Hardware to convert cassette tapes to digital format

[ctalgo]

WHAT I WANT TO DO:
-Convert my friend's bands music from tapes to digital.
-Convert all my old dead to digital
-I also might be plugging the computer into a soundboard, but that is just a idea.
-Have my stereo and my rig become very good friends

WHAT I KNOW SO FAR:
I dont know much about sound cards, only that my old ensoniq was a pain in the a$$ for many years. Ive been looking at the Audigy platinum but have been reading mixed reviews. I like the fact that it has RCA inputs on the breakout box.

WHAT I WANT TO SPEND:
I couldnt buy a sound card when i bought my rig. Now however, i have saved some money. I am willing to spend $200. On thursday im heading to THE GATHERING OF THE VIBES. If you know what that is then you know that money can exit your wallet without any recollection of a reasonable reason. But thats just a rock n roll casualty. ANYWHO, So i wil be spending a lot most likely, and would like to spend less then $200 dollars on the hardware.

So what is the best setup for <=$200?

All input is greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
ctalgo

www.greatergroove.com (just came online)

 

[ctalgo]

Im sorry abou tthe other postings but pleas delete them mod. I got 2 404's when trying to psot this. Once again, sorry.

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you're just using analog-in (which makes sense for analog cassettes) you don't need a Platinum. Radio Shack sells mini-phono -to- 2-RCA adapters and mini-phono extension cables pretty cheap, and some retail soundcards come with with them too (not sure if Audigy does).

What was the problem with the ensoniq?

 

[JackMDS]

You don?t need fancy card, any decent card Creative 64AWE, and newer will suffice.

Better spend the money on a good software that can edit, and clean the recorded files, old cassette, and plastic disks, create a lot of noise, actually the better is the Audio Card, more of the old noise will be noticeable.

If you want to record one side of the cassette as a whole, a good program to do so is Total Recorder.

If you want to split the content into single songs you need a program that can separate the files.

A lot of info. and download of shareware that can do it you will find here (look at the Audio software in the left):
http://www.mpegx.com/

 

[ctalgo]

So from what im hearing. A more expensive card such as the audigy platinum and the Terratec 6 something that both have RCA inputs will offer no advantage to a regular old 30 dollar sound card?


ctalgo

 

[ctalgo]

Anyone?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: ctalgo
So from what im hearing. A more expensive card such as the audigy platinum and the Terratec 6 something that both have RCA inputs will offer no advantage to a regular old 30 dollar sound card?

Exactly, all you get is 2 RCA analog instead of 1 mini-phono analog. Both are line-level-in, just using different connectors.

 

[paralazarguer]

I'm afraid that this information is very incorrect. I work with audio for a living and know a great deal about PC audio. Cheaper soundcards integrate the digital to analogue and analogue to digital converts into a CODEC which is a single chip. Better quality sound cards offer seperate DAC and ADC. These are the devices which determine the quality of the recording.
The first thing to consider is line noise. The cheaper the sound card (generally speaking) the more line noise there will be. This is a very self explanatory term.
The second, and most important is DC offset. DC offset can be compensated by any recording software such as Soundforge BUT your dynamic range will be "squashed" as a result. The Soundblaster Audigy Platinum (even the breakout box) has seperate DAC and ADC and has a DC offset of 2-3dB. Respectable. Your dynamic range will be fine with this card. The Live has a DC offset of 11dB which is less than acceptable. The reason for this is because it uses a CODEC (not to be confused with a software codec) Previous soundblasters and integrated audio usually have a DC offset of 50-60dB!!!! That's ridiculous and will produce half of the dynamic range of a decent soundcard.
For a perfect DC offset of 0dB which any prosumer would only settle for can be found in a GREAT ENTRY LEVEL card.
This card doesn't have anything that the audigy does. No EAX advanced HD or any of that crap which changes the timbre of the audio and ruins it. It's not a gaming card. It does use the same DAC and ADC of it's very expensive bretheren but doesn't feature a breakout box.
This card is the Echo Mia. It can be had for $199 USD. 0Db DC offset is perfect! The lines are also balanced so you can use (monster branded a must) cables for lengths over, say, 12ft. This board offers SPDIF ins and outs which you can't get from the audigy without going platinum. It also has a number of virtual channels which can be set to whatever you want. The diamond stud of this card is that it does multi track recording!!!!!! The audigy does not do this. It's a must if you want to hook it into a sound board.
Since you're talking about taking music from analogue to digital and you're likely going to want to keep it forever this card is definitely $200 VERY VERY WELL SPENT!!!!
That's if your dynamic range and signal integrity are important to you.
If you're really budget oriented you could get an audigy OEM and use a mini plug adapter but this will affect sound quality. Your sound will be coloured and will have it's dynamic range slightly crushed with some line noise. Depsite Creative's claims, the Audigy cannot record at 24bit/96khs/100dbs. While the DAC and ADC are capable of this, the EMU10K2 processor on board is not capable of handling the digital signal at these rates so the entire card fails at this. The Echo Mia handles these rates with aplomb and will produce great recordings! An associate of mine uses a Mia in his "clean machine" and I must say that it's TOP NOTCH.
Don't even consider anything less than an Audigy, no offense but these people who posted saying they're find just don't know audio. They're garbage.
Get the Echo Mia if you can. settle for Audigy if on a budget.
Good Luck!

