Moving my cassette collection to CD

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
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I realize i'm going to need a boombox/walkman/tape deck & some cables to transfer the cassettes over to my pc, but what's my choices for software?
I plan on doing individual tracks & the tapes are not pristine. I need this to be as painless as possible.
Suggestions?
 

Evander

Golden Member
Jun 18, 2001
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I recently saw an advertisement for a USB record player, and seeing this post made me wanna check if there was something similar for tape players. Bingo:
http://www.amazon.com/BTO-Co-P...sDeck-2c/dp/B0002ICAGC

If you don't like the idea of paying $100, know that if you have many cassettes it will be a pain in the butt to do it manually, and secondly you can resell the thing on ebay after you finished converting and probably make back most of what you paid.

That being said, if you do it manually I second the vote for Audacity, it's free
 

DanceMan

Senior member
Jan 26, 2001
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Originally posted by: Evander
I recently saw an advertisement for a USB record player, and seeing this post made me wanna check if there was something similar for tape players. Bingo:
http://www.amazon.com/BTO-Co-P...sDeck-2c/dp/B0002ICAGC

If you don't like the idea of paying $100, know that if you have many cassettes it will be a pain in the butt to do it manually, and secondly you can resell the thing on ebay after you finished converting and probably make back most of what you paid.

That being said, if you do it manually I second the vote for Audacity, it's free

While I agree that Audacity is free, Nero Ultra is even better, since it has every program that you are going to need. And, it's practically free if you have a burner that already has it, or a copy of Nero 6 Ultra (you can get Nero 7, but I think Nero 6 is a lot better) for very cheap.

Why do I like Nero? It's because it will have the ability to add track indexing, which is essential if your cassette copy is a long concert that you don't want to break up into multiple recordings, but still would like to place track markers. It also includes a CD print program that is handy for printing out CD labels. It's an all-in-one stop program.

DanceMan

 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
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Those of you that are using Audacity, which version are you using? I see a 1.2.6 & a 1.3.3 Beta. They're warning that the Beta version is unstable, but it seems that it's been out for awhile.
 

five4o

Member
Apr 21, 2007
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Originally posted by: Evander
I recently saw an advertisement for a USB record player, and seeing this post made me wanna check if there was something similar for tape players. Bingo:
http://www.amazon.com/BTO-Co-P...sDeck-2c/dp/B0002ICAGC

If you don't like the idea of paying $100, know that if you have many cassettes it will be a pain in the butt to do it manually, and secondly you can resell the thing on ebay after you finished converting and probably make back most of what you paid.

That being said, if you do it manually I second the vote for Audacity, it's free

Beware it only does 60 min tapes, something about 90 min or longer tapes being thin and might snap. I attached a link to the manual
 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
3,507
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Originally posted by: five4o

Beware it only does 60 min tapes, something about 90 min or longer tapes being thin and might snap. I attached a link to the manual

So one should worry if one has a tape of a 2 album set?
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
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1) Get yourself a GOOD tape deck. even a fairly old one, you can buy them for really cheap these days; as long as it's got at least Dolby B & C and tape selectors (Normal, Chrome and Metal), it will do the trick. If you can get a Dolby S tape deck or one of the last Pioneer tape decks with digital noise suppressors, you've got the absolute best that money can buy. I remember digitizing audio cassettes using the Creative SBLive! Platinum, connected to a Kenwood Dolby S tape deck, in 1999... man, those were really nice.

I don't know what the frequency response, wow&flutter and dynamic noise ratio is for that "PlusDeck 2c", but I'm willing to bet any serious HiFi home tape deck will spank its ass in terms of sheer audio quality... and there's no limitation concerning the length of the recording (I have 120 minute audio tapes, d'ya think that silly gadget will play them?)

You DON'T want a boombox or a walkman to do the job. Most of these devices have subpar audo quality to begin with, and most of them only have one "headphone" output, which will seriously distort the sound when connected to an external recorder.

2) If you have a GOOD dedicated sound card (Creative SB Live!, Audigy, M-Audio) you don't need any other hardware (and if you're still using on-board sound, you have no excuse, really, *unless* its' an nForce chipset!)

3) Use one "3.5 mm stereo jack to 2 RCA plugs" cable to connect your deck to the soundcard (most likely, this will be the standard equipment configuration)

4) You can use any audio recording software, from freeware (Audacity) to payware (Sony Soundforge)...

In the freeware domain I will probably diverge from the rest of the crowd, and I'll tell you to avoid Audacity. Yes, it's great, but judging from what you ask, you'll probably feel overwhelmed by the complexity of its interface. I've been doing audio editing for a number of years, and I *still* don't like the Audacity interface, I find it much too cluttered. Therefore, I strongly advise you to look at WavePad, dbpoweramp v10 or Audiograbber (the last two offer line-in audio recording capabilities and are also excellent CD rippers and mp3/ogg/FLAC encoders).

