I just got hold of an
old record deck and am having problems trying to record samples off
some of my Dad’s old vinyl. When I plug the deck into my mixer (Mackie
1402 VLZ Pro) I can hear the sounds, but they’re really, really quiet
and if I turn it up on the desk it gets really noisy. Is this a fault,
or am I doing something wrong?
To
record samples from a record deck you need a phono preamp stage between
your deck and the mixer, otherwise you won’t be able to capture
anything usable, given that the audio will be so quiet. And anything you
do capture will be seriously noisy once the volume is turned up.
Jack Holland, via email
SOS
Reviews Editor Matt Houghton replies: There are a couple of issues here,
but the answer’s pretty simple: you need a phono preamp stage between
the deck and the mixer. You’ve not mentioned problems with the frequency
balance, but when mixes are mastered for vinyl, a ‘pre-emphasis’ curve
is applied, boosting the high frequencies and cutting bass. This reduces
noise and allows us to get more low end from a record, but a corrective
EQ curve needs to be applied to restore the correct frequency balance
on playback.
That side of things can be done in software if you want,
but you’ll still need to boost the signal to a sensible level, either
using the mixer preamps or a separate phono preamp — which will both
apply the corrective EQ curve and boost the output. The ART DJ Pre II
Phono Preamp provides a tailor-made solution to getting the sound
directly into your computer, but to feed your mixer the right signal,
any old hi-fi amp with a phono input and tape in/out facility should do
the job. The tape out would be used to feed a signal your mixer
channels. Decent-quality amps can be had cheaply off eBay and similar
sites. The Mackie accepts both balanced and unbalanced inputs, and
you’ll be fine feeding it signals from consumer gear like this. 0
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