Transfer cassettes to MD- how? best way? on laptop?

[minimi]

Hello All!!

Newbie here to this MD craze. Woohoo!! The more I read about it the more I get hooked... :rasp:

I've wanted to transfer all my tape (cassette) recordings to some other media. MD sounds very appealing to me. But need some help in the matter:

1) what is the best way of doing it? (tools, links, tutorials)

2) is a laptop with XP on it with Audio AC97 a good choice for this? What would be the results? Can I at least try?

3) Has anyone done moving recorded music on tapes to MD? How better or worse does it sound??

I'm sure, somewhere in this forum there are answers to my questions and I look through it daily now, believe me! :smile: But my biggest concern is with the laptop. Own the new PCG-K13. Are laptops good in general for such tryouts? I only ask, because for some time I won't have a desktop access and I wanted to try putting my tapes onto MD.

Thoughts, concerns, tips are much welcome and appreciated.

Thanks!

minimi

[stevo]

hiya. i was doing the same thing a few weeks ago - i had a lot of music on tape that i wanted to keep, but i hadn't listened to a cassette in years. i copied songs onto my minidisc portable with a straight 3.5mm (headphone style jack) cable - it's just one connection at each end. this went from earphones out on cassette walkman to line in on minidisc recorder. the sound was awful even though the tape was in good nick and the cassette player was an expensive panasonic portable.

i then tried to use the awia stereo my friend has downstairs. i just used the same cable as before - from earphones out on front of stereo to line in on md - and it worked fine. sound was good - not great by any means - but "listenable to". then i plugged the md - which is a net md, into my pc and organized the tracks. i had tp split them manually but if you buy a deck - even the most basic one like the mdsJE480 - it has a feature that will auto insert spaces between tracks. then all you have to do is name them. To allow for the reduced tape quality - i recorded in sp - not much compression - and i listen to my old tapes all the time now.

i don't think it really matters what type of laptop you have - as long as it will take the md software - so you can title and organize the songs on the actual mini disc itself after you have recorded onto it. i suppose you could record tapes onto the laptop then onto md but i dont see the point. straight realtime recording onto md from tape from a good stereo at sp recording mode worked fine for me.

[minimi]

Hi Stevo,

thanks for posting. The way I want to go about it is hook up a regular tape deck, go with RCA outputs into laptop and record it there first. I read that that's a better way of doing it. For one, I'm digitzing the sound and second, I get to "massage" it with tools out there, I just don't know how to go about it. But I heard that the way I want to go about is pretty good. I don't know what that will mean for the sound quality but I guess I'll find out.

If the laptop doesn't matter then I'll try it, but I think I remember reading somewhere that AC97 on laptops is crap for recording from tapes or LPs. Is that true?

I think the way to go is tape deck -> PC -> MD. What should I use on PC for recording? Any nice tools out there besides windows built in tools??

minimi

[stevo]

hmmmmm. have good read through this thread - you should find some info for recording

recordinghttp://forums.minidisc.org/viewforum.php?f=13

but if you want to "digitize" it - putting it straight onto md will do just that. there is a myriad of tools out there for "massaging" your recordings - but in my experience the more formats involved - the worse the sound quality. thats why i recommended going straight from cassette to md - only one format change - from cassette - to .omg (md format).

i noticed this with windows media player - if i record a cd onto my hdd with it ( in .wma), then import to md software (in .omg) the sound quality is depleted.

as regards exactly what software to use - and your AC97 - i do not know enough about them to comment really but you should have no problem finding good software on the net.

putting it onto pc - then onto md - wil take time. but if you have good software and get get the music fully edited etc and ready to go to md - then i suppose that sounds good - do all editing on pc then lob it straight to md. although you may still have to insert track marks manually on the md after recording.

i don't know if you have a md or not but HI-MD is coming very soon - if you haven't noticed from this forum - so if you dont have a unit, it may be a good idea to hold off until the new format is released to buy one OR as everyone will be selling their old units to get new ones - you could pick up a nice cheap (older) one on the net!! heh heh.

[minimi]

Thanks for the link. Will definitelly look through it to find the best possible solutions.

That's true, I am digitizing the sound going directly from tape to MD. But isn't there "hiss" issues and "noise"?? I thought, that's why people were recording first to the PC and then to MD when moving music from tapes. I'm just scared that the sound will be very different from what I have on the tapes.

I'll definitelly compare recording straight to MD and going through the PC to see how much sound loss there is.

Right now I'm going to have an N410 available to play with for a month or so. Should be good for testing, right? Yes, I saw the Hi-MD craze!! I'm looking at some of them on minidisco. Very tempting... But I thought I'll try the process first on the older one. Then I can decide if I really want the Hi-MD (I know, most fanatics will say, YES YOU DO!!) or not. I want to go through the motions of recording onto MD to see how "painful" it is. From the horror stories I read of many people owning an MD, I want to experience whether it's really all that awful. Seems like a skill in its own terms.