As far as payware goes, you can't go wrong with the already mentioned Soundforge, CoolEdit (now rebranded as Adobe Audition) or the lesser-known Goldwave.

If you have a full version of Nero, you might find among its utilities a little program called Nero Wave Editor, which is absolutely fantastic. Similarly, most Creative soundcards I know of come with their own *totally free and more than adequate* software suite for recording and audio editing. I am fairly certain other sound cards makers have similar arrangements.

5) Best of luck, and PLEASE do yourself a favour and experiment a bit, before starting to do the final work, you'll learn a lot in the process, and you'll find that even mistakes can be useful.
 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
3,507
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Wow...thanks for all that info!
So are you saying my motherboard w/the onboard SoundMAX ADI AD1988B 8-channel CODEC won't do as good as an older Soundblaster card? I've got a couple of those laying around somewhere collecting dust.
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
6,021
547
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Well, your ADI AD1988B specs are here;
http://www.analog.com/Uploaded...eets/AD1988A_1988B.pdf

You should expect at least 90dB signal-to-noise ratio on your analog inputs, which is OK, by all means, considering you're downloading audio off tapes (the best Metal tapes only go to 85 dB or so)... but even the most humble Soundblaster live! Value already has 96 dB. If you go into Audigy territory and beyond, you're already passing the 100 dB mark.

Bottom line: if you have clean sound when using your motherboard's Line-in, and there's no parasite noise, hiss or static coming from other computer components (and you don't have a lot of applications running in the background, when you record), you should be fine with your on-board audio solution.

any other questions, feel free :p
 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
3,507
5
81
Ok...I downloaded & installed Audacity & am temporarily using my onboard sound.
I hooked up a component tape deck...line out to line in (blue) on my motherboard. I used a phono to 1/8" y-adapter.
My problem now is I can't monitor the input. I selected "monitor input" on the input meter, but nothing from my speakers. Am I going to need to use headphones on the tape deck to monitor the input?
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
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Nakamichi Dragon -> Drawmer TS1 -> MOTU 896HD (with Black Lion DAC) = great results. ;)

The inmachine deck is going to sound like your basic mobile bargamania deck (Kraco, Sparkomatic, Jensen etc.) Shrill fast rolled off highs above 10kHz. Yick-yuck! :(

There are plenty of good decks that go to an honest 18k or better. What it will depend on is how good your tapes are and if what NR they were encoded with. It may be better to record with NR OFF and correct this on the DAW but we're talking a few steps beyond the "typical home user" here. ;)
 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
3,507
5
81
I'm using a Sony TC-K611S w/Dolby S...can't afford a Dragon.
I'm still trying to figure out how to monitor the cassette deck thru the pc during the recording process.
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
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1) In the Audio properties, click "Playback", access the audio mixer and make sure "Line-In" is checked and the slider is up.

2) Go to "recording", select "Line-In" as the source, deselect anything else.

3) Play one of the loudest passages on the tape; and

4) in parallel, keep the Audacity/SoundForge/whatever :) recording window visible, and carefully look at the VU-metres while adjusting the slider for "Line-in" recording in the Audio Mixer properties.

With Soundforge, for instance, you DON'T want the sound level to go over 0 db when you record. Keep it as close to 0 as possible, but don't push it over, or you'll distort the sound (do a google search for "clipped peaks"). Some tape players are able to identify audio peaks for you, so they'll run the tape really quick, then play that "loudest" portion in a 10-second loop until you stop it - very useful for fine-tuning the recording level!

*edit* wow, a Dragon user! My respects, Rubycon!

As a teenager, I used to dream I'll be able to buy one of those famed Nakamichi audio decks one day... and then, suddenly, the audio cassette era was over! Got my first CD recorder in 1998, never looked back for any other reasons than nostalgia...
 

Tullphan

Diamond Member
Jul 27, 2001
3,507
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81
For some reason on SoundForge my choices for audio device type (for both playback & record) are "Microsoft Sound Mapper", "Direct Sound Surround Mapper", & "Windows Classic Wave Driver"...no other choices. On Audacity, it actually shows "Line In (High Definition Audio)" for recording & "Speakers" (High Definition Audio) for playback.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
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Originally posted by: Tullphan
For some reason on SoundForge my choices for audio device type (for both playback & record) are "Microsoft Sound Mapper", "Direct Sound Surround Mapper", & "Windows Classic Wave Driver"...no other choices. On Audacity, it actually shows "Line In (High Definition Audio)" for recording & "Speakers" (High Definition Audio) for playback.

Are you talking about this panel?

Some drivers will show as ASIO in SF and others just map through MS or DS.

Either way you control input levels through the software mixer (or hardware mixer if you have one). Definitely keep the levels a few dB lower for headroom as you can always normalize to 0dB when finished processing.