| Author |
Topic: transfer old cassette tapes to cd |
Louie Hallford
From:
denison tx
|
Posted 27 Jul 2010 4:13 pm |
|
Am trying to trasfer old homemade casette tapes to CD. I have been able top do this by transferring directly to a CD player/recorder but naturally I am losing a lot of quality, and especially have a lot of trash and hum.
How do I do this on computer,and what do I need in the way of a computer program and wiring and cleaning softwear.
My player/recorder is mono and the tapes are all mono. Fortunanely my player is also variable speed and tunable.I know I am not going to get stereo sound,but is there any way to run two mono feeds into the computer to possible juice up the sound. |
|
|
 |
Donna Dodd
From:
Acworth, Georgia, USA
|
Posted 27 Jul 2010 6:14 pm
|
|
Louie - I'm moving your post to RECORDING.
Donna
_________________
Donna Dodd
Georgia Steel Guitar Association (GaSGA) Board Member & Website Administrator
"Every person is a new door to a different world."
- from movie Six Degrees of Separation
Come visit my steel guitar store on CafePress! http://www.cafepress.com/zoomwithaview
Webmaster, http://www.georgiasteelguitar.com |
|
|
|
Gary Blosser
From:
Columbus, Ohio USA
|
Posted 27 Jul 2010 6:19 pm
|
|
Hey Louie
I do this using Easy CD Creator program, just patch cord from the tape deck into the input on your sound card on your computer. might have to go to control panel and go into sound devices and turn the input on but its really a pretty friendly way to achieve what your wanting.
Good luck
Gary |
|
|
|
Graeme Jaye
From:
Spain
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 12:15 am Re: transfer old cassette tapes to cd
|
|
| louie hallford wrote: |
| Am trying to trasfer old homemade casette tapes to CD. I have been able top do this by transferring directly to a CD player/recorder but naturally I am losing a lot of quality, and especially have a lot of trash and hum. |
Is the 'trash and hum' on the original recording or being introduced when you do the transfer?
| louie hallford wrote: |
| How do I do this on computer,and what do I need in the way of a computer program and wiring and cleaning softwear. |
You do it in pretty much the same way as you have been doing it up to now, the only real difference is you will be using a computer rather than a stand-alone CD recorder.
You will need some sort of recording software and if it's your intention to try and clean up the recordings, something that is also capable of such work. Your choices are many - and so is the cost, from free the *very* expensive. A budget would be useful to have before offering any suggestions.
| louie hallford wrote: |
| I know I am not going to get stereo sound,but is there any way to run two mono feeds into the computer to possible juice up the sound. |
You can do it, but don't bother, it's not going to make one iota of difference to the sound (if it does, then something is wrong somewhere).
Generally speaking, it's imperative that you get the best quality transfer from the analogue to digital domain before you start tinkering with it electronically.
In the case of cassette tapes, the one most important point to attend to is the azimuth of the playback head. Azimuth settings on different machines are rarely accurate and you need to check (and often adjust) the azimuth on your playback machine to accomodate these differences. If you are playing a tape on the machine it was recorded on, the problem doesn't show on most recorders as they use a single record/play head - no matter how out of alignment it is, it will always be the same for both functions. The moment you play back the tape on a different machine, you are looking for trouble.
I do this type of work professionally, so my expectations are higher than the average person would require and this is probably not the place to go into it in any depth. You're welcome to PM me if you need specific advice.
_________________
Graeme
Some of my music here |
|
|
|
Ole Dantoft
From:
Copenhagen, Denmark
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 2:59 am
|
|
Hey Louie,
Remember me, the crazy Dane ? 
I've done this literally 100's of times, transferring not only casette tapes, but also reel-to-reel tapes and LP's and what Graeme says above is very correct indeed, especially the part about the azimuth adjustment - that's crucial.
I might add, that differences in the speed between the original tape deck and the one you use for the transfer can be extremely annoying too, if you end up with a complete recording that's half a semitone out of tune !
Also an old tape will have lost a lot of its original magnetic saturation, so signal levels will be much lower than original and this will completely fool any noise reduction that might have been used (typically Dolby of some sort).
I use an old deck that I modified into having variable speed and the azimuth is already easily adjustable and I always record without using noise reduction and then clean it later in software if I need to, but that's just me.
