How to record vinyl into logic as stereo?

Question

Level 1

4 points

How to record vinyl into logic as stereo?

I have the left channel going into one input on my Presonus Firestudio Mobile and the right channel going into a different input. The pair of inputs are linked as a stereo pair through the Presonus control panel.

Now, I want to record those inputs into Logic. Do I record each input on to separate mono audio tracks, pan each track left and right and finally bounce down to a stereo pair?
OR
Can I just record both inputs on to one stereo audio track in Logic? Will this preserve the stereo image? When I do it this way, I seem to only have a single waveform in Logic. I would have expected to see a single audio track with a left and right waveform...

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 12, 2010 9:46 AM

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Answer 1

Eriksimon

Level 6

15,422 points

Dec 30, 2010 11:26 AM in response to horrorbiz

Yes, you should be able to record just one stereo track. You won't see the traditional double waveform; Logic uses the upper half to display the left side and the lower half to display the right side. This looks like one mono file, but it isn't. Just 'the Logic way' of display.

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Answer 2

Dec 30, 2010 11:27 AM in response to horrorbiz

You can record your vinyls in either of the ways that you mentioned but recording to a single stereo track would be better suited IMO as you only have to deal with one track instead of 2 mono.

Logic uses interleaved stereo tracks as a default but you can change this setting if required, though I don't see any gain in doing this for what you want to record.

It is a bit strange to look at a stereo track as 1 single track on screen to begin with but you will soon get used to it...

Hope this helps.

Bryan

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Answer 3

horrorbiz Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 30, 2010 11:27 AM in response to horrorbiz

This helps very much guys, thank you. I now have the whole album recorded in as one stereo audio track and you were right, it is much easier to work with.

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Answer 4

Dec 30, 2010 11:27 AM in response to horrorbiz

In addition to all of this:
Not sure exactly what vinyl you're recording but most commercial vinyl discs are recorded with the RIAA EQ curve, which is then compensated for (usually) when you go into a Phono input on an amplifier.

If you're going straight into Logic, you may want to manually compensate.
Vacuumsound make a free plugin which does this:
http://www.vacuumsound.de/plugins.html

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