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Thread |
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Jamie
New Member
United Kingdom
41 posts
Joined: Feb, 2002
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 Posted - 2015/04/05 : 19:06:52
Hi all,
I'd like to record a few old sets on cassettes to digital format.
I know I could just hook up my cassette deck to my PC and hit record, but can anyone advise me on an optimal set up to help remove hiss and just try to not make the sound worse?
I've got a mixer, line ins, outbourd sound card, a cassette deck(!), Cubase and t-racks on my DAW which I'm hoping I can use to help the recording process.
I'd just like the levels to be somewhat similar when playing back in digital format.
Can anyone offer any advice or let me know their setup e.g. Input levels etc. or even have any presets?
Thanks!
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DjZelous
Advanced Member
United States
553 posts
Joined: Oct, 2012
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Posted - 2015/04/05 : 19:08:33
I Use audacity and i do some equalization and noise removal
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Listen To my station!: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Rave-EDM-Radio-s278768/
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Captain Triceps
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
2,198 posts
Joined: Dec, 2011
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Posted - 2015/04/05 : 19:18:50
For what it's worth, I also use Audacity, try to make it sound as good as I can at source - I know if I piddled around too much with hiss removers de-essers and what have you I'd just mess it up - I make sure it's nice and loud and record at a sensible level, it generally sounds as good as the tape anyway.
Again I'm far from an expert, which is why I don't play around with things too much.
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https://soundcloud.com/paulbradley1982
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johnnygomental
Average Member
United Kingdom
192 posts
Joined: Feb, 2012
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 Posted - 2015/04/05 : 21:02:23
As above mate but with the addition of putting the tape deck through my mixer 1st then to my computer.it just adds a few more eq adjustments and tweak abilities but yeah audacity suits the task well, and it free!! 😊
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Hard2Get
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
12,837 posts
Joined: Jun, 2001
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Posted - 2015/04/05 : 23:09:36
There is very little you can do once recorded and what you can do has to be done in such a way that doesn't ruin the recording and won't be significant anyway. What you need is a good sounding cassette deck and then a decent sound card to capture the quality. This is everything. Otherwise it's just going to sound fairly bad no matter what. There is also nothing you can do about a tape that sounds terrible, and lots of them do! Getting the same level will be no issue if the gains are all set correctly.
So to summarise, the sound has to be good from the start, and then that which captures the audio has to be decent enough too so that you don't lose too much in the analogue to digital conversion. In my experience it's difficult to really capture that nice tape sound accurately! Always seem to lose a lot on the way in. If you think the many bad recordings on youtube are fine though then you can't do much wrong!
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Edited by - Hard2Get on 2015/04/05 23:15:51 |
Guest
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,511 posts
Joined: Feb, 2015
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Posted - 2015/04/05 : 23:36:55
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Convert-Your-Tapes-Records-To-MP3-Ion-U-Record-Usb-Audio-Recording-Kit-BNIB-/281283091216?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item417dc75b10
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-Cassette-Player-Capture-Recorder-Converter-Tape-to-MP3-Auto-Reverse-/251892014176?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3aa5ef1c60
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youtube channel / soundcloud and mixcloud suck
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DJ_FunDaBounce
Advanced Member
Colombia
2,008 posts
Joined: Nov, 2001
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 00:19:37
Since you mention Cubase my suggestion is set up a stereo track and record into it making sure the levels don't clip. Try to give it some room by lowering the highest peak to around -6dB. (Remember you can always normalize after it's been recorded). Record at 44.1khz 16 bit resolution so you don't have to fiddle with sampling down issues.
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"Fun with a capital F-D-B!"
http://www.brightspeedrecordings.com/
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Shades
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,189 posts
Joined: Dec, 2006
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 10:54:17
not all cassette players are equal, if you have a crap tape deck it will sound crap. also if the recording is crap then the playback will be crap...
hmm i guess tapes were crap lol
but a good step would be to get a one of the latest tape decks made in the 90's by Sony, Technics, Pioneer or Yamaha
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http://soundcloud.com/shades
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Triquatra
Moderator
United Kingdom
12,635 posts
Joined: Nov, 2003
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 11:23:29
Agree wholeheartedly with the previous comments from Hard2get and shades.
If you are looking to squeeze lots of quality out of it and minimise the hiss 90% of the work needs to be done at the cassette deck end as opposed to doing the work *after* recording.
The difference in hiss between a low, mid-range and high end cassette deck is *very* noticable. If your pinch rollers are in the slightest bit old they may have gone barrel shaped/hard which will throw the tracking slightly off which will kill low or high end depending on which way it's worn. Then there is the head which will need (for best quality) a clean with a cotton bud and Isoproyl after each run (or every few if you're not too fussy).
