I have a record I want to digitize, Bună Seara, Iubito! by Loredana Groza, released in Romania in 1988, so just slightly before the end of Communism and I expect the adoption of the RIAA standard. The RIAA EQ clearly sounds wrong with it – too much bass, not enough treble – and what little information I could find from searching indicates that CCIR was the EQ curve used in Eastern Europe at the time. Assuming this is right (and hopefully it is), does anyone have any ideas of how to get this to sound right, preferably without having to buy a 1980s vintage Eastern European receiver? I can EQ it by ear and make it sound good, but I'd like it to be closer to correct than that. Google turns up nothing for a phono preamp with CCIR built in. Maybe somebody has CCIR specifications I could mimic? Fingers crossed it's not some Romania-only, or worse, single company-only, modification to the curve.
Hello _if, I'm a newbie of sorts having never posted a question or replied to one before, but I have been lurking on the forum for quiet some time. To the mods: If any links contained in answer break the rules, please feel free to amend them. I have been careful to only suggest freeware applications.
I am particularly interested in analogue to digital conversions and have encounted similar problems to the one described by the op.
I think you might find this Equalisation package by Brian Davies useful, It has a large number of equaliser settings. It is freeware and you can get it from here: http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equaliser.html (http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equaliser.html)
It will allow you to reverse the RIAA equalisation of the phono-amp and apply the required CCIR in software.
You basically use the software in conjunction with a audio editor eg: Audacity, just export a WAV (ideally a 32-bit floating WAV) file, process it through Brian's Equaliser and the re-import it into your preferred audio editor for further processing.
You can get the manual, which is pretty informative on the topic, from here: http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equalizer.html (http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equalizer.html)
Did you see this? (http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/analogue-source/188876-riaa-equalization-standard-13.html#post2588450)
EDIT: I also have a sort of glossary/mini-encyclopaedia of audio and video published in Poland in the 1980s, I cannot find it now, but don't recall any correction curve plots there. If I find it and if there is any information there, I'll post it here.
Hello _if, I'm a newbie of sorts having never posted a question or replied to one before, but I have been lurking on the forum for quiet some time. To the mods: If any links contained in answer break the rules, please feel free to amend them. I have been careful to only suggest freeware applications.
I am particularly interested in analogue to digital conversions and have encounted similar problems to the one described by the op.
I think you might find this Equalisation package by Brian Davies useful, It has a large number of equaliser settings. It is freeware and you can get it from here: http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equaliser.html (http://www.clickrepair.net/software_info/equaliser.html)
It will allow you to reverse the RIAA equalisation of the phono-amp and apply the required CCIR in software.
You basically use the software in conjunction with a audio editor eg: Audacity, just export a WAV (ideally a 32-bit floating WAV) file, process it through Brian's Equaliser and the re-import it into your preferred audio editor for further processing.
You can get the manual, which is pretty informative on the topic, from here: (http://"http://www.clickrepair.net/downloads/EQversions.pdf[/url)
Thanks for the help guys. The Equalizer program seems like it should do the trick. Still sounds a bit bassy to me, but better than RIAA certainly. The record does seem to have more bass without the EQ than others do and there is only about 13 minutes of music on each side, so maybe that's the reason. Perhaps the state record company used a modified CCIR that didn't cut/boost the bass as much.
As you say 'Still sounds a bit bassy to me, but better than ...', baring in mind that you also say 'and there is only about 13 minutes of music on each side, ...', it would not be unusual for the sound that you apparently hear to sound 'a bit bassy to you'. With all due respect to TOS #8. I have found, in the past, that when 12inch LPs have longer playing times on one or more sides, typically more than 20 minutes, that it is not unusual for the bass range to be attenuated during the cutting process to lengthen the playing time. Similarly it may follow that with a much reduced playing time, in your case approximately 13minutes, very little bass attenuation was applied during the cutting process resulting in there being more bass present than might be found on a LP with a more usual longer playing time.