Reviving Your Vinyl: A review of Instant Music from ADS Tech [Archive]

Don Tolson

03-26-2008, 04:00 PM

<img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1205870941.usr15.jpg" /> Product Category: Audio Transfer Hardware/Software Manufacturer: <a target="blank" href="http://www.Adstech.com">ADS Tech</a> Where to Buy: <a target="blank" href="http://www.adstech.com/products/RDX-150/intro/RDX-150_intro1.asp?pid=RDX-150">ADS Tech</a> Price: $49.99 USD (I couldn't find a price for the SpinItAgain software separately) System Requirements: Windows 98SE, WinME, Win2000, WinXP (Home or Professional), (No mention of Vista), CPU - Intel Pentium 3 500 MHz or faster, USB port, CD ROM (for software installation) Specifications: Audio IN/Out: RCA Stereo (Left and Right); SPDIF (Toslink); Power: USB bus power (no external supply needed); USB: USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 compatible as a Full Speed Device; Audio Specs: Capture: 16 bit; Sampling Rate: 8, 11, 16, 22.05, 32 44.1 or 48 kHz; THD+N = 0.01%; SNR= 89dB; Playback: 16 bit; Sampling Rate: 32, 44.1, 48 kHz; THD+N = 0.005%; SNR = 96dB. Pros:<ul> <li>very easy to hookup </li> <li>lots of presets to assist with noise reduction for specific situations </li> <li>pop-up hints and tips available to help with recording from analog media </li></ul>Cons:<ul> <li>no output to MP3 format (WAV, WMA and OGG only) </li> <li>no way to get the SpinItAgain software alone </li></ul>Summary: Got a closet/storage rack/crawl space full of vinyl records, 8 tracks or cassette tapes? Well, maybe you'd like to preserve some of those old memories in digital form, but don't have the hookups and editing capability to do it on your own. ADS Tech's Instant Music may be just the answer for you. It's easy to set up and fairly straightforward to record and transfer those old formats to digital. It can't do it all automatically for you, but it does handle most of the more technical aspects. Read on for the full review! <MORE /> <div style=""> <pagebreak></pagebreak>Introduction Being amongst the end of the 'Baby Boomer' generation, I have a considerable collection (approximately 700 albums) of vinyl records gathering dust in bookshelves in my library. It's a very eclectic collection – ranging from hard rock to folk to independent, new wave – and there are a lot of memories tied up in those disks. Unfortunately, vinyl is not a permanent storage media, and as they get older, the chances of transferring them to a digital format in usable form becomes more and more tenuous. (I've given up completely on the cassette tapes, as most of those have stretched beyond playability.) I have an older, still serviceable Sony turntable and a computer with audio inputs but the problem with that was a) control of the audio recording volumes and b) editing the two 'sides' of the record into separate music tracks and putting them into standard album folder format.</div><div style=""> I looked at a couple of commercially available music ripping products from MusicTracks and Nero, but neither seemed to have the complete package. After posting a question on the Digital Home Thoughts, Jason and some others suggested I take a look at Instant Music from ADS Tech. They're the same folks who provide the most widely used video transfer hardware/software – the Pyro/AV series. So you'd expect them to have a pretty complete package. What You Get InstantMusic hardware and software comes in the now ubiquitous bubble-wrap package and includes everything you see here: <img border="1" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1203632089.usr15.jpg" /> Figure 1: The contents of the Instant Music Package. This includes: </div><div><ul> <li>the Instant Music Interface hardware; </li> <li>Play It Again software; </li> <li>cables for connecting between the audio source, the Instant Music interface and your computer; </li> <li>a Quick Start Guide to connecting everything together and getting started. </li></ul></div>Everything you need for 99% of the recording/transfer situations you will encounter is there, including the cables, which is a nice touch. Too often, I see vendors providing audio hardware, but leaving all the connecting cables up to you, as they figure there are too many different options. <PAGE /> Installation Installation of the SpinItAgain software is pretty automatic – just pop in the CD and a wizard takes care of everything. There's very little to 'configure' at this point, since most of that is left for when you actually do the recording. As far as the InstantMusic hardware is concerned, hookup is similarly simple and straightforward. As mentioned above, cables for most audio sources are provided. <img border="1" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1205782085.usr15.jpg" /> Figure 2: The working side of the IM interface – input and output jacks. From left to right, they include standard RCA stereo phono in/out, SPDIF (digital audio) in/out, and USB power/output. About the only thing you have to be careful of is that you must have a pre-processed sound source to plug into the hardware. (I.e. You can't directly hook a turntable to InstantMusic's input. The turntable must be connected to an amplifier/pre-amp first, then the 'Line Out' or 'Record Out' jacks on the amp can be connected to InstantMusic's input.) In the case of cassette decks, most better quality ones will have a 'Play Out' jack set that you connect to. If you have no other output available, you can connect the headphone output to the Instant Music input, but be careful with your volume levels and be aware that the quality will suffer, due to impedance mismatches. The interface also provides SPDIF (digital) audio in/out jacks, but I wonder why you'd need this, since if the source is already able to produce digitized audio, why not plug it directly into the computer? Recording the Source Once you're all hooked up, it's time to make your first recording for transfer. All of this is done through the SpinItAgain application. The screens shown here are for vinyl records (remember them?) but its the same procedure for cassette tapes, 8 tracks or any other audio source you might have. <img alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205782169.usr15.gif" /> Figure 3: The main screen of Spin It Again. The first step in recording is to set a consistent input level. SpinItAgain provides a level-setting wizard to do this automatically for you. It's a good idea to use this, since the manual control (see Figure 4) doesn't let you adjust channels individually, nor can you adjust the volume during the actual recording (see Figure 5). Basically, the wizard has you play a portion of the source recording (preferably the loudest bits), during which it takes about a 25 second sample, then sets the recording level appropriately.