I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer. (possibly any
special way to record it or what to do to the audio once its recorded
on the hard drive.

I deffinetly want to to try to reduce the tape hiss once I get
the sound recorded on my hard drive. I've used various noise reduction
tools in the past but have never been satisfied with the results.
Whenever I reduced the noise on any audio I always noticed a
significant amount of loss in the quality of the audio. I've used dart
pro and sound forge's noise reduction plugin in the past so it wasn't
lack of good software that was the problem maybe I wasn't doing it
right. Appreciate any tips on that as well.

In article writes:

I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer.

First off, why a Y cable? Or is that what you call a cable with a
single stereo plug on one end and two RCA plugs on the other?
Generally a "Y cable" is one that splits a single signal off in two
directions.

Guessing that you're using the built-in sound card in your computer
and connecting it to the outputs of your tape deck, you're fighting a
fairly low grade piece of hardware right there. If you can accept
this, then continue. If you really want "optimal sound transfer" start
shopping for a better way to get the audio into your computer.

Next thing is to make sure that the tape deck is in really good
condition and properly aligned. Read all the comments in rec.audio.pro
recently about cassette transfers and alignment. If it doesn't sound
fabulous coming off the tape, it won't sound fabulous when it's in
your computer.

When you get to the point where you're actually making the transfer to
the computer, take care to set the record level properly. Use the
meters with your recording application and be sure that the level
isn't so high that you're overloading, or so low that the playback is
at too low a level. This will be particularly annoying if you transfer
your computer files to CD. Accept that they'll never be as loud as new
commercial CDs, but you can come closer by doing things right. Spend a
little time playing and listening to tapes while you're watching the
meters. You don't need to constantly ride the record level (that's
unnatural) but find a good setting for each tape, or each portion of a
tape if it's a compilation or live recording.

Once it's in the computer, then you can start cleaning things up.
There are hiss and noise reduction algorithms that you can use, you
can do some editing, you can adjust volume. This takes time to do it
right, and if you don't do it right you'll end up with a half-assed
job. Don't expect anything better than a replication of the cassette
playback if you just hook the tape deck to the computer and record.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

leroy wrote:
I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer. (possibly any
special way to record it or what to do to the audio once its recorded
on the hard drive.

What kind of tape?

Does the tape have tones on it?

Is it a regular tape or a cassette? If it is a cassette, do you have an
easy way to ride azimuth?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

It's just a cassette. What do you mean by tape tones and azimuth.


(Scott Dorsey) wrote in message ...
leroy wrote:
I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer. (possibly any
special way to record it or what to do to the audio once its recorded
on the hard drive.

What kind of tape?

Does the tape have tones on it?

Is it a regular tape or a cassette? If it is a cassette, do you have an
easy way to ride azimuth?
--scott

I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard.

I do use sf6 all time for transfering. You dont say where you are feeding
the "Y" from. If its in the leads from the turntable it wont work you need
a pre amp. If its from your tape out on your tuner/amp then feed it into
you line in on your sound card.
Set your bass and trebble controls flat .. dont let peaks hit red i stay
about -6 and then after i do all eqing i use normalize to bring up to "0".

For best results some kind of processing is desirable to remove tape hiss
or low end noise such as turntable or room rumble in the original casette.

You may want to try cleaning up the sound on your casette with sfeq. try
taking some of the 400 hz down 3-6 db and boosting the 2-3khz region to
brighten it up. If there is tape hiss you can find the frequency that you
can dip it down a little even 3db will help

hope this gives some pointers email if you need more


don ward

--
---
don ward

leroy wrote:
It's just a cassette. What do you mean by tape tones and azimuth.

Okay, on regular tapes, you put tones at the beginning of the tape to
align the playback machine. Nobody does this with cassettes (although
a lot of early Dolby B machines had all the stuff to do it with).

Casettes ALWAYS have incorrect azimuth. There is no way around it,
and you will always hear muffled top end response unless you adjust
the azimuth for each and every tape for proper playback. Since there
are no tones, you have to adjust it by ear.

After you do this, you then will need to align your cassette machine
back again, so you will need the alignment tape and scope.

Because cassettes don't have tones, the levels on the tapes also vary
a lot, and that means the levels going into the Dolby decoders are
often incorrect. This is the second nightmare, and unfortunately most
cassette decks have the Dolby level controls locked inside, so you
have to mark the original location, adjust them until the pumping is
reduced as much as possible, play back the tape, then reset them back
to the original settings.

I hate cassette transcription. It is a lot more work than just playing
back 1/4" tapes because the alignment all has to be done by ear.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"leroy" a écrit dans le message de news:
...
I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer. (possibly any
special way to record it or what to do to the audio once its recorded
on the hard drive.

I deffinetly want to to try to reduce the tape hiss once I get
the sound recorded on my hard drive. I've used various noise reduction
tools in the past but have never been satisfied with the results.
Whenever I reduced the noise on any audio I always noticed a
significant amount of loss in the quality of the audio. I've used dart
pro and sound forge's noise reduction plugin in the past so it wasn't
lack of good software that was the problem maybe I wasn't doing it
right. Appreciate any tips on that as well.

=======================================

Tips =
http://www.a-reny.com/iexplorer/restauration.html

--
Allen Reny
http://www.a-reny.com

In article writes:

It's just a cassette. What do you mean by tape tones and azimuth.

"Azimuth" is the physical alignment of the playback head with respect
to the tape. There's an adjustment that tilts the head a few degrees
either side of perpendicualr. Cassettes are usually a bit out of the
standard perpendicualr alignment and to optimize the playback, you
need to tweak the adjustment, often several times through the playing
of the tape in order to match the alignment of the machine that
recorded the tape.

"Tones" are are steady sine wave reference tones recorded on the tape
which can be used to check azimuth alignment and frequency response,
and the playback machine adjusted accordingly. It's rare that a
cassette will have tones recorded on it.

Basically Scott's point is that you first need to get the best
playback you can before recording it to your computer. Any loss that
you have in playback won't be recoverable by any digital tweaking in
Sound Forge.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In rec.audio.pro leroy wrote:
: I'll be using soundforge 6.0 to do the transfer and I'll be using a
: rca Y cable to connect the tape deck to my soundcard. Can anyone give
: me any tips on how to get the optimal sound transfer. (possibly any
: special way to record it or what to do to the audio once its recorded
: on the hard drive.

It depends on your soundcard. In my case (I use M-Audio), I can't decrease
the recording level using software. So if the signal goes beyond 0db,
I use external resistors.

There have already been mentioned that you need to get the best sound from your
cassette by adjusting tapedeck head with the screwdriver. Other than that, when
you are done with the recording, it's a good idea to adjust volume levels for
each channel individually so that they are approximately at the same level
and then normalize it (bringing volume to max, but not exceeding 0db).

--Leonid