MD to PC analogue transfer

[goldenbreast]

first off, i recorded my first gig a couple of days ago using my rig:

sony mz-r55

church audio cardiods

church audio 9100 pre-amp

i recorded aynsley lister, a blues guitarist, in farnham and have the recording split onto 2 minidiscs. i have downloaded audacity in my attempt to do the analogue transfer. i am having trouble figuring out how how i connect the 3.5 interconnect cable to my md and soundcard. the soundcard is a creative labs sound blaster audigy 2 PCI card and has a 'digital' input in the back which appears to be the only available connection as the others are taken.

im also trying to find a step by step guide on how to do the analogue transfer using audacity as i have no idea how to use it.

any help would be appreciated.

on another note, if i had a hi-md player i could do a digital transfer which would be done using a usb cable right and the software provided?

[Strungup]

if you dont have the same type of plug on the audigy , do you have RCA's that say "Line In "?? should have , that would be how you connect .

1/8 in stereo plug input http://a763.g.akamai.net/7/763/1644/1/app..../1/VPID/4168601

I think this is your card yes ? , the Green input should be LINE input read the spec sheet on your card , you should have Mic level , Line level , Digital SPDIF in and out .

you want 1/8 stereo male to male cable from MD to LINE IN , then Audacity works just like a tape deck, go into preferences, select the I/O section , and set recording quality as well , close audacity then start it back up . Double tap the input meter to start it monitoring hit play on the MD and adjust the levels so the meter looks good . stop the MD , rewind , then put your mouse on the record button of Audacity hit record and start the MD , a Track will appear and start scrolling across the screen with the Audio Capture being displayed . when your done hit stop , then edit till your heart is content , If your on a Mac all the AU Effects Apple Core effects will show in Audacity's effect menu.

Drag your cursor over a selection of the audio to highlight it then go up to "Effects " and klik it a drop down will open showing you all the effects available. Be sure to Undo anything you dont like before doing another effect on top of ..... if you know what I mean .

[goldenbreast]

if you dont have the same type of plug on the audigy , do you have RCA's that say "Line In "?? should have , that would be how you connect .

1/8 in stereo plug input http://a763.g.akamai.net/7/763/1644/1/app..../1/VPID/4168601

I think this is your card yes ? , the Green input should be LINE input read the spec sheet on your card , you should have Mic level , Line level , Digital SPDIF in and out .

you want 1/8 stereo male to male cable from MD to LINE IN , then Audacity works just like a tape deck, go into preferences, select the I/O section , and set recording quality as well , close audacity then start it back up . Double tap the input meter to start it monitoring hit play on the MD and adjust the levels so the meter looks good . stop the MD , rewind , then put your mouse on the record button of Audacity hit record and start the MD , a Track will appear and start scrolling across the screen with the Audio Capture being displayed . when your done hit stop , then edit till your heart is content , If your on a Mac all the AU Effects Apple Core effects will show in Audacity's effect menu.

Drag your cursor over a selection of the audio to highlight it then go up to "Effects " and klik it a drop down will open showing you all the effects available. Be sure to Undo anything you dont like before doing another effect on top of ..... if you know what I mean .

it looks like the same sound card, if i take the connector out of the green input then the speakers stop working...i dont have the manual for the graphics card as my comps a few years old. so far i connected the connector into the digital input on the soundcard and then into the line in on the md player and no sound is coming through the computer when i press play on the md player. i cant see how im going to get round this

[A440]

Try to think of this like plumbing. You are piping the sound out of the MD and into the computer.

I know this long post looks daunting, but most of it only needs to be set up once. Then you'll just plug in and click a Record button.

The output of your MD is the headphone jack (not line-in, that's an input). Your pipe out of the MD is a male-to-male stereo cable. Your entry into the computer is the line-in jack of the audio card. Then Audacity has to be positioned to catch the sound--like a bucket under a faucet.

Here's a link to the manual for the Audigy 2. If it's not your model, do a Google search with as much model information as you can find. Creative (maker of Audigy) has very confusing model numbers. (This search was "Audigy 2" manual.)

http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals...380/Audigy2.pdf

It's a pretty confusing manual, but basically, you are looking for a Line-in jack (which is usually white, but might not be) or a Mic-in jack (usually red). The manual (p. 26-27) says the Line-in is the second input from the left--but it could be from the right, depending on how the card is oriented in your computer. Whatever--it's next to the mic jack, which, as I said, is probably red.

Maybe you have something else playing through your computer, already connected to Line-in? Unplug it.

Connect the MD headphone out to Line-in. That's the easy part.

----------------------------------

Now your computer has to know to listen to the MD. You only have to do this once, so bear with it a little.

It is possible that you have a Creative software recorder installed that came with the card. Do you? Search Programs or your computer for programs called Creative Mediasource or something like that. If you do, it should have a recording function. Open Mediasource, click around, take a look at the manual. You'll have to set Line-in as the source for the recording somewhere in that program.

----------------------------------

Otherwise, do it with Audacity. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Install Audacity and open it. Look under Edit / Preferences / Audio I/O / and look at Recording. The device should be Audigy (or Creative or whatever it's called in the list). Channels: 2 (Stereo) . Check Software Playthrough if you want to hear through speakers while recording. Go to Quality, make it 44.1 Mhz and 16-bit. File format: Uncompressed Export Format, wav (16-bit). These may already be in there as defaults.

Since Audacity is freeware, it doesn't include .mp3 (a patented program). You need to install it yourself. (That's the price of free software.) Get the LAME mp3 encoder here. http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/ Unzip it into the same directory as Audacity. Audacity is going to have to find Lame_enc.dll once it is unzipped. Under File Formats, click Find Library. You might have to browse to find lame_enc.dll--I forget whether Audacity does the search for you. Find it, then in Quality set the mp3 quality to 192 kbps.