 

[skriefal]

As the previous poster stated, you definitely will get better quality with a semi-pro card such as the Echo Mia.

A slightly less expensive alternative is the Midiman Audiophile 2496, which has analog 24bit/96kHz input and output as well as digital in/out. If you have a MARS Music store in your area you can buy one there for about $179, or you can order it from their web site. There are other places to order it from, such as Digital Connection, Core Sound, and probably others.

The Audiotrack Maya also seems to be recommended as a good card. It's $129 at Tracertek.

 

[paralazarguer]

actually the better is the Audio Card, more of the old noise will be noticeable.

That's the silliest thing I've heard in a while. The most import thing to know about recording is
GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT
Recording using low quality equipment is never a way to clean up poor source material. You will only degrade it further by squashing its dynamic range and adding noise.
It is best to record with the best hardware possible and get an accurate reproduction of the source which I believe is what you're looking for. Once you've done that you can use a program like sound forge Studio 5XP which is very cheap to compensate for DC offset, noise gate, remove clicks etc.

 

[ctalgo]

775724-
WOW! that was the exact type of responce I was looking for! Im very thankful! I am thankful for the other responces but most ot them were not clicking in my head as to what should logically be correct. Ive looked at the MIA and it seems to be a fantastic card. I've read maybe a dozen reviews and the card got rave reviews from them all. So know i'm down to the ECHO MIA and the Audigy Platinum. The echo is about $40 more. The cheapest I have seen it is for $185. Plugging it into a soundcard would be a load of fun and that is a big selling point for me. I am willing to spend the extra 40 for that freature alone. I do however have one concern about the ECHO MIA. How does it perform for everyday soundcard functions? (i.e. the stuff that does not involve recording or editing audio)?

MANY Thanks,
ctalgo

 

[paralazarguer]

The Echo Mia is not a gaming card. It doesn't output to 5.1 speakers and it doesn't have eax. It is dedicated only for input. It has the same qualty if DAC as the big boy cards without a breakout box etc. Balanced lines are the stuff to die for on this card. If you were to bring the audigy to any kind of recording session or ask how to hook it into a mixing board I believe that you'd be laughed out of the studio. The Mia is definitely respect worthy though. The balanced lines will allow you run the distance needed escpecially for power devices at concerts without line noise which the audigy most definitely will not do. The Audigy on the other hand will give you 5.1 and eax but will produce relativeley poor recordings. It's got a slight DC offset and unblanaced lines. If you're looking at the platinum version you will also get SPDIF but the breakout box is more of a gimmik than anything else. It's been proven time and time again that the horrible unshielded cable that runs to that box makes the front connections virtually useless due to EMI inside the case. Rather than going for a bid audigy platinum I would recommend getting an Echo Mia and then a cheap audigy OEM. Use the audigy for gaming and playback and use the Mia and all it's virtual Ins which take practice to get used to BTW for recording.
Good luck.

