I couldn't reply to the earlier post where a comment was made by Pulse, so I started a new topic.

Dj Pulse -

quote:

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I'm still trying to find one that will allow me to monitor the levels because I find that sometimes the wav gets ripped really hot (too close to 0dB or even above - clipping some of the wav).

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First, I want to suggest a program called audiocatalyst to you, http://www.xingtech.com/mp3/audiocatalyst/ . It lets you moniter the levels while ripping to *.wav. Secondly, it could be your soundcard or the recording volume, (check your windows mixer), that is causing it to go above the 0db mark.

Peace, - Eric

[This message has been edited by flat eric (edited 01-13-2001).]

I always try to listing to my speakers, digital audio can clip but also digital noise can let any VU meter go up near to 0dB or even above without the sound clipping. The noise levels are above 44.1Khz and mostly generated by cheaper sound cards with most oscilating on 11.625Khz (generated by most PC TV appliances and video cards), because the audio signal is overfeeded by the soundcard this gives no problems, the singal unfortanly also regenerated as the 4 and 16th mirror of its own freqeuncy just above 44.1 Khz. This freqeuncy is unhearable but still scares up most digital VU meters on mixers.. with fake signals. I have seen many PC audioboards with not enough shiedling, most cards above 75 $ do have these. Also try to make a peak scan of an LP, to get the most dynamics out of it. Then when finished, denoise and normalize to get the LP dynamics adjusted to Wav and CD. (Denoise BEFORE normalizing because .otherwise the noise we be amped to...). Second use an active RIAA correction setup and try to grab audio direct from your CD-rom drive with VST-plug in compatible software so a maximuim audio qaulity is achieved. The DJM-600 has an excellent RIAA correction and could be used to do so. Then last but not least CABLES. Tend to use well isolated gold plated ones to go from your PC to your mixer, i have mine plugged in directly to my audioboards extension bay (2x cinch those 3,5 mini jacks screw up big time...). Good gold plated about 7mm in diameter cables cost around 20$ but when you hear them, you'll never want to buy those red and white socket on black 2 mm crap again. Also record at 0dB on your audiomixer, because audio is amplified digital and that means clipping goes easy. Al the best of luck...

Eric - I've used the program, but what I'm saying is that it didn't allow me to "preview" and set the levels before extraction. I'm fully aware of how to set my audio levels (duh, moderator of this forum! :rolleyes").

Almost all rippers are digital -> digital, and pay no regard for the levels that the MP3 was encoded at, and therefore a lot of hot MP3s end up with clipped WAVs.

I know how to reduce levels on a WAV in an audio-suite, but it makes no difference because once your WAV is clipped, the audio is physically dammaged - the waveform gets cropped and chopped, and you end up with a lot of squaretops instead of jaggies!

Chris