hello, I've got a collection of old audio cassettes which i want to put on
cds. Now, since there are so many tapes it will take alot of time doing the
recording.

are there any players or other hardware which can do this conversion faster.
My first thoughts about this was a casette-player which would do a playback
in 2x-Nx speed and then the recorded data could be adjusted on a computer.
But I heard that this would require a really special soundcard with a broad
frequency-band unless i wanted poor quality..?

Please Advise

If you want to maintain quality you have no practical option other than 1X
speed.

Mark Z.


"Pete Hansen" wrote in message
...
hello, I've got a collection of old audio cassettes which i want to put on
cds. Now, since there are so many tapes it will take alot of time doing
the
recording.

are there any players or other hardware which can do this conversion
faster.
My first thoughts about this was a casette-player which would do a
playback
in 2x-Nx speed and then the recorded data could be adjusted on a computer.
But I heard that this would require a really special soundcard with a
broad
frequency-band unless i wanted poor quality..?

Please Advise

"Pete Hansen" wrote:

hello, I've got a collection of old audio cassettes which i want to put on
cds. Now, since there are so many tapes it will take alot of time doing the
recording.

are there any players or other hardware which can do this conversion faster.
My first thoughts about this was a casette-player which would do a playback
in 2x-Nx speed and then the recorded data could be adjusted on a computer.
But I heard that this would require a really special soundcard with a broad
frequency-band unless i wanted poor quality..?

Please Advise


If quality is no concern adn you just want to be done with it you can secure a double
deck qhich allow for dubbing at twice the speed while still monitoring the sound,
some newer decks shut the sound off while in x2dubbing mode.
The use of an empty shell in the playback section you can 'dub'the tape at high
speed.
Then on your computer you sample at 88.2KHz and later convert, not resample, to
44.1KHz, I find that such conversions are timeconsuming and ultimately deliver very
poor sound.

Also you can save the sampled audio into a raw format, then open it again adnd
specify the other properties.
Like if you sample into stereo 16 bit, 88.2KHZ and save it in a raw format you can
load it and specify stereo, 16 bits and 44.1KHz and if the decks are dubbing at
*exactly twice the speed* then you will get what you wanted.
But you may have to experiment with the actual sample rate and resample to make a
result you can put on cd. It must be stereo 16 bit 44.1KHz for CD, nothing else will
do.
Any time one wants to cut corners there is a quality penalty, it is just up to you to
live with it.

I solve the issue by using a machine doing nuthing but sampling tape and other
sources like open reel, through a Createive Extigy USB sound card. And having another
computer doing nothing but vinyl transfers using a Terrratec 2496 card with 5.25''
bay module. I have a third onto which I store the samples I make and I can work on
them independently from sampling.
I have yet another computer doing CD writing.
it is not hard to do editing on scrap equipment, all my computer are Pentium III
600-900MHz with no disk larger than 40GB.
I emply 2 extra disks on the editing machine so the temporary files each land on a
disk of its own. this is the fasttest way to process audio, as I do not have to
lsiten to constant clicking from a single harddrive reading and writing to the same
physical disk I get a more silent performance which due to the smaller disk sub
system overhead is also low enough in sound so I can do other things like watch a
movie or listen to music.

Not many people would set aside so many machines for the purposes, and I have made
some shortcuts on that too. I employ switches from keyboard and video so I can work
with just two displays for 8 machines.

Several of my current computers were assembled from stuff other people throw away.
only the performance parts were bought new, like disks and memory.
I use 256MB in the sampling computers and 512MB in the editing machine.

If I need the space from my turntable setup I can pack it up and still edit already
sampled material on my regular workstation.
I can also pack one sampling rig to set it up at a friends for sampling of unusual
formats or other tasks.

I have hauled a few (10+) cassette decks from the local recycling facility and also
found several which were so good I can use them do make sampling on two machine at
the same time.

I also get gear donated which I evaluate for later use or replacing stuff I have.

Mikkel