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440 Forums _ Audio Melting Pot _ Transferring analog to digital

Posted by: Icedudeweb Wed 26 Jun 2002, 20:41

Hi everyone-

I recently discovered how to transfer my audio cassette tape tracks to CD, and have a program (Cool Edit Pro 2.0) that can clean up the tracks by removing a lot of the hiss. My problem is, I want it to sound 'recording-studio' good. Is there any program out there that can do this? I mean, having no hiss at all, and completely transferring the analog music to a digital format.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Billy

Posted by: BagHun Thu 27 Jun 2002, 05:24

No, there's no way to go from cassette to 'recording studio quality'. That would be like going from Fritos to 'fresh corn'.

Are these cassettes commercial releases or something you have recorded yourself?

Posted by: Icedudeweb Thu 27 Jun 2002, 17:32

They're actually both: I have a cassette tape of music recorded off TV shows, as well as commercial tapes.

Billy

Posted by: BagHun Tue 2 Jul 2002, 23:00

You're probably doing as good a job as you can. You can edit the annoying hiss from between tracks and be sure to "normalize" each track.

Posted by: kaboombahchuck Mon 8 Jul 2002, 06:30

If you are "pushing your sound card, it will cause hiss. Make shure the gain is all the way down on the sound card.

Posted by: drtexas Tue 9 Jul 2002, 22:46

Cool Edit is not a Mac program...

they make something called "audio clean-up" though...

What you really want to do long-term is invest in a good sound card and quality mastering software (Waves, TC Electronics, Soundforge etc.)

If I owned a PC I would go with Cakewalk also, btw.

Posted by: damann Fri 12 Jul 2002, 04:14

this site IS called MACmusic!
BagHun said it all really.
ALL noise reduction plugins other than maybe, CEDAR, degrade the original signal.
if the original signal is from cassette your master will never sound "recording studio good".
as public enemy said: "don't believe the hype."

Posted by: Synthetik Sun 25 Aug 2002, 23:50

Cool edit Pro is a good program if you like the PC Blue Screen

SparkXL is a very good mac program. I use it to transfer cilent's LPs to CD Man it's a very slick program

Posted by: watashimac Mon 9 Sep 2002, 10:35

Hi Icedudeweb et all

I need to transfer my analog music from cassette to my G4 DP, no audio in/out ports only firewire and usb. What hardware/software do I need.
Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks
Mac

Posted by: damann Tue 10 Sep 2002, 01:28

hi watashimac,
you WILL need an audio interface, that's for sure!
these days, even the cheap stuff is pretty good (and we ARE talking cassette transfers here!), this is really a question of budget, because there are also numerous software solutions available.
sorry to say, but can you give an indication of how much you're prepared to spend? it WILL help in trying to provide an answer to your query.
peace, later...

Posted by: watashimac Tue 10 Sep 2002, 08:54

Hi damann,

I'm trying to keep costs down, so max out at about US$100, is it possible? On the sw side I have FCP3 which came with Peak Lite or something. Would this be suitable?

Cheers
Mac

Posted by: damann Mon 23 Sep 2002, 04:56

hi watashimac,
sorry for the delayed response, i've been really busy.
i think you should look at the edirol ua-1, it seems ideal for what you're looking for.
you've probably bought one by now!
peak is excellent, spark, soundstudio, audacity, cacophony etc, also.

Posted by: Presto Wed 16 Oct 2002, 01:34

As for the Mac A/D, I've got an imic somewhere - inexpensive and USB. I'll try putting cassette stuff on the Mac with it (sometime this week - probably too late for you) and let you know what I hear after transfer.

Posted by: Teiwaz Sat 16 Nov 2002, 21:33

Don't cough during the transfer with your imic! And listen out for them brand new combine harvesters going past the window...

Wouldn't it be an idea (I'm echoing Damann's advice here) to buy an inexpensive USB A/D convertor...?? i-what? Aren't we talking something with analog RCA/Phono inputs here?

I just looked at the Edirol UA1A. It looks like just the thing!

http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua1a.html

I would definitely use a line input instead of a mic in order to preserve as much of the cassette's original quality.

Then strip out the hiss as outlined in previous posts.

Posted by: DigitMus Mon 18 Nov 2002, 09:26

Teiwaz -
The iMic is an inexpensive ($35) analog stereo to USB interface. It is designed to add back the 'mic' port that Apple quit putting on newer Macs (which weren't mic level inputs, but line level stereo inputs). It will work fine for transferring audio from old cassettes. I guess the name fooled you into thinking he was going to put a mic in front of the speakers of his boom-box, or something like that, eh?

Scott

Posted by: Teiwaz Tue 19 Nov 2002, 03:34

Oops I f**ked up! That's exactly what I thought it was!!

My sincere apologies, Presto...

Still, the Edirol products look cool...no?

Incidentally, I've heard that the imic doesn't have very stable drivers...and can be a bit problematic. This is 2nd hand news, i have no 1st hand experience personally...

Posted by: kemikal Fri 22 Nov 2002, 23:18

the best thing to use in my opinion is waves master (for mac) and for pc/mac use(waves native restoration)...native restorationm take away all pops, hisses, and crackles.. read some reviews on it ..you'll see what i mean. but you are still gonna need an a/d converter...get yourself an mbox(pro tools) the a/d converter on there is the best for @ that price range

good luck