Pro-ject Essentials II TT w USB out. Clipping badly in VS! [resolved]

[Madmardigan]

Hello,

I have read all 12 pages of threads here and cannot find and answer. If I missed it, my apologies in advance.

I just purchased a Pro-Ject Essentials II turntable with USB out. I assumed I could just plug the TT into my Macbook Air and, using VinylStudio, rip my vinyl collection to digital. Unfortunately, I find no way to make any kind of adjustment that brings levels down out of the clipping range (the waveform of a ripped track is essentially completely clipped for most of the track). I understand that the adjustment is disabled in VS when using USB, but I cannot find any kind of adjustment in my laptop that will address the problem either, nor does the preamp on the TT allow any kind of adjustment as far as I can tell). What needs to happen in this situation?

Thanks very much in advance!!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

You need to talk to Project.  The clipping is happening inside the turntable and there's nothing that can be done about it from outside.  They may have fitted the wrong cartridge - if this has too high an output, then clipping will occur.

[Madmardigan]

Thanks. I will do just that. I was kindof hoping there was perhaps some kind of "in-line" device that would allow bringing the output down, or a USB dongle that would allow me to go straight from the RCA outs on my TT to RCA in's built onto the non-USB end of the USB dongle, or maybe even an inline external sound card. It just seems weird to me that a TT manufacturer would produce a USB TT with such high output. I mean, I wounder what audio-system architecture they assume? (the cartridge is the Ortofon OM5E FWIW).

Thanks again!

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

Yes, I agree, it is odd, but it's all happening inside the turntable.

There are any number of USB audio converters on the market which will accept the line level output from your turntable and convert it to USB.  A cheap and cheerful option is the Griffin iMic, if you can find no better solution.

One thing to check is that you haven't inadvertently enabled recording equalisation in VinylStudio's Check Level dialog.  But it's normally hidden, so it's unlikely that you've done that.

[Madmardigan]

As Homer says, doh! That was precisely the problem! I had equalization turned on for some reason. All is good now! Thanks!