<img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205868774.usr15.gif" /> Figure 4: Recording Level Wizard Once the recording level has been set, you're good to go. For commercial records produced in the last 50 years (yes, that's since the 60's!), I would recommend you use the same setting for both sides. Most record manufacturers will set the output levels of each track to provide consistent volume levels for the listener. For my test, I selected alive recording of a 60's folk trio called The Limelighters. Live concert recordings are hardest for recording engineers and track-detection software, since the volumes levels change frequently and widely, and there is often banter in between songs that's difficult to split between tracks. <img alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205868805.usr15.gif" /> Figure 5: Recording the Album. During the recording process, SpinItAgain supplies helpful hints for correcting common problems with records and tapes. Some of the suggestions brought back nostalgic memories, but you have to be careful with them. (For example, see the one mentioned in the screenshot above for making your records 'flat' again!) One, for instance, suggested using coins to alter the tracking weight of the stylus, to prevent skipping. That might have been OK with your great-grandmother's gramophone with a nail for a needle, but any stylus built after 1970 usually has a tracking weight of less than 2g and the weight of any coin would destroy it and the record. While recording, you can also supply album information, such as title, artist, year and genre. <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1205953645.usr15.jpg" /> Figure 6: Supplying Album Info A button available on the screen suggests that SIA can access an Internet database to get additional info (maybe the song titles?) but it didn't work for my test album. Maybe it just needs something a little more recent... <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1205953714.usr15.jpg" /> Figure 7: I tried the Album Search with something a little more recent, and this time, it was able to come back with the individual song track titles. One of the neat features of SpinItAgain is a PAUSE button, which allows you to get both sides of a record into a single recording. This is useful, since during the editing process, you can work on a single file to create the entire album, rather than having to go through the process time, then trying to blend them together. SpinItAgain stores the recording as a WAV file, which supposedly could be used to edit at a later time, but I couldn't find anything in the SIA workflow that would allow me to stop and save at any time to come back and finish later. It seemed to be an all or nothing proposition. <PAGE /> Editing for Song Breaks and Album Info Once you have completed the recording, SpinItAgain's workflow takes you directly into editing the WAV file to identify where each track (song) starts and ends. <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205871759.usr15.gif" /> Figure 8: Editing the WAV file to set the start and end points of each track. As I mentioned before, you pretty well have to do this step next, since I couldn't find any way to 'save this for later'. The software will analyze the recording using gaps with low or no sound, to identify start and end points. Unfortunately, with the live concert material, SpinItAgain split songs at quiet points, in the middle of jokes, and around applause. It took quite a while to get it sorted out. The interface wasn't the easiest for me either, as the end point of one song isn't the same as the start point of the next. Thus, gaps between the end point of one song and the start of the next are skipped, and it's possible to have the second song start before the first has finished. The arrangement provides ultimate flexibility, but it is a bit confusing until you get the hang of it. Fortunately, the sound editor provides zoom-in, zoom-out capabilities so you can set the points very precisely. During this editing process is also when you can apply pre-defined filters to help eliminate hiss and pops commonly encountered on older records. <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205874473.usr15.gif" /> Figure 9: List of filters available Once the track start and end points are set, then it's time to name each of the songs. Again, the interface was a bit confusing, since they seemed to want the Artist and Album information repeated again for each song. I'm not sure why, if needed, this couldn't have been copied down from the album info already provided. <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205874519.usr15.gif" /> Figure 10: Naming each one of the tracks in the album. Note the repeat of the Album, Genre, Year, and Artist info for each track. It's good if you're putting together your own compilation, but for album recording why can't they fill it in automatically? <PAGE /> Storing the Results With the tracks marked and identified, the next step is to generate the digital output. My personal goal is to create a complete digital audio library of all my CDs and records collected over the years, so eventually I can load them all on a huge IPOD, or equivalent. Then, anyone in the family can select what they want to listen to, by whatever mood strikes them at the moment. For now, to support the greatest variety of players and avoid DRM completely, I've been recording mainly to MP3. <img border="0" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1205881906.usr15.gif" /> Figure 11: Selecting the output format for your digital recording. Note from the description beside the 'Folder' field that it can output to an MP3 player, but not to MP3 files??? Imagine my surprise when the only digital output options available from SpinItAgain where WAV, WMA, or OGG! The marketing material says that IM can produce an MP3 audio CD, so if it can do that, why can't I get straight MP3 output files? Oh well, output to WMA it is then. It took about 2 to 3 minutes for SpinItAgain to output the 15 tracks to the normal album/folder + files format. Everything worked fine in Windows Media Player and other players I tried it with. Conclusions Most modern computers provide audio input jacks and built-in A/D conversion. There are other recording/sound editing solutions available, but if you're looking for a complete end-to-end package, InstantMusic + SpinItAgain isn't too bad. Once you get used to the sound editor and work with more 'normal' recordings, the process should go fairly smoothly and quickly. I would have preferred a 'Save for Processing Later' feature, and not having MP3 output is a major deficiency. Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and leader of its Enterprise Mobility Community. With the number of albums to go through, it might just be cheaper to buy them online, heh?