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Track Editing in Pure Vinyl

Here's the "meat" of Pure Vinyl - the major feature that distinguishes Pure Vinyl from all other currently available audio editing software on the market, Windows platform included.

We use a "revolutionary," DJ-inspired, "scratch" paradigm that recreates a "vinyl" image from the sampled audio.

Track bands are easy to locate, and the amount of sampled information displayed on the screen is far greater than that in linear-type editors. The graded-tone nature of the image also permits imposition of waveform indicator markers that identify regions of signal peaks / pops.

Another significant advantage to using the Pure Vinyl editor to locate track mark points is that we use a technique called "gain riding" to automatically increase the editor playback volume at quiet parts in the music - such as the bands between tracks on a vinyl LP.

The problem with accurately locating track marks with a vinyl source is that music fades are usually audible, even when obscured by vinyl noise, but these fades, viewed as a waveform, are undetectable by that point.

Digital recordings don't have this problem ("silence" is truly silence). On the other hand, "silence" with vinyl is the blank track noise, and that's why waveform-based editors, designed for digital recordings, are unsuitable for accurately editing vinyl transcriptions.

With gain riding, you can insure that every last bit of the track is included within marks - because track marks are located by listening, not just waveform inspection that only works reliably with digitally sourced recordings.

Besides, you'll find that track editing in Pure Vinyl can be intuitive and quite fun.

 

Track Editing

Note: track editing operations are applied immediately to the Pure Vinyl track information and other Pure Vinyl editing files (created automatically, located in Users/your username/Music/Pure Vinyl/Track Lists and Vinyl Images/). There is no need to save individual edit operations. As explained elsewhere, all editing operations are nondestructive (nothing is ever altered) to the original audio files.

Also, the exact order of the steps listed below isn't important. The tracks can be named beore setting marks or vice versa.

 

1. Open the decimated file created in Pure Vinyl Recorder - (it will have (CD) in its name) - In Pure Vinyl (drag the file icon to the Pure Vinyl window or application icon). If you recorded at 44.1 kHz (or any sample rate of 96 kHz or below) to a Raw file, then you can use that file (it won't have (CD) in its name).

2. Pure Vinyl will take about a minute to render a vinyl image of the entire file (if you haven't already performed this step).

3. Select Add / Edit Tracks (command - T) from the Album menu. The Track Edit List panel appears, as shown below.

Note: the example shown above hasn't had any track markers added yet. Normally, there will already be a good number of putative track markers in the list, placed there by Pure Vinyl Recorder.

4. Select the first marker in the list. Note that the IN offset is currently at 00:00.000. The NEW button also changes to say INSERT.

5. Click the IN button on the turntable plinth. This will set track mark - in mode.

6. Get ready to adjust the Monitor Level control (in case it's set too loudly) and click the tonearm cueing button (the icon of a stylus poised above a record).

If you are rattled by the loudness level, just click the cueing button again to immediately stop the sound.

Important Note: the Pure Vinyl editor uses a technique called Gain Riding to automatically increase the volume level of quiet areas of the recording. (Gain riding is on by default, and can be disabled in the Editor tab of the Pure Vinyl Preferences panel.)

With a vinyl source, the lead-in area may seem to play back startlingly or excessively loud, compared to the rest of the music. It may take a little time to get used to this behavior, but as you'll see, it enables correctly including every last bit of the music in the track when establishing the track marker position.

For comparison, clicking ALL will play the audio without gain riding. You might find that you need to adjust the Monitor Level again. (Note that the Monitor Level value established in ALL mode is saved independently from the Monitor Level established in IN or OUT mode.)

7. Click and drag the "stylus / cartridge" assembly and drag it to the left, until you reach the beginning of the first track. Don't worry if you overshoot too much (but the closer you get, the better).

8. Click and drag the surface of the record (the cursor will change from an open hand when you are over the hot spot), to "spin" it. This will adjust the playback position. The position is indicated both by the angular position of the vinyl, and the track time indicator on the tonearm. The mark position is located at the CENTER of the waveform display. Everything to the LEFT of the mark is being played (and "off the edge of the screen:" the waveform display only shows a magnified portion of what's being played).

The spin sensitivity has a progressive effect; the farther away from the click position, the greater the movement of the playback position. When you get close to the intended location, release the mouse click and repeat, and the mouse movement sensitivity will revert to higher sensitivity in positioning the playback position.