All in all, it beats lugging 6 cassetes around, when I can have just one minidisc and sound similair or better, right?? :smile:

minimi

[stevo]

its only painful when something goes wrong - like a horrible software issue - but I have never had any trouble - especially when you have a forum like this to help you out - I would have been very frustrated without it. the sound from a cassette put onto md will be only as good as the tape deck you use to record it with - so use a top grade tape player on a good stereo. yeah its much, much better than tape - you can press one button and go to next song almost instantly - move songs around - delete them, add more etc. make sure you read up on recording modes - lp2 lp4 etc -i am not sure which one is officially the best for tape recordings, but use your ears rather than what you are told cause you'll be the one listening to the music. whatever horror stories you hear are the worst that could happen scenarios - once you have the right information, it's very easy and straighforward.

sound won't be too different - my favourite tape album that i have - LL Cool J All World - (its hilarious) - i put that onto MD recently and the sound is at least the same as the tape version - but tapes decline in quality with usage - you couldnt listen to a MD enough to make it decline - you would go deaf first.

regarding hiss - if you set the recording volume right on the MD and have dolby noise reduction on the tape player - hiss should be minimal.

[drew_]

i've got a lot of stuff on tape which i treasure and have begun the process of transfering to my hard drive.

basically, line out from my stereo system (RCA output) to the line in of my sound card (3.5 mm minijack input, built into my motherboard). i record the sound as a high quality .wav file (44.1 kHz, 16 bit, stereo or mono depending on whether its music or talk respectively). then i make some tweaks to it such as alter its level and remove the hiss, all done with the free program Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. i've then encoded as .aac files using itunes. but if i wanted to transfer to minidisc i would simply transfer the .wav files using SonicStage or Simple Burner using i think Dino's method (just do a search of this forum to find more info about this method).

i've found the recordings i've made have been most satisfactory...well they sound a better than the tape and won't deteriorate with time.

quality of the final recording will depend on the quality of the tape and quality of the sound card (usually a separate sound card is better than the built into the motherboard ones because they reduce the amount of electromagnetic interference from the motherboard). don't quote me on the last bit, i could be talking out of me ass.

[minimi]

I hear you both!

It seems that as long as you do everything right, you can't do anything wrong. But I know there are many settings on these programs that can be tweaked, adjusted, mastered or whatever, to make the sound equal or better to what it was on the tape.

Usually I tried to record my tapes at the best sound possible, unless it was otherwise impossible. So I'm looking for the same from transferring it to my MD. And I love the idea of having music from many cassettes on one virtually undestroyable Mini-CD. That is awesome!

I have to work with these programs like Audacity or Simple Burn or even Winamp or md32 or whatever the program's name. I want to get the best sound possible. I know many people are concerned with recording with mp3 to MD, but heck, most of us have music from the cassette era!! Or even phono!! That's the important stuff. Mp3 can always sound good, in my humble opinion. IT's the cassette sound that makes it a challenge, even reocordings made from tapes from other sources.

But I hope it'll be a good experience. I'm really excited about this MD. I used to hear about it in Europe all the time, but I was like, MD, really??? Then after I started reading up on it, my brain top flew off!! CDs are just too bulky. Cassettes are too old, MD is what I need and I hope it works like a charm. I'm getting the equipment by friday hopefully. I'm not plannign on much sleep!!

If anyone else has any tips or input, share it here, I'd be interested.

minimi

[A440]

If the MD you're using is the NE410 you're going to have to get the music into your PC first because the NE410 only has USB in--the only way to get stuff into it is to download it from the PC.

So follow the excellent advice above on PC recording.

Higher-grade MDs have line-in and mic-in jacks for direct recording.

[minimi]

Allright now... Tiny problem, how can I lower the volume on in line coming from the tape deck to the laptop??? The loudness is off the charts!!! I have the line set on the lowest possible level and still the distortion is unbelievable. It's like my tapes are recorded at 100 times better quality then any CD out there, at like bazilion khz!!!!

I'm using Audiograbber for now to bring the music from the tapes onto the laptop. I was able to lower the distortion a little by going low on everything on windows volume controler, but still the distortion is through the roof. Any suggestions??

minimi

[Ryzir]

minimi

First of all check your input connection and make sure you are plugged into the line in and not the mic input. Then check the levels for the input. In windows you can get to the level controls in the Control Panel under Sound Speech and Audio Devices. That could be your problem. If not it could be the tapes themselves. Analog recording levels can handle higher levels than digital.

One thing to watchout for when recording analog to a PC is that built in soundcards will add HDD noise to your recordings. To avoid this you can either get an external usb soundcard or go straight to your minidisc.

[minimi]

I figured the problem. Basically, all the noise that I'm getting is becuase the tape deck is playing at a much higher audio then my mic-in line can take. So I found a quick solution.

It's called iMic and it usually sells as a Mac accessory ($35 @ MicroCenter). Yet it works with PC laptops quite well. All I have to do is plug my tape deck into the iMic, plug the iMic into my laptop's mic-in input and voila!!! The iMic takes care of all the noise and adjust the volume and whatever else is needed for me to record clean audio from tapes onto the lapto.

This fixes the problem. Very easy to do and the sound is almost exactly the same as on my tapes, as far as I can tell without using any measuring tools. I'm happy. If anyone else out there is having the same issue, iMic is the tool to get. Good luck!!

minimi

[Guest NRen2k5]

It you want to improve the sound quality at all in the process of digitizing it and editing it, then a laptop with a sh!tty AC97 definitely won't cut it. You ought to use a PC with a relatively good soundcard such as an Audigy2.

I'd say for the sake of simplicity, just record from the RCA outs of a relatively good tape deck to the line-in of your MD recorder using an RCA->3.5mm Y-plug. I'd do the recording in LP2 (SP is really overkill for cassette, I think).