of course.

this has truely snowballed =)

B

as for belt vs direct-drive issue, there have been great designs in both camps--it depends on the model.

audio restoration would be a hard business to break into i'd think. unless they got some really rare vinyl by an abstract artist, most baby boomers i'm assuming have vinyl that's proably been converted to cd already and released by the major labels. for the price they'd pay someone to digitize or restore it, it's much cheaper just to buy the cd from a store, sell their old vinyl at a rummage sale, and go on with their lives. i don't know what the going rate for audio restoration is, but unless you like spending hours at a time recording music you might live to hate, i think i would pass. there's no one-shot plugin that'll handle every situation--you have to listen to the audio, decide what needs to be done, and fix it up.

there might be a market for specialty digital transfer though. i recorded some reel-to-reels to cd for one of my mother's friends, basically old stuff she recorded of her kids when they were growing up since one of her sons was getting married and wanted some the audio used in a video. i can't imagine those people would be lining up at your door for service though, but it's extra cash no doubt.

i think you'd probably have to go with the laser turntable if you were really serious about a consumer digital transfer service.

*ahem*
basically want to write off the equipment guys...

Not too overly worried about the business "taking off" you know? It would be out of my house, I would obviously keep my day job.

I do however think there may be a market for cleaning records for djs... I know if I could drop off my wax and have them returned good as new with nice polimer lined inners I would. Found a nice vacuum cleaner for $500, that could pay for itself for sure.

As for the laser turntable thing... I have to draw a line somewhere. If I couldn't reproduce quality copies, I wouldn't do it. I'm not talking about starting some huge operation either. I've been going mad doing research (you guys have been really helpfull btw) and I would hone my skills before I charged anyone. I would probably advertise with a record store I used to work for that sells old/rare vinyl. They are really cool and people come from all around to shop there. Again I'm not too overly worried about the amount of business I drum up. I'd have no overhead. The initial investment in equipment would be the major cost... and I wanted all this stuff anyway ;)

Who knows if this will pan out... I will let you know what I find out after talking to my accountant. It would be reeeeeeally nice to justify buying equipment I want anyway, and maybe bring in some dough here and there.

no doubt, good luck with your endeavors Brooke!

Thanks Dynamight ;)

Meeting my accountant Friday, got some cash lined up. Can't wait to hear what he says.

ok, so im going to buy a cartridge just for recording. will a Stanton 680EL be much better than my current m447?

1200sl > 680EL > TTm56 > Edirol UA25 > Mac Mini > Sound Studio

what do you think? worth buying the 680el's? i mean they are the industry standard afterall?

thanks

If you're buying a cartridge just for recording, don't buy one meant for DJ use. You'll get much better sound if you spend the same $ on a "home audiophile" type cartridge (one that was not designed to withstand back-cueing.

The design factors that allow a stylus to survive back-cueing are very much at odds with the design factors for best sound quality.

Budget: a lot of people use the lower-end Grado cartridges with good results. Any of them will sound *much* better than any "DJ" cartridge.

I use the Shure V15vxMR. It tracks loud 12" singles more cleanly than anything else I've ever tried or auditioned, and that includes some time spent auditioning multi-thousand dollar cartridges. Also importantly, the Shure V15 behaves well in a Technics 1200 tonearm, something that is most definitely not the case with some other high-end cartridges.

Most important of all, and very often neglected: proper alignment. Spending money on a good cartridge is totally wasted if you don't have it aligned perfectly. The more elliptical (or "hyper-elliptical", or "Micro-Ridge" as in the case of the V15) the stylus shape is, the more critical alignment is. The white plastic thingie that comes with a Technics 1200 is NOT suitable for this...either have it done professionally, or get ahold of a Mobile Fidelity Geo Disc and do the most excruciatingly careful job of it that you can do. You'll not only get the best possible sound, you'll also save on both stylus and record wear.

Hello, since the V15VxMR appears to be discontinued - are there any recommendations for an alternate cartridge / stylus to use for archiving / converting an LP collection in a digital format?

Thanks in advance

Shure M97xE is the 'little brother' to the now-discontinued V15VxMR.

I'm betting that the M97xE is probably entirely adequate...it would definitely sound way better than even the most high-end DJ cartridge.

