How to set Windows Sound Recorder to record more than 60 seconds?

[Steven O.]

I am trying to transfer some old cassette tapes (family recordings) to
the hard drive. For my purposes, I don't need fancy $300 sound
editing programs, the Windows Sound Recorder program will do just
fine. The only problem is it records only 60 seconds, and then stops.
Does anyone know how to set it to record indefinitely, until I hit
stop? Is there a registry key to change, or something.

Thanks,
Steve


Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually *be* an idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

[Martin]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q82/2/15.asp&NoWebContent=1

Martin


"Steven O." > wrote in message
...
> I am trying to transfer some old cassette tapes (family recordings) to
> the hard drive. For my purposes, I don't need fancy $300 sound
> editing programs, the Windows Sound Recorder program will do just
> fine. The only problem is it records only 60 seconds, and then stops.
> Does anyone know how to set it to record indefinitely, until I hit
> stop? Is there a registry key to change, or something.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
>
> Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually
*be* an idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

[Richard Crowley]

> "Steven O." wrote ...
> > I am trying to transfer some old cassette tapes (family recordings) to
> > the hard drive. For my purposes, I don't need fancy $300 sound
> > editing programs, the Windows Sound Recorder program will do just
> > fine. The only problem is it records only 60 seconds, and then stops.
> > Does anyone know how to set it to record indefinitely, until I hit
> > stop? Is there a registry key to change, or something.

"Martin" wrote ...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q82/2/15.asp&NoWebContent=1

If that is Microsoft's answer, then "Sound Recorder" is a brain-dead toy.
What a kludge "solution"! Dunno why I am so surprised. :-/

There are other applications that have no such silly limitations
and are either free or very inexpensive. My favorite is Total
Recorder. Flexible and inexpensive (12 USD).
www.highcriteria.com
My only connection is as a satisfied, paying, customer.

[Edvard Puskaric]

On 06 Sep 2003 19:18:05 GMT, Steven O.
> wrote:

>I am trying to transfer some old cassette tapes (family recordings) to
>the hard drive. For my purposes, I don't need fancy $300 sound
>editing programs, the Windows Sound Recorder program will do just
>fine. The only problem is it records only 60 seconds, and then stops.
>Does anyone know how to set it to record indefinitely, until I hit
>stop? Is there a registry key to change, or something.
>
>Thanks,
>Steve

>
>Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually *be* an idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

MicroSlop® Sound Recorder has to be one of the worst apps ever. What
else would you expect... pretty much par for the course for M$.

Use audiograbber. It's one of the best and it's free. It will do
direct line in recording to wav.

It's free for a nearly fully functional version. You can also upgrade
to the full version that has some additional features.

www.audiograbber.com

Good luck

Ed

[Marc Wielage]

On Sat, 6 Sep 2003 13:30:57 -0700, Edvard Puskaric wrote
(in message >):

> Use audiograbber. It's one of the best and it's free. It will do
> direct line in recording to wav.
> www.audiograbber.com
>-----------------------------<snip>----------------------------<


They've moved. AudioGrabber is now here:

http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/



--MFW

[Geoff Wood]

"Steven O." > wrote in message
...
> Thank you. Not only is it cheap, it's producing much better sound
> quality than Cool Edit 2000 -- which, in turn, has been purchased by
> Adobe, so that the non-trial version (now under a new product name) is
> now around $300!!

It certainly is great value. But pray tell, how is it managing to achieve
'much better sound quality....." ?

geoff

[Ben Bradley]

Dunno if you saw the crosspost, but...

In
rec.audio.pro,
microsoft.public.win2000.setup,
microsoft.public.win2000.general,
"Geoff Wood" -nospam> wrote:

>
>"Steven O." > wrote in message
...
>> Thank you. Not only is it cheap, it's producing much better sound
>> quality than Cool Edit 2000 -- which, in turn, has been purchased by
>> Adobe, so that the non-trial version (now under a new product name) is
>> now around $300!!
>
>It certainly is great value. But pray tell, how is it managing to achieve
>'much better sound quality....." ?

Perhaps Sound Recorder is a much smaller app, while CE2000 takes
just enough memory on the OP's system to cause system problems, and
it's not getting all the samples from the soundcard, making pops/skips
in the recorded file.
Actually, if he's using win2k (which is a reasonable guess, seeing
the crossposed groups), he may have the problem I noticed on NT4 (2K
and XP's predecessor) so many years back running win3.1/95 software,
that it locks out the app from running for too long, and a buffer
overflows before the app can read it. In that case just finding the
right buffers and increasing buffer sizes will fix it. A really crude,
cheap fix would be running CE2000 at high or realtime priority.

To the OP: Cool Edit 2000 is a Good Program, it's just likely not
able to run on your system as it is. Do not use Sound Recorder.
Configure your system so Cool Edit runs properly.

>geoff

[Steven O.]

"How" I don't know -- except that Total Recorder installs its own
sound driver, which may have something to do with it. What I can
report is this:

I have a pretty good quality tape deck now. The headphone output is
connected to the Line In on my computer's audio card. When I play
back the old tapes of Dad (while recording the sound on the computer),
the sound comes through acceptably clear on the computer's speakers.
It's not perfect -- there's a fair amount of background sound -- but
unfortunately the original recordings were done on a cheap recorder,
which is probably where most of the noise came from.

But -- with CoolEdit 2000, once I save the audio file on the computer
and then play it back again, there is a very definite increase in
background noise, enough to make it more difficult to hear Dad.

Repeat the exact same process, but using Total Recorder, and then play
back the audio file on the computer, and it sounds virtually the same
as in the original playback from the tape. There is no extra noise
that I can discern. "How" and "why" I'm not sure, but the $12 Total
Recorder is definitely giving better sound performance than the much
more expensive CoolEdit (or whatever Adobe now calls it) does.

Steve O.



On Sun, 7 Sep 2003 09:50:05 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam> wrote:

>> Thank you. Not only is it cheap, it's producing much better sound
>> quality than Cool Edit 2000 -- which, in turn, has been purchased by
>> Adobe, so that the non-trial version (now under a new product name) is
>> now around $300!!
>
>It certainly is great value. But pray tell, how is it managing to achieve
>'much better sound quality....." ?
>
>geoff
>


Standard Antiflame Disclaimer: Please don't flame me. I may actually *be* an idiot, but even idiots have feelings.

[Ricky W. Hunt]

"Geoff Wood" -nospam> wrote in message
...
>
> "Steven O." > wrote in message
> ...
> > Thank you. Not only is it cheap, it's producing much better sound
> > quality than Cool Edit 2000 -- which, in turn, has been purchased by
> > Adobe, so that the non-trial version (now under a new product name) is
> > now around $300!!
>
> It certainly is great value. But pray tell, how is it managing to achieve
> 'much better sound quality....." ?

They probably use two different drivers. I've seen this happen when one
program uses the MME drivers and another use the WDM. Not to mention that he
may be recording at two different sample/bit rates without being aware of
it.