[dotspot]

what is the web site for Amadeus? I didn't find anything related to music.

[Wearie_Willie]

Amadeus can be downloaded from - http://www.hairersoft.com/Amadeus.html

I also use ClickRepair and it does an excellent job of cleaning up the recordings. It is found at -

http://wwwmaths.anu..../~briand/sound/

Enjoy!

[john-d]

Thanks, I'll give them both a go.

I purchased the Toast 9 upgrade specifically with the hope of a stable version of CD Spin Doctor, but the new version 5 has already started to crash and lose data. What a huge waste of time, rippping in real time, entering data, only to have your work wasted.

[species5618]

I too have what appear to be USB problems, but I also believe that my phono pre-amp's signal is too hot. I sent a sample to a musician buddy of mine and that was his conclusion. I'm wondering if this is not a recent development. Starting about 2 months ago, I noticed that the waveforms in Sound Studio (v2.2.4) were breaking past the top and bottom limits of the window. I listened to the sound and it seemed fine. But now I'm noticing that CD versions of some of my recent recordings -- as they're heard through my actual stereo system -- appear to be a bit spitty as well, especially when compared to their vinyl counterparts. It's not extreme, but I don't think I'm imagining it. But I also have to question the USB interface.
The software I've tried -- Sound Studio, CD Spin Doctor and a trial version of Peak -- do not seem to play well with USB. I say this because Spin Doctor, e.g., claims to allow for level input controls. In some screen captures I saw in this review, the level inputs were alive and well but the input was "line level" something or other -- probably the standard MIC jack which my Mini lacks. I'm assuming this is the reason that Peak didn't work as well. Sound Studio just doesn't, as the developer told me to adjust the output of my pre-amp, which I cannot do.
And yesterday, I got a weird buzzing sound during recording. It was timed to the music but was heard on multiple tracks. It stopped after I gave my Mac a rest of maybe 5 mins or so. So I'm thinking that the USB interface has some bugs or limitations.
I tried switching USB ports to no avail, and I don't have another 9 or 10' USB cable to experiment with.
I have two options that I can think of right now and one's really expensive. The first, cheaper option is to give Audacity a try. But I wonder if it would allow level input control of a USB source? The second option would probably cost me about $1,200: a CD recorder and an updated integrated amp. The CD recorder at least would have no (possibly) buggy USB interface to deal with and would allow for manual levels control. I think I'd need a new amp though too because my current CD recorder is not receiving an input signal. I figure it's either the aged CD recorder (purchased via eBay) or my old receiver which, even tho it's got tape record jacks, just isn't able to process the signal for the CD recorder.
I welcome any thoughts. Right now I'm very frustrated because I not only will have to re-digitize some -- if not all -- of my records, but I have to stop recording them period until I find a solution. And I got some good stuff on vinyl that I refuse to download from iTunes because the sound quality just doesn't seem to exist in any digital format.
My setup is as follows:
Pro-ject Xpression MkII turntable with a Benz Micro cartridge; Pro-ject Phono Box II USB pre-amp; 1.5GHz G4 Mac Mini running OS X 10.4.11 with a gig of RAM; Sound Studio v2.2.4; CD Spin Doctor v3.1.1.304t; Garage Band (which didn't seem to allow for recording???). (I tried a trial version of Peak, but there again I couldn't figure out how to adjust the levels and it only allowed for a 5-min recording time.)
Thanks!