For software I use a product called "Audio Cleaning Lab" from a company called Magix. It's specifically made for this process, it's relatively cheap at around 350 Danish (60-70 USD) and it saves A LOT of time, as it has many clever functions build in.
http://www.magix.com/us/audio-cleaning-lab/
A freeware alternative could be the program often mentioned around here "Audacity", which is quite good, but it will take some more manual work to achive the same results.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
Hope this helps !
Warm regards
Ole |
|
|
|
Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 4:53 am
|
|
The free Audacity program is a popular program for "recording" to the hard drive. It has some noise reduction capabilities but as noted it's a manual process.
You want to "record" to the hard drive and save the individual song files as .wav files for full fidelity. If you save as MP3 it will be "something less" than full fidelity and if you want to make standard AUDIO CD's when the MP3 is converted to wav for CD burning you will not regain the full fidelity.
When you burn the audio CD's, keep the burn speed to 8X if your drive will burn that slow (my audio CD burning speed "standard"). Most newer SATA interface optical drives will not go lower than 16X and if that is the case use the 16X and not any faster. If you burn the audio CD's at a faster speed they can (will) have problems when played with some audio CD players.
There has been a lot written about this subject on this forum and other sites. A google search will turn up a lot of good info on PC audio "recording" both from vinyl and tape and CD burning. |
|
|
|
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 11:01 am
|
|
Louie:
If your original source material is mono, you can't turn it into stereo, but you can certainly achieve 2 channel mono---a left and a right, with identical signal in each.
If you don't want to go to the trouble of azimuth adjustment on your tape deck, you should at least do a thorough cleaning of its heads.
I think Audacity can alter the speed of a recording if your tape playback speed is off a bit.
Exactly what you should do depends on:
1: The nature of the problem. Continuous hiss? Occasional ticks and pops? Generally low fidelity? Distortion? The latter 2 are tough to improve.
2: How much material is involved? 1 hour? 500 hours?
3: How much time and money you are willing to devote to improving the sound.
Audacity is free and a great program. For hiss reduction, it is very quick and it works quite well. It works well for click and pop removal, but that is strictly a manual process. I've spent up to 3 hours manually removing ticks from a 3 minute song, so it can be tedious.
Generally, if I had 10 cassettes with A and B sides, I would make 20 recordings:
1A
1B
2A
2B
etc.
Record them as WAV files and make backup copies of each WAV. Then work on 1A in whatever way you want, improving the sound, splitting into individual songs, etc.
You can later rejoin any of the segments in whatever way you want with your software.
I would do all of my editing and altering as WAV files. If you want to eventually go to mp3, make that the very last step, after you are fully satisfied with the WAV.
Don't agonize over level settings. Just get a decent bounce in the meters that doesn't go into clipping distortion (above 1 or 100%, whatever scale the meters happen to use). You can use your recording application to "normalize" the volume when resaved, so that all recordings will play back at about the same level. It isn't perfect, but works pretty well.
Tell us more about the "trash and hum".
Is it in the original source or does it show up only on the copies you have made?
If you have a hum at a particular frequency, you can use a notch filter in Audacity on it. Results will be variable depending on the type of hum.
If you want an automated way to remove ticks, you will have to spend money for a separate program such as Magix mentioned above.
Brian Davies, a retired Australian mathematician, has a series of programs for audio restoration. They have a free 21 day trial period and can be downloaded.
His click removal application automates the process and is called ClickRepair.
Get it here:
http://www.clickrepair.net/
Davies has 2 other applications: one for de-hissing and another for equalization. They are also automated.
Here is another well-regarded application. It isn't free:
http://www.diamondcut.com/Catalog/millennium.htm |
|
|
|
Graeme Jaye
From:
Spain
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 3:33 pm
|
|
I think I should clarify some of these points.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| If your original source material is mono, you can't turn it into stereo, but you can certainly achieve 2 channel mono---a left and a right, with identical signal in each. |
In order to write a CD, you must have a dual mono source. The basic CD specification is all recordings have to be in one specific format, namely 44.1 KHz sample rate, 16 bit depth and 2 channels. Some writing software will convert a single channel mono source to a dual channel one, but it's better not to rely on that happening and produce a file in the correct format yourself.
That said, it's less demanding of file space and processing power if you work with a single channel format while doing any noise reduction or other processing and just turn it into a 2 channel file as the last process before writing.
