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

[js1138]

See post #20. Sound Forge is available directly from SonicFoundry.com. Limited edition is available for under $50.

There are "student" editions available of the professional products at half price for non-commercial use. If you are doing hundreds of hours of tapes it might be worth it to get professional software. Professional doesn't necessarily mean hard to use.

For folks converting from vinyl, there's nothing like Sonic Foundry's noise elimination. It handles clicks, pops, hiss, rumble, dynamic expansion and crackle in one pass. The default settings are quite good. You can download a full featured demo for free. It inserts beeps into the output until you pay for it, but you can still hear the magic.

[freedomlover]

Lots of great ideas on this thread. I should have consulted FR Brain Trust a few months ago when I needed to convert a bunch of 8mm old movies to digital format.

I did some rough and ready conversion of my own about a year ago when I sat down with my mother and went through 30 or so old 8mm home (silent) movies. I filmed the wall with a Digital8 camcorder while she talked about the movies so I picked up her voice as the movies played. She passed about 6 mo ago and my recordings, while not professional, are still priceless. I don't know how professionals do it but it can't be that much better absent maybe come color correction.

[steve-b]

You'll need:

1. A way to get the sound information into your computer. The simplest way is to hook the output of your tape player into the input of your sound card: headphone out to microphone in, or (preferably) line out to line in.

This will probably add a bit of noise, depending on the quality of your sound card -- the inside of a computer is an electronically noisy environment.

Alternatively, if you have one of those stereo-component CD recorders, record to an audio CD-RW, use a CD-ripping program to get the file into your computer, and repeat. You want to use a CD-RW so that you don't have to repeatedly pay tribute to Hollyweird, which gets a cut even though you are making legal copies of your own collection.

Either way, you can just record one side of a tape as a big audio file, and separate it out into songs later in the next step.

2. A way to process the big audio files. I use Cool Edit 2000 (www.syntrillium.com). With this (or any other decent audio-processing software), you can select a portion of the big file (e.g. one song from a tape) and save it as a separate file.

Other features you probably want are noise reduction (select a "silent" portion of the audio file as a reference, then have the software remove that hiss sound from the entire file), amplitude control (one option, usually called "hard limiting", allows you to crank up the volume "above 100%" without clipping -- this is good if used with restraint, but if pushed too far will eventually produce audible distortion).

You'll learn how to get the best results by trial and error, so you'll want to save the raw files you start with so you can start over if you screw it up.

3. Record to CD-R. This is fairly straightforward with most CD-R systems, though you probably want to avoid doing anything else with the computer at the same time unless you have a recent system with heavy-duty buffering and Burn-Proof[tm] enhancements.

[steve-b]

Remember, the recording will only be as good as the weakest link allows

For that reason, you might as well save the final results (once you're satisfied that you've done all you can, or want to bother with, in the way of cleanup and enhancement) as MP3 files. If you use a decent bitrate (I use 192Kbs; anything over 160 should suffice), the MP3 compression is probably a stronger link than the initial audio tape.

[steve-b]

Audio CD-Rs (as distinct from Data CD-Rs used with computers) seem to cost about a dollar per CD, while data CD-Rs are about half of that

That's because the entertainment industry extorted itself a big fat cut in exchange for not tying the technology up in lawsuits.

(The industry is back demanding more, proving the accuracy of Kipling's observation about the result of paying Dane-geld.)

[steve-b]

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.

Yes, as long as it's not too low (e.g. if your signal peaks at only 12.5%, then you're effectively getting only 13bits of signal in a 16-bit recording).

Shoot for something in the 25%-50% peak range, which gives you most of the available resolution and leaves a safety margin against clipping (going over 100%).

[jokar]

BTTT

[John Jorsett]

I have some old family 8mm movies that I'd like to transfer to DVD. Can you tell me who did yours, and what they charged?

[Biblical Calvinist]

I use "MusicMatch Jukebox" - which can be downloaded from www.musicmatch.com .This FREE software program allows me to record from ANY SOURCE by plugging an RCA patch cord into the "LINE IN" input on the sound card - then RECORDING directly into MP3 format!~ NO messing with stupid HUGE wav files.

The GOOD news is that once the recording into MP3 format is complete, Musicmatch ALSO has a CD Burning software that is compatible with ANY cd Burner...(the NEW MusicMatch 7.00 even allows one to record Mp3's DIRECTLY onto a CD!)

By recording the MP3 files directly, I was able to record the ENTIRE Beatles Collection onto ONE cd~!! Of course, the only drawback to recording in this format is that the cd can then ONLY be played back on a computer OR one of the NEW CD players that is MP3 compatible.

BUT Music Match also allows one to RECORD the MP3's in REGULAR audio format as well...(PLEASE read the INSTRUCTIONS first; after you have downloaded the software..this will save some frustration.)

[Delta-Boudreaux]

It sounds great!

[Mr. Thorne]

Thanks! Now, darn it, go back and buy something!

= P

[SamAdams76]

Well, it's been about three weeks since this thread was posted and I just thought I'd let everyone know how my taping is coming along.

I moved my tape deck to my computer desk and ran a RCA cable from it to the sound card of my computer. I then bought a program called EASY CD CREATOR from Roxio. I know there are cheaper solutions - many of the free music player/recorders available online such as Music Match Jukebox could do the job, for example. But I heard a lot of rave reviews about the Roxio product and since I have so many tapes that I wish to preserve, I wanted to go top of the line. Got it for $99 at CompUSA.

Well I definitely got my money's worth with this program. The learning curve is about half an hour. I was coverting tapes to CD shortly after that and they sound fantastic. I'd say the CDs even sound better than the original tapes because of the sound cleaning functions built into the Roxio program.

