WE have a computer question - Audio Cassettes to CD's? Multiple questions for the Super Geniuses!

Delta-Boudreaux, SamAdam76,tang-soo | 1-9-2002 | Delta-Boudreaux, SamAdam76,tang-soo

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"My biggest problem is getting a "pause" made between tracks so that the CD will have track numbers. Yet many times, the songs flow uninterrupted on the original tape. I can manually pause the input between tracks but it's sort of a clunky way to do it. I'd like to get the entire tape on my hard drive as one large .wav file and then have the ability to separate them into smaller .wav files for track separation. Also, I can delete the commercials this way. If I cut the commercials, I should be able to fit most of my 90-minute tapes onto a 74 minute CD. Also there is DJ chatter in between the tracks but I'd like to keep it as they are discussing the music and that was part of the appeal of making all these tapes in the first place."

Try this website. GoldWave!

[DJ Frisat]

I see that there have been a lot of negative comments about recording through sound cards. My own experience is quite different, and I don't have exceptionally elaborate equipment -- a Crystal Sound integrated sound system on an HP motherboard, and a Sound Blaster Live card in my other computer. Either one of these is more than capable of producing a wav file indistinguishable from the original - especially when the original is an old audio tape. And with audio cleanup/EQ tools, they can sound even better!

One thing perhaps being overlooked is the sampling rate during recording. The de facto standard for "hi-fi" quality stereo and subsequent transfer to standard CD audio format is 16-bit, 44.1Khz.

If one side of a tape is recorded as a single wav file, it will need to be separated into individual files if you wish to have locatable "tracks" on the final CD. You need a wav editing program for this. I use Cool Edit 2000, a wonderful tool well worth the $69 price. Simply select the portion of the wav that you would like to be a CD track, and write it to a file. Then select the next portion of the wav, write it to a file, etc.

If you're using Adaptec/Roxio's EZ CD Creator to burn your CDs, select "Disc at Once" mode to eliminate the 2-second gap between tracks. The result will be a a CD which plays continuously as if it were one big wav, or will allow you to jump to a track, if you so desire.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"If you want to talk about this, I'd be glad to do so over the telephone. (I REALLY worked hard at this project)."

I've done a lot of audio work through the PC as well as transferring irreplacable radio programs onto CD-R like old episodes of "The Shadow" and the complete 12 episodes of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". It's a b@llbreaking process sometimes but it's worth it.
A big conference call would be cool.

[DJ Frisat]

Oh --- and, when recording, take care not to have the level so high as to introduce distortion. You're better off reducing the record level a bit, and then using the "Normalize" function of your wave editor to boost the amplitude to the maximum level without causing distortion...

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I aimed my bullet at the wrong target. My reply #21 was meant for you.

[hc87]

See my reply, #15 above regarding audio component CD burners. Other than less sensitivity than I would like when letting the CD- burner automatically add track cuts, I like mine. The sound is great and it is no harder to use than your average cassette player. I'm just not looking forward to moving 200 tapes and 100 LPs to CD-Rs.

[Grig]

Audio tape to CD is fairly simple, but for the best results you will need to invest some time.

First, you need a good soundcard with a sterio input. The microphone input that all cards have is MONO so you won't get a sterio digitization of your music using that.

Once you have that, it is fairly simple to get a cable that plugs into the soundcard and into the headphone jack of a quality tape player and record the audio. Make sure the recording software is set to record from the line-in jack you are using, not from another jack. (I use Creative Recorder, it came with my soundcard)

Some things to watch out for: 1) CD audio tracks are basicly .wav files that are 16 bit sterio, 44.1 KHz, so you want your recording software to record using that format for the best results. This means that your .wav files will be very large. 74 min of audio will take up 650M of disk space. 2) if the volume on the tape player is too loud, then you will wind up with a poor sounding recording. Some trial and error will be needed to find the right setting. If you record it a bit soft, you can normalize the audio up to a louder volume without harming the quality, but if you record it too loud you can't fix it after. Be carefull not to adjust the volume while recording is taking place.

I've never trusted software to figure out where the tracks go, it's better IMHO to manually cut each track off of the big .wav file into it's own .wav file. If you really want software to do this for you, I think EZ CD Creator will do this for you, even record and de-noise in realtime too. When you have a lot to do, it can at least be a good first step.

If you are going to take the time to cut and edit it yourself before burning, be sure to apply some noise reduction and normalization tools. Normalizing it means to adjust the volume of the whole track so the loudest part of the track is at some limit. You want to do this (using the same limit) to each track so that you don't have one song play real quiet (causing you to turn up the volume) and then have the next song blast your ears off.

If the songs crossfade into eachother, or if it's a concert where you get lots of applause between songs, you can use CD burning software like Nero that lets you adjust the pause length between tracks. A pause of zero seconds is allowed so you can still jump ahead to the next track, but there is no gap in the audio when played straight through.

[Nita Nupress]

Here's a software program that someone told me about (Was it you, Pardek?) that sounds like it may be useful in this application. I have no idea how well it will work for this, but someone here smarter than I could surely tell you. What I do know is that it's only $69!