Ideally you should transfer using 24 bit depth and if your software allows for it, do any post-transfer processing at 32 bit float. This will eliminate any mathematical rounding errors and, more importantly, give you a shedload of headroom, making it impossible to clip the signal inadvertantly.
There is no advantage is using higher sampling rates than the target (in this case, 44.1 KHz). Any supposed advantage will be lost when you finally downsample to the CD format.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| If you don't want to go to the trouble of azimuth adjustment on your tape deck, you should at least do a thorough cleaning of its heads. |
Although I agree the heads (and the rest of the transport) should be clean, I think it is imperative the azimuth is corrected if and when required. This will make more difference to the quality of the transfer than anything else.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| I think Audacity can alter the speed of a recording if your tape playback speed is off a bit. |
Yes - and this is a feature shared by most modern recording software. A few percent speed difference (4% is approximately a half tone) is not a problem and can easily be corrected once in the digital domain.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| Don't agonize over level settings. Just get a decent bounce in the meters that doesn't go into clipping distortion (above 1 or 100%, whatever scale the meters happen to use). |
This is where there is a major advantage in recording at 24 bits depth. You can comfortably record with the peaks at -12 to -16dB, thus ensuring you will not clip the signal on a loud part. In fact, this is the way it should be done and not what you will often read - the ill-informed advice to 'make it as hot as possible without going into the red'. This is hangover from the old analogue days and is neither relevant or correct in a digital world.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| You can use your recording application to "normalize" the volume when resaved, so that all recordings will play back at about the same level. It isn't perfect, but works pretty well. |
It isn't perfect because 'normalising' merely amplifies each track so that the peak level of each track is at whatever level specified (usually a smidgen under 0dB). The ear hears 'loudness' as an average level, not as a peak - hence a very quiet tune with a single peak at 0dB will sound a lot quieter than one where the general level of sound is not far below the peak level.
To achieve equal 'loudness' from a series of tracks, so you are not constantly reaching for the volume control, you need to set the RMS (average) level of each track to the same figure. Some softwares will do this automatically and there is at least one stand-alone software specifically designed to do just this job, or you can do it by ear (which probably produces the best results, although a little more fiddly).
I could add quite a few more softwares to the list, but I'd like to know a little more about what the problems are (like, is the hum on the tape or the transfer, etc?) and what sort of budget has been set aside for the project.
One final point. To do this work well, requires a lot of manual intervention (automatic, 'one-button push' solutions will, at best, only produce average results because they use average parameters) and this means a lot of time, particularly if you are not well-versed in audio manipulation.
_________________
Graeme
Some of my music here |
|
|
|
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
|
Posted 28 Jul 2010 4:28 pm
|
|
| Graeme Jaye wrote: |
To achieve equal 'loudness' from a series of tracks, so you are not constantly reaching for the volume control, you need to set the RMS (average) level of each track to the same figure. Some softwares will do this automatically and there is at least one stand-alone software specifically designed to do just this job.
|
Graeme:
Are any of those software packages intended for home use and where do I get them? I'd like to check it out as I'm always looking to get proper playback levels on CD burns. Do they generally accept mp3 and WAV files?
mp3 Gain works pretty well for mp3 playback from the hard drive, but I am always looking for ways to burn anthology CDs where all songs seem to be equally loud. I've heard of a similar application for WAV files called "Volume Balancer", but haven't tried it.
http://www.delback.co.uk/volbal/
It's a pain to burn a CD only to find that one track is noticeably louder than the others. I usually see this on a track where the waveform has little variation from beginning to end---compression I guess. |
|
|
|
Graeme Jaye
From:
Spain
|
Posted 29 Jul 2010 1:18 am
|
|
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| I've heard of a similar application for WAV files called "Volume Balancer", but haven't tried it. |
That was the stand-alone app I was thinking about. It works reasonably well, probably as good as any 'automatic' solution will work. It's cheap enough ($15) to try and abandon if it doesn't suit you.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| Do they generally accept mp3 and WAV files? |
Normally, you would do this to .wav files. Having sorted out the average levels of the .wav files, converting them to MP3 format should retain the levels as set (although, because of the way MP3 format works, you might find some minor differences).
