Track Rendering
This is the culmination of the Pure Vinyl workflow. It is also the easiest part (there is only two steps in the rendering process)! We will render the edited tracks to CD format - 16 bit, lossless compressed .m4a - the default Pure Vinyl format. If you would like to use a different format, see http://www.virtual-vinyl.com for more information.
1. Select Render Tracks and Vinyl... from the Album menu (or press command - R). The dialog depicted below will appear.
Select the options as shown above.
Note: if using the "lazy" editing described in the Track Editing document, you usually would want to disable the Music Tracks rendering option above; the point of the rendering with "lazy" editing is just to enable the album PLAY mode, which will omit the nonmusical (album side lead-ins and lead outs) parts of the audio file. |
2. Click Render.
iTunes will be launched, and the output muted (the volume can be unmuted by clicking to the right of the volume slider control, on the loudspeaker icon). iTunes will be used for finalizing the tag information and for verification of the rendered tracks (by playing back a small snippet at the start of each track).
Note: you may wonder why iTunes is brought into the picture here, instead of just writing the track tag information from within Pure Vinyl. The fact is that there is no API (application programming interface) currently provided by Apple to directly write the ID3 track tags to Apple Lossless Compression format, into iTunes compatible, .m4a files. This has been the subject of some discussion on Apple's Core Audio Developer mailing list. Apple has indicated that API support for this capability might be provided to developers in a future (10.5?) release of Mac OS X. Rather than wait, we decided to enlist iTunes to do the work, because we discovered that iTunes is quite capable of writing the track tags! |
The only file format used for export is iTunes - compatible .m4a. A "lossy" format option (MP3, AAC) isn't provided. We don't provide a lossy format option because Pure Vinyl is aimed at folks wanting to squeeze every last bit of fidelity out of those record grooves, and to preserve that sound as faithfully as possible. Then, these recordings can be enjoyed repeatedly without the usual degradation of the record (as caused by handling, wear from the stylus, etc). "Lossy" is anathema to this philosophy, but we quite happily use it with our iPods, in our vehicles, etc., where it's use lossy format or else be content with an iPod holding ony a few hundred songs. If a highly compressed or other file format is needed, this can be done quickly and easily by re-exporting tracks created with Pure Vinyl from within iTunes. |
When Pure Vinyl is finished rendering the tracks, you will be returned to the EDIT mode of the Pure Vinyl Editor.
Let's PLAY our rendered vinyl - as an ALBUM!
Click PLAY at the top of the Pure Vinyl editor. You'll get the red-label rendered single-side vinyl image.
Click the cueing button. Watch it spin. Click the label to flip the record.
Life is good.
The record also will "flip" automatically at the end of each side and continue playing (this is configurable in the Pure Vinyl Preferences panel). Just drag and drop the stylus if you would care to hear a different track... You can even have the stylus "bump" endlessly at the end of each side, for a real nostalgic trip. (That gets old very quickly.) |
Now, suppose you want to play back your high-resolution (192 kHz 24 bit) version of the above? Locate the file (or load in the DVD archive you burned). Drag the file to the Pure Vinyl window (must perform the above editing and rendering steps first, though).
Voila! Pristine, high resolution audio should now playing back through your pro-audio interface - with all the accoutrements of vinyl playback!
Note: if the Decimation panel opens when you try to open the high resolution file, click the Add File to Catalog... button and supply any needed information about the album, if necessary. |
(You can determine which version is playing by noting the sample rate reported above the Monitor Level control. The sample rate reflects the sample rate of the file, not the audio interface.)
This concludes the track rendering (and playback) part of the workflow tutorial.