In Case of Cassette
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: analog, digital, conversion, cassette | Themes: Digital Entertainment
8. In Case of Cassette
If you’ve made it this far, ripping a cassette into digital should be a cake walk. I was only able to find one cassette in my entire house--an old Pink Floyd sampler on a Maxell XLII-S tape. And no wonder. The best cassette recordings only sound on par with average CD fidelity, plus you’ve got the ever-present tape hiss to boot. You can filter out most of the hiss, but you’ll lose even more of your high-end in the process. Still, some people will have bootleg recordings or recorded conversations on cassette, and these items should definitely be digitized.
The process depends on having a $5 adapter cable that can go from the Line Out on your tape deck to a standard 1/8” mini stereo adapter to go into your PC. (This is the same cable you’d use for LP capture if you don’t have a USB turntable.) If your audio driver supports jack sensing, you’ll see a pop-up window arrive when you plug in the cable prompting you to specify what sort of device you’ve added. In this case, I picked Line In.
It’s important to recalibrate your line levels here. While 20 to 25 worked well for the TTUSB, I found 70 was a much better input value for the tape deck’s Line In. Also, keep an eye on those sample and bit rate settings. Windows and drivers love to keep knocking you back to CD-quality settings. Admittedly, for cassette work, you really don’t need anything better. It had been years since I’d listened to music on cassette, and I was appalled at how inferior it was and how deaf I must have been back in the 1980s. Then again, I was used to listening on cheap, integrated stereos and car decks during that young stage in my life. Ever since converting over to CD, all I’ve really done with this Philips deck is rip audio books, where even 64 Kb/s MP3 is unnecessarily generous for the source material.
As the name implies, you can use EZ Vinyl/Tape Converter (3.1) to help capture and tag your music cassettes. Or you can do the whole affair more cleanly and manually in Audacity. Or, as I ended up doing a few times, you can start with one and finish with the other for trimming and touch-up. If you’ve already written off tape from a quality standpoint, then you’ve got a lot more free reign on noise filtering.
As you dig into your audio conversions, I would only caution you to be assiduous in your track management. Four or five years ago, I did some quick and dirty LP conversion work, encoding entire album sides and naming them things like “RS – side 1.” Guess what happened to those recordings? Nothing. I never got around to slicing them up, trimming the lead-ins, and so forth. Because I never added metadata to them (album, year, genre, etc.), they don’t even show up on many of my playlists or content sorts. It’s just dead data. This is very common with analog conversions.
Please, don’t generate dead data. Turn your encodings into clean, usable, well-tagged files. If the metadata taggers in your recording apps aren’t sufficient, try AudioShell or any of the many other free tagging tools, especially ones capable of batch tagging. If your conversions look and act like all your other audio files, you’ll get even more enjoyment out of your rediscovered gems.
To Be Continued…
We’ll be back shortly with the next part of this article, which will guide you through the ins and outs of analog photo conversion, then it’s on to video. If you’ve enjoyed the audio discussion so far, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
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This seems so complicated, especially because of Windows 7 and the choice of products used.
You can look on Amazon for a regular turntable (they start from 50$) and you just have to look at the spec sheet at the producer to see if they have "Line out" or un-amplified output. For example, the first result on Amazon, Audio Tehnica AT-PL50 at about $70, has "integral, switchable stereo phono pre-amplifier. Permits use of
turntable with stereo amplifiers having either magnetic-phono
inputs or “AUX” (high-level) inputs; also allows convenient
use of turntable with most powered speakers" - as says in the manual.
So you can just get a 50 cent audio cable, plug the RCA outputs to the "Line In" of your soundcard and record the tracks using whatever you want, for example Goldwave or Adobe's Audition (former known as Cool Edit Pro). And, if you want quality, just get Windows XP and use up to 24bit, 96khz but you should stick to 48khz, 16 bit, because this way it's the easiest to convert to MP3 or OGG or FLAC.
An USB turntable will not give better quality, as it will take the analog signal and just digitize it, then Windows will convert it back to analogic signal so that applications see the USB as a microphone. It's just poinless conversions.