9. The lead-in marker position is correctly set when only track lead-in noise is heard. Moving the playback position beyond this point, you will begin to hear a bit of the music from the track. With a bit of practice, you'll quickly get the hang of using this method to set the track markers.

The duration of the playback repetition is set by the Repeat control, located below the cueing button. It can be changed while the file is playing.

The repeat amount also is accurately indicated by the translucent yellow arc section overlaid on the vinyl surface. Keep in mind that a 33 1/3 RPM record rotates once every 1.8 seconds, so an arc length covering half the record corresponds to a repeat length of 0.9 seconds.

Incidentally, we have set the default repeat length to a value that we've found to be most useful, but feel free to change it, if you like.

Also note that a given setting of the Repeat control is magnified when used to set the mark-out (explained below).

At this point, you can choose to name the track by clicking on the track name in the Name column and typing in the track name. Click in the white space to finalize the edit. Select the track again, and note that the text on the record label has been updated.

Naming tracks might be the best option at this stage if there were no existing track markers supplied by Pure Vinyl Recorder. On the other hand, with supplied track markers, it's usually best to wait until you've established marker locations for all of the tracks, because you will probably have to delete several extraneous, putative track markers placed there by Pure Vinyl Recorder.

If you'd like to get away with the minimum amount of work at this point, and don't care about rendering individual tracks, and only want to use the Rendering and Playback features of the Pure Vinyl Editor, you only need to set the mark-in and mark out for each album side. So for two album sides, that will comprise four edits.

This so-called "lazy" edit would have five steps:

  • 1. Set album Side 1 mark-in (first track)
  • 2. Set album Side 1 mark-out (last track of Side 1)
  • 3. Click label to flip to side 2
  • 4. Set album Side 2 mark-in (first track of Side 2)
  • 5. Set album Side 2 mark-out (last track)

The "lazy" edit will be referred to later in the Rendering tutorial workflow document.

10. When satisfied with your edit, click the UPDATE button in the track list panel. Click NEW to add another track marker, and repeat the procedure above for each track.

Note: if track markers were already added by Pure Vinyl Recorder, now is the best time to delete the superfluous markers.

1. Select the second marker in the list. Note the stylus position. If it's located before the lead-in band of the second track, note the position of the track and click the third marker.

2. Continue moving down the list until you locate a marker that's located after the lead-in of the third track. Now, select each extra in-between marker (one at a time) and click REMOVE.

3. Repeat for the other tracks. To see markers for the next album side, click on the record label to "flip" the record, as explained below.

11. Now, you should test your edits by clicking ALL, and then the cueing button, to start playback. Selecting an item in the track list will immediately position the playback at the track's mark-in. ALL mode will play the track in a linear matter, without repetition. Listen carefully, and make sure you haven't accidentally cut off the beginning of a track.

Similarly, clicking IN will permit evaluating all the mark-in locations you've established, by selecting from the items in the list. This time, gain riding will kick in allowing for a more critical evaluation of the accuracy of the mark-ins. If you find any errors, just reposition the playback location as above, and click UPDATE to update that particular track.

The short "screencast" below illustrates the essential elements of the steps outlined above. Although the video is small in format, the important point being illustrated here is the sound of the audio repeat / playback as the mark-in position is located.

Note: the mouse cursor is depicted in the movie as an arrow. This is an artifact of the screen recording software used, which doesn't record the actual cursor. In an editing session, the cursor will change between an open hand, and a "grabbing" hand when clicked.

12. At this point, you might decide to establish mark-ins for Side 2. To do that, just click on the record label to "flip" the disc; the side number will indicate 2. For now, however, we'll continue the editing operation by establishing track mark-out locations.

13. Click the first track in the list. Click OUT and the cueing button. Drag the tonearm to the lead-out groove of the first track.

14. As above, grab and "spin" the record. Similar to what was done above, the goal is to position the mark so that only blank track noise is heard. It might help to release the mouse and listen to the repeating sound. You should hear NONE of the fade-out or end of the music in the track.

Also note that, contrary to the situation when setting the mark-in, the audio that's being played is now to the RIGHT of the mark point in the waveform display.

15. Click UPDATE.

The movie below illustrates the operations performed in Steps 15 and 16 (and more).

In this movie, we:

16. Repeat the above procedure, setting the mark out for the rest of the tracks.

17. If you haven't done so, provide names for the marked tracks.

Recall that there is no need to save as you go - that's done automatically, every time you click UPDATE

 

Finally, the last important step to perform in the editing process is rendering the individual tracks to CD format.

 

This completes the track editing portion of the tutorial.

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