Here's what I do with a typical tape. I open the Soundstream Spin Doctor applet and run the tape. The sound comes through my sound card and goes to my hard drive as a .wav file. What I do is name each track as I record it. Once the track finishes, I stop recording and the named file is completed and sits in my directory. For example, I will name the track "David Ball - Thinking Problem" and it will show up on my hard drive as "David Ball - Thinking Problem.wav"

When I get enough tracks to fill a CD, I simply import the tracks from the directory into the Roxio application and insert a blank CD in the drive. I then name the CD and hit record. After about 10 minutes (recording at 12x speed), the CD is done and I "finalize" the CD which takes an additional 15 seconds. I then slap on a label (that can be created with the Roxio Program) and I am done!

Here's a couple of pitfalls to avoid. When first setting up the program, you need to go to START/ACCESSORIES/ENTERTAINMENT and open the volume control (or just open it from your system tray on the taskbar if it is there) and go to Options and select volume adjustment for RECORDING. Make sure that INLINE is selected and not PHONE LINE which I believe is the default.

Also, if you are running XP, you must first go to the Roxio website and download and install the XP patch before doing anything. Or you may lose your CD-RW drive. That happened to me and I wasted a whole night trying to fix it. Ended up I had to go into the dreaded Registry and undo a few things before the CD-RW drive would show up again.

Other than that, I am burning tapes and liking the results very much. It's going to take me several years to convert my library because I have over 1,400 90-minute and 100-minute tapes adding up to over 2,300 hours of music!

Most of it is stuff taped off the radio. For example, I've been making between 5-10 tapes every Christmas for the past 20 years from music off the radio. I also tape a lot of special programming such as the Lost 45s, Nocturnal Emissions, classical concerts and rock concerts.

I figure if I can convert three tapes a week, I'll be done by the year 2012!

[EugeneConservative]

I use CoolEdit 2000, it has worked very good for my purposes. I mostly work on getting speech material into digital format. Along with CoolEdit, I use their Audio Clean-Up plug in which is helpful if you are picky. It provides extra tools for removing clicks and pops, etc. This plug-in is not absolutely necessary since the basic version of CoolEdit comes with a noise reduction feature which is fairly good for removing run-of-the-mill background hiss.

Of course a good soundcard is necessary - I either use the built-in sound on my Mac G4 or an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 in my Windows box. I got the Audiophile card off ebay for a bit over $100 which was a great deal for a card of this quality. This place seems to have them for $159, free shipping.

My main problem is compression - realaudio and the windows media formats are good at compressing speech at very small file sizes (as low as 4-5 megs for 60 minutes at the highest compression) but these are proprietary formats which I wish to avoid because I don't want to rely on a proprietary player. Going straight to audio CD stinks because the data MUST be in 16 bit, 44100 Hz, STEREO which wastes space. Unfortunately MP3 is pretty lousy at compressing speech at low bit-rates (and making files real small). I am still looking for a good solution.

I have found a site which offers sermons in WMA (Windows Media) format and suggests some MP3 players which support this format as well, which essentially can pack about 300 hours on a single CD(!!!!). This sounds cool, but it is still a proprietary format. Here is another link discussing speech compression schemes. Basically, the upshot seems to be that MP3 is not optimized for compressing speech, and the only other options are proprietary.

[Nita Nupress]

Bump for a good thread. I STILL haven't gotten around to doing this. (..sigh..)

[aruanan]

I use Spark to record my tape however I want as an AIFF or WAV file. Then I just go through each tape side I record and copy and paste each song into a new window and save it separately under its own title in a folder named for the tape. After that I import the whole folder into iTunes, use the information function to add all the info I want about the tape and the individual songs, and then burn it to CD.

I've seen other programs that will automatically partition an incoming signal into separate mp3s, but I think Spark is a much higher quality.

[vollmond]

I've had good results from running the output from my stereo (line out) through a mixing board, and then into my soundcard. Using the mixing board allows me to clean the signal a little and boost it up a notch. Then I just record a whole side of a tape as an individual file, and then use a wave editor to mark cuts to split the sides into individual songs. Depending on the size of your hard drive, you can record a bunch of tapes over the course of an evening, and do the splitting and renaming the next day.

[Nita Nupress]

I've pinged everyone who originally responded to this thread for any input & advice you may have. If you don't mind, would you scroll down & read your original reply to see if there have been any changes in your advice or something you would like to add? After all, it's been 2 years.

I'm about to have a little time on my hands and this is on my list of things-to-do. FINALLY. Here are my specific questions:

1. Do you know if there have been any particular technological advancements since this was posted?

2. What's the cheapest way to do this? I have NO music equipment & will have to purchase any necessary equipment to complete the task (stereo amp, audio portable cassette recorder, software, etc.). I DO have a sound card on my computer, but I don't know what kind. (I looked under Control Panel, Systems Information, but don't see it.)

3. Finally, I'll be ordering a new desktop computer as soon as I can figure out the feature$ I need, (leaning towards the Dell Dimension 3000). Maybe I should wait until I get the new computer. Is there anything regarding software/sound cards/hard drive space I need to know before purchasing?

4. Finally, if you're just passing through, please ping any FR music or computer gurus you know.

Thanks! I can't come back until tonight, but any help would be appreciated.

[Nita Nupress]

One more thing: I have a free trial copy of Cool Edit 2000 that I ordered and never used. They've probably come out with something better by now!

[Nita Nupress]

I have a free trial copy of Cool Edit 2000

Oops. Make that Cool Edit Pro Version 2.

[Fresh Wind]

For anyone who is serious about restoring old recordings, the software products from this company are worth considering:

http://www.enhancedaudio.com/

I've used their $59 "DC Millenium" product to restore a number of old 45 and 78 records, and some 50 year old reel-to-reel tapes, and the results are amazing, to say the least.