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| mp3 Gain works pretty well for mp3 playback from the hard drive |
I was going to mention mp3gain, but you've already been there. It's about the best solution for MP3's.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| But I am always looking for ways to burn anthology CDs where all songs seem to be equally loud. |
I suppose it depends on how 'picky' you are. The best approach is balance the levels by ear, but I think that 99% of listeners would be happy with the results from Volume Balancer - try it and see.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| It's a pain to burn a CD only to find that one track is noticeably louder than the others. I usually see this on a track where the waveform has little variation from beginning to end---compression I guess. |
That's right, compression has raised the RMS level, making it sound louder.
Modern mastering techniques invariably involve heavy compression/hard limiting in order to make things appear 'louder'. To a great extent, it's a self-defeating process and totally destroys any dynamics. It's one of the downsides of digital audio, audio abuse is much easier than it ever was with analogue.
Few recording (or even mastering) engineers really like doing it, but the record companies do (they believe that making their recordings 'louder' than the competition increases sales) - and they sign the cheques!
_________________
Graeme
Some of my music here |
|
|
|
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
|
|
|
|
Louie Hallford
From:
denison tx
|
Posted 29 Jul 2010 11:17 am
|
|
Thanks for your replys to my post. I think I have plenty of info to spend a little money and get started on this process. Sounds as if I can even clean up and tune the cd's I have already made.
Graeme,to answer your guestion, most of the noise (trash) I am getting is coming from hum from having to raise the playback volume level in order to get a good signal into my cd recorder--mostly background hum.
Many of these are old instructional tapes that I don't want to lose.Many were of less than studio quality to begin with. Others were jams with old friends I want to save.
When it is time to hang it up, (not when I quit, but when I die)I think some young player might possibly enjoy having the instuctional materials. I am 71 years old and still love to practice and study with them them
Ole, good to hear from you too. Thanks a lot |
|
|
|
Mitch Drumm
From:
Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake
|
Posted 29 Jul 2010 11:51 am
|
|
Louie:
Regarding the hum:
Have you checked the playback level settings within Windows control panel? I'd set that into the upper range as a starting point.
Is your tape deck disconnected from a home stereo system and then connected directly to your PC?
Or is your tape deck still connected to and part of a home stereo system? |
|
|
|
Graeme Jaye
From:
Spain
|
Posted 29 Jul 2010 2:45 pm
|
|
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| Another program I was trying to think of is WaveGain |
That's one I wasn't aware of.
| Mitch Drumm wrote: |
| I also just found "Sound Normalizer 2.90" |
That's another new one to me - but then there are zillions of apps out there and I can't keep up with all of them  .
I can't really pass any sensible comment - but then I usually do this job by ear anyway and have never really bothered with automating the process.
I'm not sure that I'm attracted by the idea of normalising the individual channels of a stereo file - to me, that's something that would and should have been done before relative level adjustments are made.
_________________
Graeme
Some of my music here |
|
|
|
Graeme Jaye
From:
Spain
|
Posted 29 Jul 2010 2:52 pm
|
|
| louie hallford wrote: |
| Graeme,to answer your guestion, most of the noise (trash) I am getting is coming from hum from having to raise the playback volume level in order to get a good signal into my cd recorder--mostly background hum. |
Obviously, the original recordings are at a lowish level. That's quite understandable, as cassette recorder manufacturers frequently calibrated their metering in order to provide more headroom than absolutely necessary. This meant the most ham-fisted amateur would not over-modulate the tape and introduce unnecessary distortion, the downside being that many recording are under-modulated and suffer from excessive amounts of noise (primarily hiss).
However, your answer does not really tell me what I wanted to know, is the hum actually on the tape or is it being introduced by your playback system itself?
_________________
Graeme
Some of my music here |
|
|
|
Gary Shepherd
From:
Fox, Oklahoma, USA
|
Posted 31 Jul 2010 1:39 pm
|
|
Here's how I do it.
1. Record cassette to CD with Tascam CC-222 (because it's so easy)
2. Import audio tracks into Sonar
3. Clean the tracks with Waves noise reduction plugins
4. Export a final copy as wav or mp3
_________________
Gary Shepherd
Carter D-10 & Peavey Nashville 1000
www.16tracks.com |
|
|
|
Joe Wheeler
From:
Marion Louisiana Union
|
Posted 12 Aug 2010 5:08 am
|
|
| I purchased a device called INport from Office Depot for about $80. It came with all cords and software to connect to a usb port on my computer. Very easy to use and I lose no quality that I can tell. |
|
|
|