You'll need some space on a hard drive to record into Audacity--about 10MB per minute of audio. If your C: drive doesn't have a lot of space and you're using a bigger external drive, choose it under Directories. That's the bucket where Audacity will put the recording.

Almost ready. Close Preferences and look at the upper right of Audacity. You'll see a picture of a microphone and a white drop-down box. If the choice isn't Line-in, switch to that.

---------------------------------------------------

You should never have to do that again. What a relief.

OK, ready to go. Click the big red Record button on Audacity, start the MD playback and you should see a waveform. Play with the input level (chevron-shaped slider between the pic of the microphone and the drop-down box) so the waveform nearly fills the screen but doesn't get squashed at top and bottom. You're recording!

Audacity records in its own format when you Save. (Another free software workaround.) There's no need to save in Audacity's format. To save as something more useful, after recording click Export as .wav or Export as .mp3 to get a universally recognizable file. Then look for it in the Directory where you saved it.

------------------------

A Hi-MD recorder would be faster and simpler. It's a two-step transfer: upload and convert. Open SonicStage (included software, but you'd want to update it), connect Hi-MD, click Transfer. Then, also with SonicStage, you'd need to convert the transferred recording out of Sony's MD format and into .wav or .mp3.

If you can afford the MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200 (same thing, but MZ-M200 comes with a mic), it will upload recordings from your current unit. That's the only model that will do that--other Hi-MD units will not upload older recordings.

-----------------------------

Edited December 16, 2007 by A440

[goldenbreast]

Try to think of this like plumbing. You are piping the sound out of the MD and into the computer.

I know this long post looks daunting, but most of it only needs to be set up once. Then you'll just plug in and click a Record button.

The output of your MD is the headphone jack (not line-in, that's an input). Your pipe out of the MD is a male-to-male stereo cable. Your entry into the computer is the line-in jack of the audio card. Then Audacity has to be positioned to catch the sound--like a bucket under a faucet.

Here's a link to the manual for the Audigy 2. If it's not your model, do a Google search with as much model information as you can find. Creative (maker of Audigy) has very confusing model numbers. (This search was "Audigy 2" manual.)

http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals...380/Audigy2.pdf

It's a pretty confusing manual, but basically, you are looking for a Line-in jack (which is usually white, but might not be) or a Mic-in jack (usually red). The manual (p. 26-27) says the Line-in is the second input from the left--but it could be from the right, depending on how the card is oriented in your computer. Whatever--it's next to the mic jack, which, as I said, is probably red.

Maybe you have something else playing through your computer, already connected to Line-in? Unplug it.

Connect the MD headphone out to Line-in. That's the easy part.

----------------------------------

Now your computer has to know to listen to the MD. You only have to do this once, so bear with it a little.

It is possible that you have a Creative software recorder installed that came with the card. Do you? Search Programs or your computer for programs called Creative Mediasource or something like that. If you do, it should have a recording function. Open Mediasource, click around, take a look at the manual. You'll have to set Line-in as the source for the recording somewhere in that program.

----------------------------------

Otherwise, do it with Audacity. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Install Audacity and open it. Look under Edit / Preferences / Audio I/O / and look at Recording. The device should be Audigy (or Creative or whatever it's called in the list). Channels: 2 (Stereo) . Check Software Playthrough if you want to hear through speakers while recording. Go to Quality, make it 44.1 Mhz and 16-bit. File format: Uncompressed Export Format, wav (16-bit). These may already be in there as defaults.

Since Audacity is freeware, it doesn't include .mp3 (a patented program). You need to install it yourself. (That's the price of free software.) Get the LAME mp3 encoder here. http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/ Unzip it into the same directory as Audacity. Audacity is going to have to find Lame_enc.dll once it is unzipped. Under File Formats, click Find Library. You might have to browse to find lame_enc.dll--I forget whether Audacity does the search for you. Find it, then in Quality set the mp3 quality to 192 kbps.

You'll need some space on a hard drive to record into Audacity--about 10MB per minute of audio. If your C: drive doesn't have a lot of space and you're using a bigger external drive, choose it under Directories. That's the bucket where Audacity will put the recording.

Almost ready. Close Preferences and look at the upper right of Audacity. You'll see a picture of a microphone and a white drop-down box. If the choice isn't Line-in, switch to that.

---------------------------------------------------

You should never have to do that again. What a relief.

OK, ready to go. Click the big red Record button on Audacity, start the MD playback and you should see a waveform. Play with the input level (chevron-shaped slider between the pic of the microphone and the drop-down box) so the waveform nearly fills the screen but doesn't get squashed at top and bottom. You're recording!

Audacity records in its own format when you Save. (Another free software workaround.) There's no need to save in Audacity's format. To save as something more useful, after recording click Export as .wav or Export as .mp3 to get a universally recognizable file. Then look for it in the Directory where you saved it.

------------------------

A Hi-MD recorder would be faster and simpler. It's a two-step transfer: upload and convert. Open SonicStage (included software, but you'd want to update it), connect Hi-MD, click Transfer. Then, also with SonicStage, you'd need to convert the transferred recording out of Sony's MD format and into .wav or .mp3.

If you can afford the MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200 (same thing, but MZ-M200 comes with a mic), it will upload recordings from your current unit. That's the only model that will do that--other Hi-MD units will not upload older recordings.

-----------------------------

wow!, thanks for the detailed information. i will try and figure it out when i get back from work tomorrow

will keep you posted

Alex

[goldenbreast]

wow!, thanks for the detailed information. i will try and figure it out when i get back from work tomorrow

will keep you posted

Alex

right...it seems ive managed to get the connections right as im getting sound now, next i have to figure out the best recording levels...

thanks for the help