NCH Golden Records Review

“Golden Records does a good job for what it does, and everything is laid out in a sensible and intuitive way.”

Golden Records (PC & Mac) from NCH Software allows you to copy all your old vinyl records and cassette tapes to digital audio, with a multitude of tools to clean up old scratchy sounds and remove static and noise.

If you can remember playing music on a record player or turntable as they are now referred to, you are really showing your age. Whereas twenty years ago when everyone had a collection of records, now they are mostly obsolete and the only vinyl records you’ll find are those gathering dust in the corner of a loft, or in the garage tucked safely out of sight. For some reason, it’s impossible to just throw these items away however, as they represent something special. That first piece of music you ever bought, or a treasured album that’s been played a thousand times.

Time moves on however, and we find ourselves in the age where not only have records completely disappeared, but their successors the compact disc is also starting to decline. These days, most of our music is held on portable mp3 players and new songs are downloaded directly from the shops or online archives.

So what do we do with that dusty pile of vinyl albums in the corner of the garage? NCH Software’s solution is to copy them all to your computer with Golden Records, their latest piece of software designed to reclaim the music we have long forgotten. All media such as vinyl and tape has the potential to degrade over time, so by copying the contents to your computer to store as digital files, protects your music collection. You can also then play your old vinyl music on up-to-date and modern equipment, and rediscover the music of your youth.

Features
First of all, Golden Records doesn’t include a turntable, so if you no longer have one stashed alongside your old hi-fi equipment, you will need to purchase one. Fortunately there are a few USB turntables on the market designed primarily for this purpose, so you should be able to get one. If you do still have your own, then you can plug it directly into your sound card (with the supplied cable converter) and record directly from it. A clever piece of software called Phono RIAA allows you to use a turntable without a pre-amplifier, greatly simplifying the process. Adding a tape player is just as simple, just a matter of connecting up the cables and away you go.

Once you have everything connected up, the software’s wizards take you through the processes needed to copy your music onto your computer. There’s not much to it really, and the wizards do a great job of offering the best solutions. In fact, although the software does come with a comprehensive manual, the quick start guide intended to help you get started is more than adequate. To be fair, that’s all that is really needed, as this is hardly rocket science.

If you follow the wizards, you’ll soon find yourself with some of your vinyl and tape music sitting on your computer as MP3s. This isn’t the end of the process however. Vinyl and tape music, although very advanced in its time, is a contrast away from the crystal-clear quality we’re used to today from digital formats. Some people would argue that the hissing and popping is what makes the music so special, but if you’re not so bothered about that and just want to hear a great sound, then Golden Records has a trick or two up its sleeve.

Built in audio restoration helps you to automatically clean up damaged audio tracks, such as skipping and jumping. You can also remove hiss, click and pops fairly easily. There is an automatic setting that does most of what you will want to do, but in case you want to refine certain parts, you can switch to manual for a bit of fine tuning. Automatic calibration against background noise is a great feature, and saves you having to set up the sound balance for each different album you copy.

Another feature is the automatic track splitting, where the software will work out for itself where one track ends and another begins. This means, you can happily leave your computer to convert an entire album while you go off and do something more exciting – such as watching videos about steam trains.

Once you have copied your precious music to your computer, there are a number of options on how to save it to various formats. The most obvious is the ability to save to MP3 or WAV formats, but you can also burn directly to CD if you want, or import into a media player.

Overall
Depending on your expectations, you will either be extremely happy or disappointed. If you expect Golden Records to totally clean up your vinyl so they sound exactly like modern CDs, then you will be disappointed. The reality is that nothing can do this, except perhaps remastering the songs in a full studio using the original recording media. If you’re realistic however, and accept that the idea is simply to move your old albums and singles to your computer as digital files, with perhaps a little cleaning on the way, then you will be delighted with the results.

Golden Records does a good job for what it does, and everything is laid out in a sensible and intuitive way. The wizards help you through every step of the process, and with enough spare time you can transfer your entire collection in a fairly short period of time.

It’s handy and convenient being able to connect your turntable directly to the computer. The old method used to involve pre-amps and an assortment of cables, but this makes life a lot easier. It has to be said however that the quality of your recordings will be down to how good your turntable is. Recording from tapes on the other hand is a piece of cake, and you should get fairly good results from most tape players.

For the price, you really can’t go wrong with Golden Records, and it all becomes worth the effort when you’re walking down the street listening to the very first record you ever bought on your mp3 player!

You can pick up Golden Records (PC & Mac) and check prices on Amazon, who have some great offers.