Oh shucks, I was counting on getting to the video today. My fiancee (who's not a computer nerd like some) bought herself a VCR/DVD recorder combo machine to backup old family videos. My though was to use a regular VCR, and the video-in on a quality TV tuner card, but then I'd have to find good video recording software (bundled software is never good), worry about encoding the file at a proper rate (sometimes, even if the movie is less than 2 hours, my DVD software can't compress it to fit on a DVD), etc.. etc...
I look forward to seeing the solution the author came up with, see if I can take any pointers from it, assuming its not "Use the Media Center capabilities of Win 7/Vista", cause that's not what I want to hear.
This seems so complicated, especially because of Windows 7 and the choice of products used.
The settings I dealt with in Windows 7 are largely present in prior versions, and I felt it was important to work on the platform many people would be using in the weeks and months to come in case there were any unforeseen surprises. Also, I opted for the USB-based turntable for its universality. Sure, you can probably buy a better RCA-only turntable for less money, but not everyone has Line In capabilities on their PCs -- and the number is getting steadily lower as notebook dominance continues. On the other hand, *everyone* has USB. By the time you get to the end of this article, you should have a decent enough idea about the ins and outs of this process that optimizing for any type of analog player or input should be no trouble. I love quality and agree with everything you're saying, but I felt convenience and universality was even more important in this case.
Oh shucks, I was counting on getting to the video today. . . . I look forward to seeing the solution the author came up with, see if I can take any pointers from it, assuming its not "Use the Media Center capabilities of Win 7/Vista", cause that's not what I want to hear.
Should I give away a spoiler? OK, yes, I'm going to be working with the tools already built into Windows, but I also have Pinnacle Studio 12 and Adobe Premiere Elements 7 on deck. Are you sure you want to dismiss Windows out of hand? Are you *positive* that it can't give you satisfactory or equivalent results to fee-based options? In a few days, I guess we'll find out. ;-)
Nice article. now i have some tools to convert some of my old cassettes.
hopefully theres no 64-bit annoyances with these programs.
Nice article. now i have some tools to convert some of my old cassettes.hopefully theres no 64-bit annoyances with these programs.
I was running on Windows 7 64-bit and had no trouble with anything I tried.
Until I read this article I forgot all about my Technique SL1200 turntable and the vinyl's I still have. Just might have a project for this weekend.
I seriously LOLed when I saw page 2... That's the exact model video-camera I picked out for my dad when I was in highschool XD
We still have a bunch of the hi-8 and basic 8's from our old old sony which bit the dust... I tried playing them in that camcorder but unfortunately it won't play. I'll be waiting for the next segment. I want to see different approaches/hurdles to be overcome
not everyone has Line In capabilities on their PCs
Not sure what stuff you're smoking there, but I have yet to meet with a notebook/netbook/desktop that didn't have a line-in or mic jack. Every computer has one, since audio is now a requirement on PC's.
I've been converting analog audio to digital for more than 10 years, using Cool Edit Pro as my preferred software, and a good 3.5mm audio cable. It's the only software I use and the only software I need, as everything else I've tried is a crying joke. Everything from noise-reduction, hiss/pop removal, normalizing, hard-limiting, dynamic range expansion, parametric EQ, gap removal, down to bit-for-bit cut/paste wave file editing I've done - and I can load and save WAV, MP3 and WMA files in any bitrate/sampling frequency I desire. Best software purchase I ever made, and it only cost me $25.
For vinyl rips I still use my turntable/amplifier and get standard RCA out. As for cassettes, I have a soft-touch full-logic dual tape deck that I use to play back my mountain of type IV tapes, all recorded with Dolby C and S NR. They sound damn close to anything even my hyped DAT recorder could do back in the day for sure.
As for itunes rips, I just use the stereo mixer as my line-in source - play back on itunes and record with CEP. It's the easiest way to un-DRM your music, and a great way to record streaming audio from sites like Pandora. (Free music anyone?) You can even connect computers together to record from one to the other, like you would in the old days with two tape decks.
back in the day, when you had an excellent record player, LP sounded better than cd's (mainly due the lack of anto-aliasing filter)...
THEREFORE, converting LP use the POS ion turntable is an exercise to futility because of the crappy needle etc on that turntable.
or put another way search for the artist online if it's available it will sound better. than what you can do.
