Fiddling with input levels (cassette to electronic media)

[[email protected]]

Group,
I suspect I'm greenhorning things up here and hope someone with some
experience will take time to straighten me out.

I'm trying to record from a collection of homemade cassette tapes to
computer file. That is, to mp4 os something similar.

I find that getting from tape to electronic file causes the volume
capabililties to weaken. That is, on tape I can lift the roof, but
once recorded to mp4 or *.wav I need pretthy high volume setting to
hear normally.

The hardware is a sony cassete deck.
Soundcard is SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro
OS = windows xp pro

I've used software that is supposed to allow you to compensate
somewhat. Goldwave, and SB Audigy2 soundcard bundled software that is
a recorder/player with a slide for setting input level.

I find the amount of ajustment is very small. In some cases it seems
to be non-existent.

I'm thinking this is really a hardware problem. That I need something
inbetween that can boost the signal or something.

Thinking about that I realized I don't really have a clue what I'm
doing.

What is a normal way or tried and tested way of doing this?

[Lee Salter]

> I'm trying to record from a collection of homemade cassette tapes to
> computer file. That is, to mp4 os something similar.
>
> I find that getting from tape to electronic file causes the volume
> capabililties to weaken. That is, on tape I can lift the roof, but
> once recorded to mp4 or *.wav I need pretthy high volume setting to
> hear normally.
>
> The hardware is a sony cassete deck.
> Soundcard is SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum Pro
> OS = windows xp pro

I am not familiar with any of the specific items you mention, so my
comments are very general.

There may be several layers of controls to adjust, one for the sound
card and 1 or 2 in the recording program (input and master), all of
which need to be set properly. The recording program should provide
some type of level indicator, usually a bargraph to set the recording
level. The combination of controls should be set to provide the
highest signal level without exceeding "0 VU".
Exceeding "0" will cause distortion.

Assuming you are already doing this, the possibility exists that the
output of your sound card just simply is not as strong as the output
of the cassette deck, and you will just have to live with the
difference.

Lee Salter

[Harry Putnam]

(Lee Salter) writes:

[...]

> which need to be set properly. The recording program should provide
> some type of level indicator, usually a bargraph to set the recording
> level.

Can you name one or two that have such a bar?

> Assuming you are already doing this, the possibility exists that the
> output of your sound card just simply is not as strong as the output
> of the cassette deck, and you will just have to live with the
> difference.

Is that something one should expect from SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum pro?

[Lee Salter]

>
> > which need to be set properly. The recording program should provide
> > some type of level indicator, usually a bargraph to set the recording
> > level.
>
1 > Can you name one or two that have such a bar?

>
> > Assuming you are already doing this, the possibility exists that the
> > output of your sound card just simply is not as strong as the output
> > of the cassette deck, and you will just have to live with the
> > difference.
>
2 > Is that something one should expect from SB Audigy2 ZS Platinum
pro?

1 I'll have to do some research on that and I probably won't have
time this week due to meetings and a class I'm taking.

2 I'm have not had my hands on these so I'm not qualified to answer.

Lee