Syntrillium Software: COOL EDIT 2000

Here's some more information about it from Harmony-Central.com, a well-known and respected site for reviews. Syntrillium Releases ProEQ Plug-In for Cool Edit 2000

I can't believe I'm lucky enough to find this thread. I signed on to check breaking news before going to bed and this thread popped up. Cool! Since I have tons of homemade cassettes that I'd like to convert to CD's, I will be bookmarking this thread to read later.

[philo]

I also bought a TEAC CD-Recorder at COSTCO. It has a function to record Analog.

I found that I could use the cassette headphone jack as my output and run RCA plugs to the recorders Line-In inputs in the back.

As you said the recorder has trouble seperating tracks.

So I take my CD over to my computer and run a program called Audio Cleaning Lab. It's made by a company called Magix. It's on the web www.magix.com.

It allows me to seperate tracks, boost the sound, dehiss, and de-click the recordings (if scratched), and cut and paste songs.

I bought it at Best Buy for 40 Bucks. Then it allows my to burn it back on a cd or convert it to an MP3 file.

I usually make it an MP3 file and store it on the computer.

With NERO I convert it into a data file and store it on a CD.

You can get up to 200 songs on a CD this way. And anytime you want that song you can bring the CD back and with NERO drag and drop any songs from the CD to make an Audio CD.

[Mr. Thorne]

Well, I managed with an audio Y-cable; one end into the headphone jack on my boombox, the other into the left/right plugs on the back of my PowerMac. That and a handy little program called SoundMaker 1.0.3 from MicroMat. Opened up SoundMaker, stuck the tape in, pushed play and off I went. There was a slight bit of 'tape noise', but SoundMaker took care of that.

I'm sure I'll get better with practice, but the first experience was fairly painless. The resulting MP3 file is here. Not perfect, but I've heard worse...

Though, truth to tell, for the amount of tape that y'all want to transfer to digital, I'm thinking there must be a better way. I'd be interested in hearing it myself.

= )

[Senator Pardek]

Since I have tons of homemade cassettes that I'd like to convert to CD's

Good idea - you can really clean up the tape hiss these days, too - it will bring you back to the days when you had short nails on your left hand ;)

[scouse]

I would like to be able to put multiple tapes on each cd, as much as possible.

If I remember correctly the average song takes up about 3 to 3.5 MB. This is equivalent to about 3.5 mins. Each disk holds about 700 MBs.

[max61]

Philips, JVC, and Sony make audio system component CD burners that I am aware of. I purchased a JVC unit last year to perform the same basic function and have found it to be more than adequate to the task with decent quality and is no more difficult than operating a cassette deck used to be.

In addition to recording vinyl and cassette, I've also managed to capture DirectTV music channels, Digital Cable Music Channels, CDR's and reel-to-reel to CD. As well during the holidays I accidently recorded DTV channel 819 on my TiVo and managed to move music from the TiVo to CD burner. This actually has some interesting applications in combination with DirectTV.

I plan to record on the TiVo a 4-6 hours of Ch819 on DirectTV and then review the what's been recorded via fastforwarding the TiVo at 25x. Since the music is played on Ch.819 with the artist, album, song name displayed on the TV, I'll just record what I want on CD, then torch the rest. As well, since Ch.819 plays a fairly diverse selection of tunes, I'm bound to run into something I don't have already in one format or another sooner or later.

---max

[TheOtherOne]

“No, no. It tells time simultaneously in Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, London, Paris, Rome, and Schtahd!”

[kjam22]

I own a Phillips 775 cd burner. You are correct that it says it will recognize when new songs start. It requires a couple of seconds of silence to initiate the new song.... the problem is that when transfering albums or tapes the hiss on those is enough to confuse the phillips recorder. My unit has a remote that allows the user to step through these. You just press a button between songs and it starts a new track on the Phillips. Time consuming because you have to be there and step it through.... but the thing does make really good recordings.

[kjam22]

Read your post about cd burners. I bought a Phillips a few months back.... and it also uses Audio CDR's. You can find those for about 43cents a piece on the net if you shop pretty hard. But... I also have heard that the Harmon Kardon brand CD Recorders use Media CDR's. Wish I had known that a few months back.

[billbears]

Bump from another Sound Forge user.

[hc87]

I have to admit that I did not shop hard for a bargain on my first spindle of audio CD-Rs. I have noticed that, as a general matter, they do seem to cost more than data CD-Rs. I assume this is because of the Home Audio Recording Act which allows record companies to collect royalties on digital media designed for home audio recording.

[VOA]

bump

[ArrogantBustard]

So I take my CD over to my computer and run a program called Audio Cleaning Lab. It's made by a company called Magix. It's on the web.

I'll second that recommendation of Audio Cleaning Lab. I really like it for making the recording off the line input on my Soundblaster Live 5.1 card, and removing noise, hiss, clicks, and suchlike from cassettes and LPs. I don't like it as much for actually burning the CD, though. I usually export the cleaned up audio, and burn the CD with Nero 5.5.

AB