Cannot record Casette tapes to HD

[miyuka]

'll go batty if someone can't discover what is wrong with what I'm doing here.

Trying to put my casette taped music onto the HD and then DVD. Everything I've read/heard about it indicates it should be simple AS, - but I'm getting no results whatsoever.

I have both Audio Maestro Sound Editor and the free WavePad as software.
Realtek is the on-board sound card on Gigabyte MB with Win XP SP2.

I've tried the 2xRCA with one stereo male plug cable. My stereo player has the two Red and White female inlets, but instead of Line Out they are called AUX/md - with those plugged in and the single plug in the Line-In on my pc, I press record on software then record on the tape deck. Software shows both time and when done, the size of file. When trying to play back though, there is neither the usual graphics of sound waves nor any sound.

Ok, I figure the red-and-white inlets on stereo aren't line-outs at all. ( I normally have video/dvd player fed in there for the stereo sound). So poring over msgs in this forum I read to try 2x RCA male plugs - one into the stereo's head-sets the other into the aux of pc - but I don't see an aux input - just line-in, so I plug into that.

Same results!! Nothing,

I made sure the Volume Control doesn't have anything muted in Recording or Playback. Realtek has an Ac Audio control Panel which is supposed to recognize plugs are in right place, these at times have to be played with to designate line-in etc to be assigned correctly but work in the end. Checked out that recording works -as in voice recording [ and now they're coming to ake me away. :0

I have no idea what to try next and I've been trying things for days on end.

Help please anyone?!!!

[ZAPPER]

You stated above that you are pushing RECORD on the tape deck. I hope that was a typo. You do mean that you are pushing PLAY on the tape deck, right?

[guns1inger]

I have set up a number of rigs for people to do simple cassette to HDD recording, and without fail on-board sound has caused problems every time. Buy yourself a cheap creative card, either a low end audiology or even a cheap soundblaster live digital and try again. Probably the worst problem I had was with a realtek based system where it would seem to record OK - monitor sounded good, could see the input metre showing the levels. But playback was a 200% speed. This was verified by Sound Forge (the recording app). An Audiology fixed the problem straight away. On-board audio and video are an abomination and should be avoided at all costs.

[miyuka]

Zapper: Yes I meant the play button :0

Guns1inger: I hear you and short of me doing/or not doing something to prevent recording I guess buying the sound card has to be the next step.

'An Audiology fixed the problem straight away." what's an audiology ?

Thanks to you both for the replies.

[miyuka]

OOps . I see that the Audiology is a sound card.

I did say they are coming to take me away hehe.

[ZAPPER]

Does PC MIC in work from your tape deck? Just making sure that you are getting signal out of the tape unit and thru the cables.


On a side note I once managed to lose a mute button off screen one time, I don't know how, but it made me half insane for like three days.

[miyuka]

Just trying it - give me a sec? or two..
BRB

[miyuka]

Zapper, sorry for the delay -you may well have gone to sleep now in your part of the world.

I have to dismantle stereo (speakers antenna etc) to get it within cable reaching distance of pc. But plugging into the mic of pc doesn't work either.

So does that mean that: my quote: "My stereo player has the two Red and White female inlets, but instead of Line Out they are called AUX/md " - is the problem?

Also the UAJ = Auto Jack sensing of the Realtek Sound Manager has gone bananas and instead of Line-In it calls the plug speaker and did'nt recognize the mic either -I could change it manually - but don't know if it takes really.

At any rate nothing is happening no way.

I couls tell you more - but at the risk of you coming to take me away too - I won't. Heh

[ZAPPER]

Pictures? Jacks and labels, patch cord ends, Pc jacks.

Does your tape deck have a selector switch that dictates which output is is in use?

It would seem that a modern PC should be able to record sound. I feel for you dude. But I am out of suggestions to night, good luck!

[presto]

Get some headphones and plug them into the headphone jack. Push play and make sure your hear sound.

Now unplug the headphones and plug in a patch cord with a male headphone type jack on both ends. Plug the other end of the patch cord into one of the three female headphone jacks in your sound card. You want line in but just guess if you have too. You just don't want the speaker jack which should be easy to tell.

Now you know that music is going in to the computer. Open up the volume control and play with the controls until you hear music. If you have no success and you think you might be using the wrong jack then change it.

Are you familiar with the volume control panel? You need to bring it up and then switch to the recording controls. I can detail this if you need more info.

Also don't blast the volume out from your source. The sound card will mute itself if the input is too loud. At least mine does.

(Aux is usually an input. Your stereo might let you choose, for instance, radio, tape, or auxilliary input. Anyway there is no sense in trying to trouble shoot both ends of the equation at the same time. Make sure you have sound out by using headphones first.)

[miyuka]

"Pictures? Jacks and labels, patch cord ends, Pc jacks. "

Erm...Pardon? Wait..you want pics of those - but cord ends? What be they?
I haven't a camera I fear.

"Does your tape deck have a selector switch that dictates which output is is in use? "

Yep it has buttons for Cd, Radio Aux/md, and tape A / B. A is for playing without rewind for some mysterious reason and B is for recording from tape2tape or cd I guess. I tried both decks.

"It would seem that a modern PC should be able to record sound. I feel for you dude. But I am out of suggestions to night, good luck! "

Well boo-hoo. This dudette much appreciates your desire to help. Goodnight and thanks heaps.

[miyuka]

Presto, hi and THANKS!!

It worked!!
I'll say this time, 'coz I tried this before after I bought the two male -what you call patch cord - BUT-I tried it with a borrowed portable player instead of lugging my big player over again. And though the headphone was audible Ok, it didn't record with the patch cable.

But with the regular stereo system it now works! Thanks for making me try it again. Doing a happy dance- men in white coats looking at me even more suspiciously.

Also I did have the sound turned pretty high so it could be that in protest things got muted. I know that trying and retrying things I have noticed mute checked again. So thanks for pointing that out too.

These are old tapes and what I hear so far sounds like hell - but it WORKS! Can't thank you enough.

Now I'll hunt up how to make old tapes sound ok and any pointers in the right direction would be icing on the cake

[presto]

I use Audio Cleaning Lab. What I like is it automatically splits the audio into separate songs.