 

[paralazarguer]

I just wrote an article which deals specifically with the mia, audigy and live and how well they hold up to recording stress. To help you along with your decision you might want to read the article here

 

[ctalgo]

Great, im checking it out now.

thanks,
ctalgo

 

[Tominator]

Originally posted by: 7757524
I'm afraid that this information is very incorrect. I work with audio for a living and know a great deal about PC audio. Cheaper soundcards integrate the digital to analogue and analogue to digital converts into a CODEC which is a single chip. Better quality sound cards offer seperate DAC and ADC. These are the devices which determine the quality of the recording.
The first thing to consider is line noise. The cheaper the sound card (generally speaking) the more line noise there will be. This is a very self explanatory term.
The second, and most important is DC offset. DC offset can be compensated by any recording software such as Soundforge BUT your dynamic range will be "squashed" as a result. The Soundblaster Audigy Platinum (even the breakout box) has seperate DAC and ADC and has a DC offset of 2-3dB. Respectable. Your dynamic range will be fine with this card. The Live has a DC offset of 11dB which is less than acceptable. The reason for this is because it uses a CODEC (not to be confused with a software codec) Previous soundblasters and integrated audio usually have a DC offset of 50-60dB!!!! That's ridiculous and will produce half of the dynamic range of a decent soundcard.
For a perfect DC offset of 0dB which any prosumer would only settle for can be found in a GREAT ENTRY LEVEL card.
This card doesn't have anything that the audigy does. No EAX advanced HD or any of that crap which changes the timbre of the audio and ruins it. It's not a gaming card. It does use the same DAC and ADC of it's very expensive bretheren but doesn't feature a breakout box.
This card is the Echo Mia. It can be had for $199 USD. 0Db DC offset is perfect! The lines are also balanced so you can use (monster branded a must) cables for lengths over, say, 12ft. This board offers SPDIF ins and outs which you can't get from the audigy without going platinum. It also has a number of virtual channels which can be set to whatever you want. The diamond stud of this card is that it does multi track recording!!!!!! The audigy does not do this. It's a must if you want to hook it into a sound board.
Since you're talking about taking music from analogue to digital and you're likely going to want to keep it forever this card is definitely $200 VERY VERY WELL SPENT!!!!
That's if your dynamic range and signal integrity are important to you.
If you're really budget oriented you could get an audigy OEM and use a mini plug adapter but this will affect sound quality. Your sound will be coloured and will have it's dynamic range slightly crushed with some line noise. Depsite Creative's claims, the Audigy cannot record at 24bit/96khs/100dbs. While the DAC and ADC are capable of this, the EMU10K2 processor on board is not capable of handling the digital signal at these rates so the entire card fails at this. The Echo Mia handles these rates with aplomb and will produce great recordings! An associate of mine uses a Mia in his "clean machine" and I must say that it's TOP NOTCH.
Don't even consider anything less than an Audigy, no offense but these people who posted saying they're find just don't know audio. They're garbage.
Get the Echo Mia if you can. settle for Audigy if on a budget.
Good Luck!

This belongs in the FAQ! Great job!

 

[Slugbait]

Just wanted to point out my own experience with recording on PC...

Years ago, I had no problem recording from tape or vinyl onto my P5/133 with an SB16. With the line input set at 50%, I would occassionally redline in some passages of songs. I used to run a website for musicians, and would post streaming audio of unknown bands on my site...I almost always had to record from tape (this was back in '96-'97 when pressing on CD was still a bit too expensive for most bands).

I built a new machine around a PII/350 with an MX300, but with the line input set at 100%, the level meters would barely register at all. I tried several different software programs, including Goldwave and Cakewalk. Playback verified that the input was woefully low. I blamed this on the MX300. Later I bought an X-Gamer 5.1, thinking this would solve my problem. It didn't.

So I then dropped the SB16 into my newer machine...same problem. I tried the SB16 again in my P5, and it worked fine. Assuming now that my newer machine was at fault, I threw my MX300 into the P5...the problem now occurs with my P5! WTF? So I pulled the MX300 and dropped the SB16 back in...now recording with my SB16 in my old P5 was screwed!

It took more than a day of experimenting before I found the culprit: DirectX. I dropped a clean image of OSR2 on both machines, installed the SB16, and recording levels were great. As soon as I installed DirectX 3, DirectX 5, DirectX 7.0a or DirectX 8, the problem came back. Since the MX300 cannot be installed without DirectX 5, I gave up on that soundcard. And since Win98SE includes DX as a system component, I realized I needed to continue using my trusty old P5 with OSR2 for line-in recording.

