Convert Technologies ION EZ Vinyl 2 App (ios version)

Transcription

1 Convert Technologies ION EZ Vinyl 2 App (ios version) Meet the first app in the world to give you the power to record your vinyl music library straight to your device. The Vinyl Recorder app lets you enjoy your beautiful physical collection with all the simplicity and convenience of your digital collection. Put the needle on your record, tap the red dot, and let the app take care of everything else. After a few seconds, our integrated Gracenote look-up service will identify the song from an online database. Then, this information, including artist name, song title, album title, album artwork, and genre tags, will automatically be added to the song s file. If required, the meta data tags can be manually edited by the user. In order to hear the audio output of the vinyl record during the recording process, you will need a pair of wireless Bluetooth earbuds or headphones, as the lightening port on your ipad/iphone will be taken up by the USB camera adaptor cable, which is an essential part of the solution and connects your device to the cable supplied with your USB turntable. **Connect your device (iphone 7 used here) to the local WiFi network and follow this the process**: DEVICE CONNECTIVITY If you are using an ipad, you can use a pair of wired headphones connected directly into the jack socket, so you can hear the music as you are recording. Download the ION EZ Vinyl 2 app from the Apple Store and open it from your device s desktop. Connect up a USB turntable but DO NOT press the red select USB Audio button on our app just yet. If your USB turntable has built in speakers, you will hear the music playing anyway. If not, connect a pair of wireless headphones to your iphone/ipad via Bluetooth in your device s settings. The only 100% reliable cable is the iphone lightening to USB Camera adaptor. Other, cheaper brands do not offer consistently good results, and most just do not work at all.

2 Swipe up from the bottom of the screen and firmly press the Music tile. Select the Bluetooth Icon in the top right corner. Now select the name of your headphones from the list. This could be a specific code as shown, rather than the product brand name. Tap the background to hide the Music tile and swipe down. RECORDING Select the red Select USB Audio button in our app and start playing the record you should hear audio through your headphones. The red button will turn green on selection. Now choose your desired Digital Gain level from the drop down menu. Some USB turntables have a much lower output signal than others, so it might need a boost. When you are happy with the gain level, you can take the stylus back to the start of the album, or track. To begin recording, press the red dot before the music starts. It will change to a red square. Tap the No track information message of the Mini Player, to go to the Now Playing screen. After a few seconds our integrated Gracenote look-up service will identify the song from an online database. You can leave the album running and even turn over the record in the same recording session. Tap the down arrow (top right) to go back to the Media List screen.

3 The track that is currently being recorded will now be displayed in the Media List of the Record view, with a red line underneath the title to indicate a recording is in progress. The red square is also a good indicator that a recording is in progress. Select the red square to end your recording. This changes back to a red dot and the words preparing/saving will pop up briefly for each recorded track. A horizontal green line indicates that the recording has been successfully saved to the app s local library. PLAYBACK Select the Library icon (bottom left) to access all recorded albums/tracks. We have created our own music library within the app, as Apple do not allow any 3 rd party apps on a iphone/ipad to add things to its own itunes library. Tap the album artwork to access the recorded track list. Now simply tap the track title to play the track. Note that it is not possible to play tracks from the library while the USB audio is selected, or the app is in record mode. A pop up message will alert you to this and ask you to deselect the USB audio icon first. Go back to the Library, reselect the album or track and play again. This automatically takes you to the Now Playing screen. Tap the down arrow to return to the track list.

4 BASIC TAG EDITING Tap the Album More Info icon (the red circle with three dots inside), to reveal the options pop up menu. All options here will relate specifically to the album tags. Selecting the three dots adjacent to a track title, will present options and actions that affect just that particular track. There is also a Multi- Select option for performing group actions. (Edit, Export, or Play/Play From Here). Select the Edit option, should you wish to alter any of the auto generated meta data tags, returned by Gracenote. Press Save Tags to commit and store the changes along with your recorded track. Tap the down arrow, to go back to the track list. EXPORTING Select the Export icon (bottom right) to reveal a list of albums/tracks that you have previously exported, either to the internal drive or to your icloud storage. Please see additional Hints & Tips for an explanation of the process, later in this document. Make sure you have the icloud Drive option turned on in your device s (not the app) settings. Once the selected music files have been uploaded to your icloud account, they are available on your computer in the icloud drive within a minute or so. itunes can easily import them directly from there. See below for further instructions.

5 ADVANCED EDITING TOOLS Should Gracenote fail to recognise an album or track for whatever reason, the app will still record everything. The Now Playing screen will still display the gain level meter but the progress bar/track duration will display 00:00. At this stage, we know nothing about the track other than what we are recording. When both sides of the album have been recorded, end the recording as normal by tapping the red square. Select the down arrow in the previous screenshot, to get back to the Media List. Notice the recorded date/time stamp and Unrecognised used as the temporary album/artist descriptions. A green line underneath indicates a successful recording/save. In order to recreate the entire album track list, you will need to go to the Media Library by selecting the Library icon. Select the Unrecognised album to access the track list screen.

