ECN Forum Forums Technical Discussion Re: Computers and the Internet Audio Tape >> CD?

I tried ripping stuff from the XM radio and it was terrible.

What specifically are you looking for? I have about 12 gigs of misc 50s to present music.

Here's the software I use in converting from Tape or LP's to CD. It works very well and is user friendly:
http://www.polderbits.com/

Hi Mike,

Check this, this is an audio recorder. Try it and tell us.
http://www.mp3mymp3.com/mp3_my_mp3_recorder.html

Edited to insert link. :P

[This message has been edited by Gloria (edited 10-09-2006).]

Did you try?

During last weekend,
I had a go at using Audacity to generate MP3 files.
When I played them back, they sounded worse than if I'd used a microphone outside the door.
So much tape hiss (in fact this was the biggest problem) and that means that the real signal isn't getting through.
I've got about 10-20dB of tape noise alone, over and above the actual signal level.
All my signal cables are shielded.
Is this just a quirk of old worn out tapes?.
If so, how can this be reduced upon recording?.

If you have a good sound processing program you could probably filter the hiss out (I like Sound Forge) but you will probably end up getting some of the good signal too.
Maybe you should start over with the gain higher from the tape machine and improve your hiss to noise ratio.
That was what all that Dolby stuff was about back in the day.
I just made some tapes this week from cassette to MP3 and they were as good as the tape. I did a straight copy from the deck "line out" to the PC "line in". Strangely one track did have some noise that showed up on the plot in Sound Forge that I did not see in the other track. I couldn't really hear it so I went on.

Huh? What did you say? I may be a bit deaf.

Mike, I have connected my player's headphone line to the pc, and it was not so bad. I guess you can try to send the line from the deck to a mixer-amplifier (with eq), and then the signal to the pc, see what you can get of it.

Heres what I do If you have an Iriver mp3 recorder (700 or 800) series..... 1st you need a 1/4 " to 1/8" adapter for the haedphone jack on the cassette player then using the iriver simply play the cassette and record to the iriver
This automaticly converts to a mp3 format that most computers will burn to a cd. You can find the irivers on ebay for a fraction of the cost on them new. Must be the 700 or 800 series.
Chris

I once "converted" a bunch of old records onto CD using a turntable and my computer... Just realize that you're probably going to lose a bit of quality, jumping from analog to digital. There are high-end programs that will take care of degrading tapes/records, hiss/pop, and compensate for quality loss, but you'd probably have to sell your car to afford them.

Yup, I've seen devices which clear the music about 40% from audio signal, that's a box a size of a desktop pc, and the speed is 1/10 of the notmal music play speed.
Those who are interested probably can find more on the net if you google archive records digitalization or something like that.