I have an Ion Tape2PC unit which gives me the option of USB output or standard RCA output. Based on the comments about USB converting several times, would I be better off just using the RCA outputs and plugging those into my Line-in on my soundcard? The USB connection has worked well enough for these cassette tapes (they're mainly just people talking, no music), but any improvement in quality would be welcome.
Just a brief note to follow on my page 2 comments about not wanting to buy a Hi8 camera for just one use. At the time, I found a couple possibilities selling for about $80 locally on Craigslist. When I finally found a camera repair shop across town willing to rent one for $20/day, I thought I'd found the best possible solution. However, the first unit I rented turned out to be defective. By the time I got the replacement, my schedule had shifted, and it took me twice as long as anticipated to get through all of the various encodings and tests needed for the follow-up article on video encoding. By the time I could finish with the camera and get someone across town to return it, I'd had it for a week. The owner gave me a "break" on the rental, knocking my bill down to $100. Had I just bought the Craigslist option for $80, I could have taken as long as I wanted, then resold it, maybe even for $50. Clearly, buy and resell would have been a smarter approach than rental. Lesson learned.
As far as audiophileness goes, you're using the wrong equipment. I can see you plugged a usb turntable into you're system (or through you integrated card), used windows mixer to get the samples and recorded everything that way. That's probably why you con't hear much difference between an mp3 and a flac file. I suggest you get a decent turntable (like a $1.000 up), a good audio card that supports ASIO (I've got an M-Audio Audiophile 192) and record Line in from the tt to audacity through ASIO, one at 16/44,1 (cd quality) and another at 24/96 (sacd quality). You could also get a sample at 16/48 (dvd-a) and 24/192 (max fidelity); but be sure to take them all separetly, 'cause converting a sample to an inferior bitrate/frequency (downsampling) degrades quality beyond conversion if the new bit/freq aren't factors of the old one (ex: 24/96 -> 24/48 is ok, 24/96 -> 16/44,1 degrades the sample beyond the obvious of changing the bit/freq values). Then do a test, using foobar and ASIO (not those winamp BS decoders and windows mixer, which downsamples everything it gets anyway).
Regards!
The actual digital stream itself is based on a format that is inherently lossy. You're simply restoring a lossy file, even if the restoration is 99.9% accurate.
For audio I prefer analogue any day. The only compromise I make is to digitise my LP's in 24/96 quality.
Due to the nature of the digital stream the soundstage often changes as a result, too. For example, play the Genesis track 'Tonight, Tonight' on an LP, then compare play it on CD - the latter sounds hard, and compressed, because that's what it is. After a while it also becomes fatiguing.
So I know it's being a stick in the mud, but I have seen little to convince me that digital is always better..for synthesised sounds yes perhaps..but an expensive CD player on a transistor amp is only scratching the surface in terms of quality when it comes to an LP on the same rig. Hook the LP upto a valve per-amp and it could quite possibly blow your ears away even compared to a good CD player/DAC combo. For electronic music it works OK, but for analogue transfers..nah, I'll pass.
The marketing men will sell digital because it makes them money. The rest will experiment, using the correct hardware (including decent record decks, amplifiers and leads), and I have never seen anyone that wasn't impressed by it. I like the convenience of digital, not the quality, not at this stage.
If you don't like the space your LP collection is consuming, record them onto VHS tape. The audio bandwidth of VHS is great and you can insert index points to locate your tracks.
Caution:Never hook your LP player straight into your recording device, unless it has the correct phono stage. Failure to do this can result in damage to your hardware. If your amp has a phono input, plug the LP player into it first, then hook some decent leads from the amp into the video recorder. Also beware of creating feedback loops, that can damage your amplifier.
Sorry for the multiple posts.
I have also found that muting the unused inputs on my sound cards lowers the hiss levels when recording through the primary aux input, although that might be unique to my system. It's got a good Creative card, but it gets some hiss and feedback from those other inputs. It also (like most cards), saturates the aux input very easily, so unless I keep it real low it's a waste of time.
Also, can't emphasise this enough..get some decent leads. The one's that come from the shops are mostly junk that isn't designed for quality. If the device you're recording from is old, clean the outputs with a suitable cleaning solution.