I scoured the web for hours looking for other people who have had this problem. I ran keywords thru Google and Hotbot. I also checked the KB at ms.com. I couldn't find anything remotely similar to what I was experiencing. I posted in a couple of forums, no one ever answered. It's like I'm alone in this situation, and I can repro on two different machines, using any soundcard, after a completely clean install of the OS+DX.

So if this happens to you (doesn't seem to happen to anyone but me), you'll know what the problem is...

 

[paralazarguer]

I don't believe that your problem has anything to do with directx sir. Your testing would seem to indicate this BUT I can assure you that it's not a common problem and that it has nothing to do with directx. In fact Directx won't come into play unless you're using a filter or something similar. I would recommend that you read my article here to help clear up the way that inputs work in PC recording. If you're still using a SB16 for line level recording I"d highly recommend getting a prosumer card like the Echo Mia.

 

[Slugbait]

Yes, an interesting read. But I'm a hobbiest, and I no longer own that website I mentioned (sold before the bubble burst...no, I didn't make "millions" ). And I still have no idea how to make a clean machine (with DX installed) record with decent input levels on the cards I currently own.

I also noticed in the Mia manual that DirectSound is not used for recording. Not sure, but I believe all of my soundcards are recording via DirectSound if DX is installed. Heck, it seems DX owns my soundcards for everything.

Just to be clear, all I had to do to lose my input level was to install DX...I didn't unplug my Monster cable from the line-in jack, didn't move the keyboard, I didn't change any system settings, no other apps were installed, nothing. Example: At 10:05 PM the levels were great, at 10:10 PM the levels barely existed...the only thing done between 10:05PM and 10:10PM was to install DX and reboot.

I didn't repro this just two or three times. I repro'd more than 10 times, and on two different machines. I had them ripped apart in my living room, swapping cards in and out, back and forth, dropping images after every repro to try again with a different scenario. The first four or five repros I was pulling my hair out, cuz I couldn't think of what might be wrong. The final five times I repro'd, I focused directly on the before/after experience with DX. This is why I tried four different versions of DX on clean OS installs...I was trying to verify if the problem was specific to a certain version.

Is there a DX setting somewhere that allows me to turn off DirectSound for the line-in? This alone may be at the core of my problem (considering Mia doesn't use DX for recording). Otherwise, no one has ever been able to help me, other than to say "Hmm, that's too bad..."

 

[paralazarguer]

That's really strange. You could always have soundforge (not XP) normally each track individually every few seconds but that will of course lower your overall sound level. There's definitley something weird going on there. When your level spikes, is it in a certain range? Have you tried first running through the line level mixing board so that you can make sure the source will be balanced? I just don't understand how you were able to get it working right in one config. It really sounds like a set up issue with the studio hardware....weird.

 

[paralazarguer]

BTW, as you can tell from the article, I've also done some light stuff with the audigy platinum and never encountered anything even remotely like that. You did with the x-gamer which is the same hardware though so that's really weird. I have no idea what to say there....

 

[zippy]

Originally posted by: 7757524
BTW, as you can tell from the article, I've also done some light stuff with the audigy platinum and never encountered anything even remotely like that. You did with the x-gamer which is the same hardware though so that's really weird. I have no idea what to say there....

MX300 != x-gamer

MX300 is a Aureal Vortex2 card from Creative from a few years back.

 

[Jeff7]

MX300 is a Aureal Vortex2 card from Creative from a few years back.

MX300 is from Diamond Multimedia (bought by S3, now called Sonicblue). The only thing that Creative did with Aureal was sue them to bankruptcy.

 

[Slugbait]

Zippy, Jeff...you guys are just too funny. I'm busting a gut.

Now both of you: STOP FEEDING MISINFORMATION ON THE BBS.

Thank you.

 

[zippy]

MX300 != x-gamer

MX300 is a Aureal Vortex2 card from Diamond from a few years back.

Sorry I'm not perfect Slugbait, I'll try to be more like you next time. You should probably see a doctor about that stomach thing though...that's seriously not normal.

Now Slugbait: STOP NEFFING ON THE BBS.

What was the use of your post? You didn't correct anything, you just neffed the big one. I wouldn't be posting like this if you had simply corrected my post to say Diamond instead of Creative.

 

[Slugbait]

It wasn't neffing, it was a slam. You posted completely erroneous information. At first I thought you were kidding. After reading your reply, I now realize you weren't. Sorry to have offended.