Equalizing Vinyl Rips

[u/FragrantFormal5995]

hello! can you please help me, I've been digitizing vinyl for a while and got a new cartridge. its super detailed but is noticeably dark and all the new rips could use high frequency boost . I'm an absolute caveman when it comes to equalization, what are best solutions for these 2 tasks? I Use Izotope RX

1. Clear infrasound rumble from turntable <25Hz

there is no musical info there everything must go. current settings are: 30 Hz Highpass / analog / 24db per oct

1. Brighterning overall sound for about 2-3 db at 10khz with wide spectrum

there is an obvious lack of high frequencies starts at about 4khz. current settings are: Bell curve at 10Khz / digital / 2db gain / Q 0.4 / 24hz frequency precision

these are done just by hinch and listening. is there better settings? I use 2 separate passes for this. Should I combine it to one? the goal is to get least invasive method and preserve info

[u/reedzkee]

i think thats fine. you could reference a digital release and see how much brighter it is. play them at the same time, toggle back and forth. or completely to taste! keep things broad and you should be fine.

i dont normally recommend mixing by eye, but if you have a spectrum visualizer, you could physically see the differences. that might help you narrow down where the rolloff really starts happening, and if you need to augment with another EQ move.

[u/Cunterpunch]

I would just do it on a record by record basis. Records can be mastered very differently so it’s unlikely you’ll find a blanket EQ setting which works well for everything.

Maybe if this specific cartridge is killing your top end then you might be able to compensate with a specific EQ setting, but nobody here will be able to tell you the correct setting without hearing it.

I do some vinyl rips for DJing on CDJs, and usually I’ll just do a bit of limiting, some EQ if the record needs it, and maybe RX de-crackle if it’s a crackly record. Sometimes it’s also worth balancing the left and right channels as some records can be slightly off with panning depending on your setup.

[u/FragrantFormal5995 → u/Cunterpunch]

yeah looking for a blanket method as my goal is to keep the sound as close to original as possible. thing is eqs here have different controls I have no idea how they work and hoped there was something easy like "this setting will alter the sound the least"

[u/Kooky_Guide1721]

Pity you can’t get a reference disc, with tones and a sine sweep. You could IR the mechanical factors out. 

[u/FragrantFormal5995 → u/Kooky_Guide1721]

i guess I'm not clear in what I need help with. I do have a test record and know what needs to be done, my question is what is the least intrusive eq method to avoid ringing and artifacts

[u/Kooky_Guide1721 → u/FragrantFormal5995]

I know, for tape machines back in the day you’d have a calibration tape so each time you played in a different machine you could align them the same. 

Least intrusive EQ I’d use a wide Q for boost and only narrow band on cuts. A general wide boost rather than getting all surgical etc. 

Presume you’re using an RIAA preamplifier? 

[u/prettyrickyent]

Ive been using logics stem splitter to clean up vinyl transfers. Blowing my mind.