Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - Grands Maitres de la Rudra-Veena (1987)


A single, hour-plus-long raga for transcending the physical realm. Upon scoring and falling in love with this LP, I got to thinking that, from new age to psych rock, I've posted a whole lotta music that's deeply indebted to Indian classical music, but never the real deal. That's some major weak sauce, and it ends here.

On a somewhat related note: I really want to start making my own vinyl rips, as I have a constantly growing stack of killer Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and South American LPs that don't seem to exist in digital form. Anyone have any advice on the best/easiest/cheapest way of doing that?

One song, titled "Raga Pancham Kosh"

Infinity eyes

Along these same lines:
Vasant Rai -
Spring Flower (1976)
Alain Presencer -
The Singing Bowls of Tibet (1981)

13 comments:

  1. Sorry man, I'd really love to help but I'm not into vinyl ripping. Hopefully we will both teke advantage of some good advice...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi!
    Re: rips:
    You can get REALLY arcane with this stuff. Don't. What you should do depends on budget. The basic components are this:
    Turntable
    Turntable Preamp
    Preamp/Signal Router
    Audio Interface
    Computer
    Software

    You can spend a fuckton of money on this stuff and get amazing rips. You can spend a fair amount and get 95% of the expensive rips. I will take each section in turn, assuming you are willing to put some minor budget into this, but not so much that you need to sell a kidney or three, i.e. this is a good *starter* system that will give you some pretty good rips.

    Turntable
    The turntable basically has a few components: needle/Cartridge, tonearm, platter, motor, plinth. The most important is your needle/cart. The second is your motor. Third is tone arm, the rest fall in. If you get a decent turntable (say a $300 Pro-Ject - Debut III) and a really good needle/cart. It comes with a decent one - Ortofon OM-5E. Use that until you get sick of it, then upgrade to something like a Shure M97XE (about $100). Much beyond that and you'll be spending more on cart than your turntable.

    Turntable Preamp
    If you have an oldschool Stereo Receiver it probably has one built in. If you're going to run it that way, then just plug your Audio Interface into the tape monitor. If you want flexibility to go direct into your computer AND kick back with some stax of wax in your stereo, then I would recommend a USB preAmp. The NAD PP4 is about $200 and it's very good - it does both USB and will wire into your stereo as well!

    Preamp/Signal Router/Receiver
    If you get the NAD or something like it, this doesn't matter. If you have a Receiver, and that's what you want to use, then make sure it has a decent sounding turntable preamp.

    Audio Interface
    If you get the NAD, you already have one. If you get a regular turntable preamp, or route through your Receiver, then you will need an interface. They can be cheap, they can be expensive. Cheap is cheap, expensive is good. You don't get what you pay for. If you spend a few hundred, you'll get something OK.

    Computer / Software
    You already have a computer, and judging by what you upload, it's a Mac. SO, just download a copy of Audacity - it's free, as in beer. Set the input to your interface. click record. drop the needle. record the side. Edit the file. (copy paste songs to new files and export audio as needed)

    So, a good starter system would be:
    Pro-Ject - Debut III ($300)
    NAD PP4 ($200)
    Audacity (free)
    Total: $500 beanzzzz.

    Full disclosure: This is my LP rip system:
    Table:
    SOTA Comet table ($1200) with Rega 301 tonearm ($400) and Sumiko Bluepoint cart ($500)
    PreAmp: Rotel ($300 used)
    Interface: MOTU Ultralite Mk3 USB ($600)
    Computer: MacBook Air i7 running Ableton Live, Audacity, RX, etc.
    Recently, the motor in my SOTA blew out, so I've been vinyl deprived lately... Sigh...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Had a basic ass turntable that had a hookup to usb which allowed you to save audio to it, it wasn't amazing but it did the job as advertised; friend of mine was able to get a lot of his dad's record collecton saved like that. No extra gear needed. Forgot the name though, sorry :(

    ReplyDelete
  4. Please start ripping your vinyl! I will name my first child Opium Hum to repay you for your efforts.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yeah, I've been doing LP rips from my Crosley using Audacity. Total cost for the record player was about 80 bucks and - in spite of what some tech geeks may claim - the quality of the final rip is the same.

    -Xtm

    ReplyDelete
  6. Whatever you do, don't get a usb turntable. The rips sound like listening to the record over the phone.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The coolest! Thanks for ALL the great stuff, i'm here every day.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I seem to be slipping more & more into alignment with your musiscal vantage point ... just stumbled onto this lot of Veena LPs the other night ...
    http://oriental-traditional-music.blogspot.cz/search/label/Vichitra%20Veena

    ReplyDelete
  9. Mega. Without doubt one of the very best things you've ever posted here. And regular visitors will know that's saying a lot. Mega thanks. I could listen to this all day till the next millennium.

    Best wishes for the vinyl rips. Looks like @Stuart Studebaker kicked down the goods.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'd say just get an external soundcard with two inputs, plug your turntable to a mixtable, and the mixtable to your soundcard and start ripping. that's how i rip cassettes or vinyl.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks, I love raga. Stuart has it right, BTW. There's a middle ground for dollars spent that can approach the really expensive stuff for quality. Cheap is too often crap, though.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Please post more tunes like these!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Once you have all the gear(hardware) -- I highly recommend GoldWave for recording audio in and then use it for pop/click removal and other noise reduction. I have used this program for years and it has even improved final audio even beyond the source audio signal. Its works great for LPs, cassettes, 45s and whatever audio you put to it. Very inexpensive and easy to use audio editing program. I have used it to release many albums and remaster live concerts.

    ReplyDelete