Recording Vinyl into computer - Maximizing volume?

[YouGots2Chill]

Im in the process of ripping vinyl into my computer for my DJ gigs. Im recording at 24/48 at about -10db and I wanna bring up the volume without ruining the music thats already mastered. Normalizing the track wont make it loud enough! Whats the best way to maximize the volume of my vinyl rips without killing the dynamics and keeping everything natural? Clippers? slight limiting? Cant find any info on this online so any help or anyone with experience would be much appreciated.

Im using Reaper and the phono input on my MPC Live.

[CrystalWizard]

When you say not “loud enough” are you meaning in comparison to other (non vinyl) tracks? If so i’d say very light limiting. You can get away with a touch ‘cause most vinyl was mastered with some life left in it. However noise may be an issue as the noise floor on vinyl is pretty high. I’ve used Izotope Rx (good bit of effort for good results) to deal with that.
If you’re only playing your tracks that are extracted from vinyl then i’d say use the volume knob! I’d still recommend Rx or something similar, maybe depending on the quality of the vinyl.
HTH

[thecontrolcentre]

You could turn down the volume of your non-vinyl tracks when DJing to match your rips.

[CrystalWizard]

You could turn down the volume of your non-vinyl tracks when DJing to match your rips.

Yes, that’s a good solution, too.

[Obsolete236871]

The reason why normalizing doesn't make it loud enough is most likely due to transient spikes in the material from noise / scratches on the vinyl surface. So you could either a) use a denoising / despike tool (most audio editors have something like that on board), b) edit those spikes away manually with some kind of pen tool directly on the audio wave or c) use a clipper, that will only affect those unwanted spikes. LVC Audio's ClipShifter / Clipped-MAX is great for the latter, because you can set the clipper to only work in the frequency range where those sudden spikes appear. I think that option is only available in the paid version though.

You could also try a dynamic EQ like TDR Nova or ReaFir with it's learn function to get rid of those spokes. Not sure whether TDR Nova is fast enough or whether ReaFir is precise enough.

[CrystalWizard]

Yes, i should have mentioned, DeNoise first, mild limit second. What he said ^