I have (before I started using the V15vxMR) used Sumiko's Blue Point cartridge with good results. It's trackability of loud/bright 12-inch singles is definitely less clean than with the V15 though.

Other people have reported being happy with the Grado cartridges as I've mentioned previously.

yes, this is a good choice - it's Shure's 'audiophile' cartridge. Their whitelabel cartridge gets a lot of good feedback too.

Thanks for the responses

I've been looking at some of the manufacturer websites and the Stanton 681EEE MKIII seems like it may be a good choice as well. Has anyone had any experience using this cartridge for recording LP's over to digital format?

Thanks again

I've made my arguement in other threads, but I'm still not a fan of using Hi-Fi carts for recording.

I've settled on the Standon 680EL MkII and I'm very happy with it!

Stanton even!

Everything that Stanton makes is of a very low-quality... caveat emptor!

I agree. Their cartridges used to be among the best, but the quality has nosedived in recent years (presumably after the company was bought out and taken over by a bunch of marketing weenies).

A certain product we love to hate is no exception.

Not sure this is exactly "on-topic", but as I will be going into this pretty soon too, thought I might ask:
Phono preamps are certainly important, but I've seen some soundcards and such that have phono ins, which solves the preamp problem. But is there any way you can just hook up your deck to one of these soundcards and have the level corrected through software? Running it through my mixer is just not an option, simply too many things between the RCAs of my decks and the final recording (Gain, EQs, channel fader, master EQs, master fader...).
While I'm at it, is the Rolls box good? It has phono RCA ins.
Thanks in advance, I'm in awe at how much can be learned through this forum.

OK, thanks again. I did not know that Staton's quality had fell off that much - it's been a while since I've had to purchase a cartridge and this application is a lot different than when I used to look for the best cartridge for cuttin' and scratchin'. I think I may give the Shure a try for the purpose of recording.

This may be slightly off topic, but how much does the cartridge factor in if you are using a direct drive turntable? I've seen some threads in this forum that suggest you will get a good deal of 'rumble' noise from the motor of a direct drive turntbale as opposed to that of a belt drive turntable.

I think that may be the other way around. The Technics run off a magnet, so you won't have that problem with 1200s.

Check out a belt drive and hold the platter with your hand and see what happens. Then do the same on a 12. The motor won't be the only thing you'll notice.

I'm no expert, but if that is the case then why are all of the high end 'audiophile' turntables belt driven?

It would definitely be nice to use my existing 1200's for use in recording my LP's to a digital format, but I'd like to know if what I'm recording is good quality - or just ok.

I'd like to have my recordings good enogh for use with SSL as well as with a CD Turntable. (Haven't decided if I want CD turntables or SSL)

I've done a number of restoration projects using vinyl as source material for reissues (in fact, I am finishing one such project tonight)...and have used the Technics 1200 to do them.

The inherent rumble in any pressing (from minor irregularities in the vinyl as well as the cutting lathe) is likely to be far higher than that coming from the turntable.

The quality of the phono cartridge and proper alignment (and other details, like making sure the turntable is level) are far more important than the type of motor.

Ok, here's a question for all you audio buffs out there.
If recording vinyl into Scratch LIVE 1.5 through a TTM56 mixer, will recording the records which are 45 RPM, at 33 RPM, to be played back at 45, set to 33 in Scratch LIVE improve audio quality? The file size becomes much bigger but does it actually improve it? I tried it and the high frequencies seemed a bit clearer than what i'm used to but I didn't manage to do an A/B with another non-RPM switched copy of the same track. Thoughts?

Unless you've got some really good software to bring it back to its original speed, you might wanna record your songs as they were originally pressed. If you're doing some real "archiving", trying to get the sounnd as accurate and rich as it is on vinyl, what you want to do is have as few "steps" as you possibly can between the original analog and your digital final. But if you're just transfering to play'em out in clubs (as it is for a lot of us), in all honesty, it's gonna be pretty hard to tell the difference when you factor in all the damage uncorrectly set EQs, amps, gain structure, crossovers, mixers and speakers will do to the pristine quality you get from being over-zealous.
The reason why the file got bigger is cause it's a long longer than the original, obviously.