Old decks need demagnitising, but you can dodge the de-magnitisation thing by picking up a Technics deck that has one of their Amorphous-Z heads in that don't require that. Get one that *doesn't* have auto reverse - from what I've read these had a nasty habit of eventually throwing the cassette out of alignment over the head, which will hamper quality as well. Especially after years of use.
then record straight to .wav - back it up/compress it to zip/rar and work with a copy so that you always have the original stored somewhere.
When I did my dad's cassettes (a good 300+ of them all home-recorded) I did this and there was very little, (if any) eq work left that needed to be done, just normalisation really.
of course avoid ION Cassette to USB decks - I bought one of these at a car boot sale for ?1 (ho ho ho) that had barely been used just for fun to see how it stands up to my RS-AZ6 and not only does the ion sound naff - but it also has it's own built in hiss reduction, which you can do *nothing* about, kills the hiss and the quality all in one go. Wonderful. Will put up a clip when I get my internet back properly.
...apology's if you already know all this, but perhaps it will help someone else too :)
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Edited by - Triquatra on 2015/04/06 20:43:29 |
Guest
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
1,511 posts
Joined: Feb, 2015
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 11:33:26
quote:
Originally posted by Shades:
not all cassette players are equal, if you have a crap tape deck it will sound crap. also if the recording is crap then the playback will be crap...
hmm i guess tapes were crap lol
but a good step would be to get a one of the latest tape decks made in the 90's by Sony, Technics, Pioneer or Yamaha
and put your tape in the fridge to 10 minutes, doing that is suppose to kill the magnetism and static on tapes that have not been played for a while
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youtube channel / soundcloud and mixcloud suck
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DjZelous
Advanced Member
United States
553 posts
Joined: Oct, 2012
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 20:26:37
Don't buy anything ion
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Soon to be Audio Engineer :)
Listen To my station!: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Rave-EDM-Radio-s278768/
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Hard2Get
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
12,837 posts
Joined: Jun, 2001
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 21:31:05
quote:
Originally posted by Triquatra:
Agree wholeheartedly with the previous comments from Hard2get and shades.
If you are looking to squeeze lots of quality out of it and minimise the hiss 90% of the work needs to be done at the cassette deck end as opposed to doing the work *after* recording.
The difference in hiss between a low, mid-range and high end cassette deck is *very* noticable. If your pinch rollers are in the slightest bit old they may have gone barrel shaped/hard which will throw the tracking slightly off which will kill low or high end depending on which way it's worn. Then there is the head which will need (for best quality) a clean with a cotton bud and Isoproyl after each run (or every few if you're not too fussy).
Old decks need demagnitising, but you can dodge the de-magnitisation thing by picking up a Technics deck that has one of their Amorphous-Z heads in that don't require that. Get one that *doesn't* have auto reverse - from what I've read these had a nasty habit of eventually throwing the cassette out of alignment over the head, which will hamper quality as well. Especially after years of use.
then record straight to .wav - back it up/compress it to zip/rar and work with a copy so that you always have the original stored somewhere.
When I did my dad's cassettes (a good 300+ of them all home-recorded) I did this and there was very little, (if any) eq work left that needed to be done, just normalisation really.
of course avoid ION Cassette to USB decks - I bought one of these at a car boot sale for ?1 (ho ho ho) that had barely been used just for fun to see how it stands up to my RS-AZ6 and not only does the ion sound naff - but it also has it's own built in hiss reduction, which you can do *nothing* about, kills the hiss and the quality all in one go. Wonderful. Will put up a clip when I get my internet back properly.
...apology's if you already know all this, but perhaps it will help someone else too :)
And i thought i knew cassettes! I recently got perfectly functioning Tascam 202 MKiii for a tenner on ebay! Not had a cassette deck for years before that. Clearly it's not designed for playback as much as recording though as there is no headphone volume control on this particular version (other versions have it). Very odd!
Interestingly, to this day cassette is still may favourite way of listening to Hardcore. I can listen to several sets in a row if they are on cassette but i struggle with just one if its in digital format and I'm listening at home.
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Edited by - Hard2Get on 2015/04/06 21:34:08 |
DjZelous
Advanced Member
United States
553 posts
Joined: Oct, 2012
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Posted - 2015/04/06 : 21:53:24
I got bored one day and i did this :)
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Soon to be Audio Engineer :)
Listen To my station!: http://tunein.com/radio/The-Rave-EDM-Radio-s278768/
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