6 There will only be one date/time stamped entry listed, with a 1min duration. This 1m sample of recording gives you a start point for editing purposes. Select the Track More Info button (three black dots adjacent to the track duration). Now select Edit from the pop up menu. Start by manually typing in the tag information for Track 1 to replace the unrecognised entries. The tag edit screen should now reflect the new changes for Track 1, including all of the Album tags too. This is important because you only have to enter Album tags once. They are automatically carried across to the other tracks once you select the Save Tags button. Search for the album art using Google Images and save as, or download to your device. Tapping the generic album thumbnail image will allow you to select the correct album image from your device s library, camera, or you could in fact type in a URL. Save tags again. EDITING START/END POINTS The Track list screen should now look like this. Now that Track 1 tags have been created, you can edit the End point of this track beyond the 1min mark. Select the track more info button (three black dots) adjacent to the track duration and select Edit from the pop up menu.

7 To locate and mark the real end of Track 1, select the Edit Start/End track button. Use the +/- 60 second icon (bottom right) to extend the snapshot view onto the track. Slide the progress bar to somewhere near the end of Track 1 and press play. Press Play, then press the live start icon when you here the start of the track. This positions the start flag to approximately where you want it to be. Press the live end icon when you here the end of the track. Use the manual selection icon, if you need to fine tune this position. The flag turns red to show you are manually marking the end of Track 1. Now select Save and OK. Use the manual selection icon to fine tune this position, by tapping anywhere on the waveform. The flag turns red to show you are manually marking the start of Track 1. Useful for omitting any stylus pop and or lead in noise. CREATING MISSING TRACKS Select Create Missing Track. Then select After this file.

8 The app will auto set the end of Track 1 to to be the start of Track 2. The white flag will only turn red if you manually move this point, which you shouldn t need to do. The white End flag is auto positioned 3mins after this point. Slide the progress bar as before, to locate the white End flag. Extend the snapshot window (+60s icon) if you need to reveal more of the track. When you hear the end of Track 2 and hit the live end point to mark the end point. Use the manual selection icon to fine tune this position, by tapping anywhere on the waveform. The flag turns red to show you are manually marking the end of Track 2. Type in the title of Track 2 into the pop up menu. Repeat this process for all missing tracks. After saving each track, the app will always present you with the end point, to be used as the start of the one you are currently editing. This way, you only have to locate and mark the End flag. If you know the exact timings for all tracks, you can select the Start and End timers to accurately enter the values via the scroll wheels.

9 Hints & Tips Remember, you will need the Apple branded lightening to USB camera adapter to connect your ios device to the USB turntable ( If the turntable uses a bi-directional USB codec, it will almost certainly require too much power and therefore require the use of a powered USB hub - see link If you don t need a USB hub, then it is possible to hear music through the phone speakers whilst recording. However, it is a much simpler set up if you always use a pair of wired headphones The latest ipads still have a headphone jack, so you can use wired headphones if your device has a jack (much simpler set up than listening via Bluetooth, as described in the above process table). For exporting your recorded media, Apple do not allow any app on a iphone/ipad to add files to its itunes library. This can only be done on a computer. So, you have to get the music off the iphone and onto a computer first. Then you can import the music into your itunes library on your computer. You can then sync your itunes library with your iphone/ipad, if you want the recorded music available to music apps on your iphone/ipad. Should you album become fragmented, e.g. a greatest hits album might result in several albums being created in your media library with a few tracks in each. Editing of single & multiple tracks is available from the Media list on the record page. This is the most likely place to use multi-select to let you edit a group of mis-identified tracks that should have all been in the same album. Editing the album tags to be identical for each album, will result in a merged album. Export Options (Internal & icloud) 1. We provide two export options to get the recorded music off of your phone and onto your computer. The simplest method is to icloud Export. Make sure you have the icloud Drive option enabled in your device s settings. Once the selected music files have been uploaded to your icloud account, they are available on your computer in the icloud drive. itunes can easily import them directly from there. You can use a File Manager/Finder window to manage the exported music in the icloud. You can delete items from the icloud once they have been imported into itunes. You can also use the Apple Files app on your iphone to delete exported music from your icloud account once you no longer need them there. As you can see, Export to icloud is a much simpler and more flexible process, which is why it is Apple s preferred way to share files. 2. The more complicated method is to select just Export, which exports the music files internally within our app by copying them to a shared area. You can then connect your iphone to your computer with a cable and use itunes file sharing to get the files. In itunes, select your connected device, then select file sharing. Now select the Vinyl Recorder app from the list, then drag and drop the Exported Music folder onto your desktop. You can then import music from that folder into itunes. Once you have copied the Exported Music folder from your iphone, you should delete it from the file sharing window in itunes,

10 otherwise you will gradually fill up the storage on your iphone. Apple do not provide any file manager type functionality within File Sharing. You can only copy the entire Exported Music folder from you iphone and you can only delete the entire Exported Music folder on your iphone. There is no method to delete exported music within our app and you can only delete it from within itunes file sharing.