I tried this once, in 1991 when I was doing a re-edit for a DJ mix service and the only available source material was a record that was cut louder than normal. I thought it might be possible that playing the record slower might improve high-frequency tracking. It wound up being an interesting yet fruitless experiment for several reasons:

1) It seemed to roll off the extreme low end, which makes sense because playing at the slower speed shifted all frequencies down by slightly under a half-octave. Stated another way, frequencies that would have been 45Hz in the original recording were now playing at 33Hz. The lowest frequencies (played slow) were therefore getting rolled off by the infrasonic filtering in the preamp (as well as the natural low-end rolloff in the cartridge and other electronics in the signal path).

2) For similar reasons as above, the whole RIAA EQ curve was rendered inaccurately, making the high end brighter than it should have been (this may explain why you hear the high frequencies "sounding clearer"...you're basically shifting all of the corner frequencies that are involved with the RIAA curve downward by nearly 1/2 octave).

3) Correcting the pitch, using 1991 digital technology, was a time-consuming pain in the ass involving sample-rate conversion, and my original 44.1kHz-sampled recording wouldn't even work because it needed to be converted to a sample-rate too high for the software (this was long before decent-quality simple-to-use "pitch-shift" features were added to digital software). After struggling with that, it dawned on me that sampling at 32kHz and playing back at 44.1 would give a near-perfect correction factor (nearly identical percentage-wise to the difference between record speeds). That was how I finally ended up doing it.

This was back in the days when "fast" computers were $6,000 Mac IIci's running at 25mHz, $3,000 1-gig hard drives *might* be fast enough to play two channels of 16-bit/44.1 audio without glitching, and the $5,000 digital audio hardware/software *might* actually make it through a few hours' experimentation without crashing.

Anyway a much better solution would be to use a better cartridge...although sometimes the "dirty" sound is just inherent to the pressing and there's little to be done (the Waves Restoration "De-Crackle" plug-in can help take a bit of the edge off, but it's no cure).

Wow.

i've just ordered a shure M97xE from needle doctor... I'm planning on setting up an encoding rig. Sound quality is important to me, but equally important is getting the most amount of music recorded digitally in the least amount of time. So... sound quality vs. convenience always something I try to balance.

The reality is, 99% of the time, I will not be playing these 320K MP3s anywhere where someone will notice whether or not I used one cartridge or preamp vs another. More importantly, its whether or not the record is dirty or has cue burn.

I mean, you want things to be in the highest quality, but eventually people will listen to my mixes on their ipod headphones or through medium quality club sound systems... so I cant really spend more than 5 extra minutes per record. Does anyone agree?

Agreed. If you can (and you should), make an original high quality Wav or Aiff file and compressed copies to suit your demand. Ipods or club systems do not qualify if you're talking about being able to tell the difference between a decently transfered Wav and, say, a 192k MP3. Never looked at it in the way you said, but the time difference is really rather small in the end.

BTW, DJMark -> excelent reply, makes perfect sense. Never thought about the RIAA correction.

Word - props to Mark. Much respect.

I agree with Rodrigo. I have decided to record stuff to WAVs in batches, and while I'm recording I can edit the files, clean up some of the cue burn and prepare them for batch encoding to covert them to 320 CBR files. Any files modified with plug-ins or special effects will be re-encoded from these files to separate them from the original 320 files.

Lucky dude DJMark ... a I GB harddrive in 1991 !!

Insightful info.

I was rocking a 30 MB back then ... not to mention almost 1 MB of RAM ! :) Can't remember if it was an 8088 or 286 SX with a Math CoProcessor ....

Not the Math Co-Processor!???! Talk about a throwback? I remember my 30 MB Hard Card, CGA and EGA monitors, 5.25" floppies, when the function keys only went up to 10 and were on the left side of the keyboard w/ the big ass (non-PS2) connector. We couldn't afford the Math Co-joint on one of our first machines. I think it was less than 10 MHz? Damn. We had a Commodore 64 at the time too, with progams on tape cassettes and a 300 baud modem. Crazy.

remember when modems were bigger than current laptops?

i used to have a friend that had an atari with video games on the cassete player..we'd pop one in, go outside and have lunch, and it might be ready by the time we got back...