regular voice cassettes to CD... settings etc..

[r1013]

I have several preaching cassettes that I would like to convert over to CD.

After searching the forums I have seen a few program suggestions for converting music over to CD such as Goldwave, Soundforge, etc

I have also seen one suggestion of 16-bit 44.1khz for a setting.

My stereo only has a Headphone jack... I already bought a stereo cable from radio shack to go from the headphone jack to the line in of my sound card.

I was just wondering what type of settings (16-bit 44.1khz ?) I should use to record these preaching (Voice) with and what should I save them as (wav?).

Hum.. I may also have a few music tapes to convert later.. Are settings for those the same?

Although this seems pretty straight forward any other tips are also appreciated as I may have missed somethig.

Thanks

[lgh529]

Mic to line in won't work. You need to match the levels. Mic out to mic in, or line out to line in. If you only have a mic out and you don't have a mic in, it would be better to use the headphone jack on your stereo. It's not true line level, but its a lot closer than mic.

Your settings are find other than that.

[r1013]

lgh529,

Thanks for the advice.

I also made a mistake in my post.. Im not sure where the heck I got mic out from.. (probably from one of the thousand post I read tonight) but... I ment the headphone jack..

[housepig]

for cd audio, you want to record at 44.1khz, 16 bit stereo, in .wav format.

check out Audacity - it's a free, cross-platform audio recorder and editor, and it will support VST plugins, so you can download free VST plugins from the net that can add effects, eq, and all sorts of other processes that can improve your sound.

Soundforge is a great program, but for what you are doing it's expensive overkill.

[r1013]

Thanks for the advice housepig

[steptoe]

Try this link for a tutorial to help you on your way

http://www.blazeaudio.com/howto/lp-overview.html

There is some software called LP Ripper and LP Recorder, which even though its designed for viynl will do the same job for cassettes or reel-to-reel

LP Recorder does the hard work of getting the source, and recording it onto your computer, with auto-level control to avoid possible distortion and a couple other things to help reduce your work after

LP Ripper splits the file back into single tracks, using the software to try and detect the start/end of each track

Try here :

http://www.cfbsoftware.com/default.htm


I've used Cool Edit Pro for this, now called Adobe Audition, this supports DirectX audio plug-ins, and if you use a VST converter can handle VSt plug-ins as well. It has a very,very good auto-cue feature which is excellant at detecting track start/end no matter how short

It also has good noise reduction built-in, and scratch filters, filters for removing noise, hum, whatever annoying 'features' you get in transfering it to the computer

It ain't cheap, but personally I think its one of the easiest to use. I've also used Sound Forge, but prefer CEP (Adobe Audition)

[steptoe]

Basically, you need to convert to 16-bit, 44100 as thats the CD format, as some burning programs complain if it isn't set at that

You're better off recording to a WAV to start with, as this will give the highest possible quality

If you want to convert to MP3 later, be aware that you will lose some quality, as it compresses the audio down

But, as cassettes are not that good to start with, hence CD, DAT, MiniDisc, etc, etc to try and replace casssettes, I don't think you will lose much, if anything as I assume its spoken word anyway if they are preaching cassettes


The good thing about MP3 is, if you so wish after transferring them to your computer, andyou have a personal CD player capable of it, you could always put them all on one CD, then you would have them all in one big collection

[secretagent]

for voice basically what you are trying to do is make an audio book on cd.
the process the professionals use is to remove silence between words which greatly reduces the size of your files making you able to put much more audio on a cd. Sorry i can't remember the name of the program I used to use but it might have been cool edit. I suggest you do some searching on the phrases automatically remove silence or remove audio gaps or search for info on hoow audiobookson tape or cd's are made. Wish i could be of more help.

[r1013]

I used Cool Edit as suggested and recorded one of the cassettes as a wave. This first one was just a test. It seem to have a lot of hiss in the background (from cassette) and cool edit done away with that.. Great!.

The wave file is very large... which made me think about the MP3 Recommendation. I pulled up the wave and went to save it as an MP3 and under options (next to saved as type) there are several different types of MP3 formats... Mainly MP3 and MP3 Pro, but it branches each off into a dozen different (kbs).

What would be a good kbs (MP3) to save (Voice/preaching files) at...
Should I save them as MP3 Pro? and if so what kbs.

I have some music that was sung in church (background noise so its not perfect).. and if I save these should they be done the same as the sermons.. Mp3/Mp3 Pro.. and the same kbs?

Thanks for all the help

[steptoe]

Save your work as a WAV to start with, and perform whatever operations you need on this

Dehiss, noise reduction, etc, etc

Then if you are transferring to CD at a later date, either as a CD for each tape, then save as MP3 128-bit, 44100, this is classed as 'CD quality'

If you are intending to save as a bunch of MP3's to later on create an MP3 CD, that can be played in an MP3 compatable CD player, so you could have 1 MP3 per cassette

That way you should easily fit at least 10-15 cassettes per CD, especially as they are voice


Try saving it as MP3 96-bit, 44100. This should be more than enough for voice quality. And if you intend to take the MP3 on a CD, then you will fit even more onto a single CD

The standard MP3 (lame ?) option is enough, make sure it's not set to VBR, leave it as CBR, and set the encoder quality to high to get the best you can out of it

No doubt somebody else will have better settings, a lot use a rate of 160-bit, 44100 to transfer to CD, but as its just voice 96-bit, 44100 should be ample

Plus it will save quicker, take less time to process and less space as well



To get even better quality and cut out even more background noise, goto a part which you know should be quiet, probably with background hiss, and select just that section with the noise that is meant to be quiet. Copy that section

Goto the noise reduction filter, and let it use this as a profile. Run the noise reduction filter, and it will remove just these frequencies from your audio and nothing else

I've used this on a recording that had very bad mains hum on it, going from a virtually unlistenable recording to one that was very nearly perfect again, just by using this filter

This can be used to remove very specific frequencies

[r1013]

steptoe,

You have been a lot of help, thanks.

[Soapm]

steptoe,

You have been a lot of help, thanks.

Any hoopers? I like god preaching, you ever share?