Better method for cassette to wav

[socool135]

I have many old cassettes that I am trying to capture into wav files. The method I have been using is this cassette deck>rca cable>tape in(Mackie Onyx Mixer)>firewire>cakewalk

I seem to be getting tons of hiss(partially my cassettes). Is there any way to produce a better sounding transfer with less hiss?

Are there any cassette decks with higher quality outputs or good quality noise reduction?

Thanks.

Scott

[friendlyzookeeper]

I use windows 2000 and turn record to line-in and turn everything else off, for example mic, midi, ect. I also record thou an equalizer. I had to clean the heads every tape side, before that I changed the drive bands inside of the player than connect to the motor. This was very important since they were stretched out and made them weak. With each tape you need to check the spring backing that pushes the tape to the heads. Sometimes they need to be replaced because of being dirty, weak, dried and cratchy, or misalined. It's just a piece of felt glued on a brass spring.

[Soopafresh]

Hiss is tough to reduce, as it encompasses much of the audio spectrum. There's more to it than just cutting the highs.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic333036.html#1728587

[socool135]

Are any of the rackmount noise reduction units work a try? I found a couple on ebay.

[AlanHK]

I was converting some old cassettes to MP3 a few months ago.

I was using a laptop with an RCA to mike plug into the laptop.

There was a lot of line hum, which I reduced by running the laptop from battery. Might not be such a problem for a desk top.

There was a lot of hiss on my tapes; not surprising on 20 year old cassettes recorded from AM radio.

I ran them through Audacity using its noise reduction effect, which is pretty good in the latest (beta) version.

[Bjs]

Computers are designed to accept certain transmitions under laws and regulations

Try moving the play back device further away from the system, speakers produce magnetic feilds, not something you want near a pc screen, esspecially from older equipment

Check those inputs on the system are earthed well or these noise's may occur from what appears to be no reason

Check the cable your using between device's, some arent worth anything unless there in the bottom of the bin

Tapes that are old might do with the benefit of being cleaned properly, and so should the heads on the play back device

After factoring in the above, you may still need to use filters within the audio editing program of choice to deal with hum / hiss thats still showing during recordings

cassette deck>rca cable>tape in(Mackie Onyx Mixer)>firewire>cakewalk

Have a serious look at what you have after rca cable above, there's just too many connections being involved, and it could very well be an issue for that device which connects to the system via firewire ...

Go cassette deck > rca - mini stereo jack > line-in on system ... less connections involved, that cable is refered to as a Y cable by some in the forum ... its just converts 2 rca outputs to 1 mini stereo jack input

[socool135]

The cassettes I am trying to transfer will need all the help they can get. These tapes are copies of copies of copies and have good amounts of hiss. I was thinking about upgrading to this setup....

cassette deck>noise reduction unit(dbx 150 or owl multifilter)>analog to digital converter>pc


My tapes will need more attention than a simple rca to 1/8th inch stereo input.

How does all of the above sound? Any other ideas? Thanks guys.

[Soopafresh]

dbx snr1 is pretty good.

http://cgi.ebay.com/dbx-SNR-1-SINGLE-ENDED-SOURCE-NOISE-REDUCTION_W0QQitemZ33021989979...QQcmdZViewItem

[socool135]

Thanks for the input. Any reason you recommend the snr1 over the 150 or any of the other noise reduction units? What is the difference between the snr series and others? Thanks.

[friendlyzookeeper]

A dbx system was great for a recording from a tape to another tape, but I prefer the control of software these days. I didn't know you had a tape from a tape to a tape. These maybe too much of them being degraded and lost signal volume. You won't be able to get the degraded part back and it was replaced with noise. Sorry for the bad news.

[vcdlover]

I did several tapes last few months and the sound quality was very good compared to the original tapes. It's got more bass than the original. Here's my setup; SONY tape deck>Audigy 2 ZS interface>SoundForge 8.0. I just used a regular RCA cable. I couldn't be much happier.

vcdlover

[oldfart13]

Anyone tried one of these yet:

http://www.thesourcecc.com/estore/Product.aspx?language=en-CA&catalog=Online&category=...roduct=4213003

The turntable version works very well...

[turk690]

I regularly digitize audio cassettes. I have a basic well-oiled Pioneer cassette deck (CT-229, belts regularly changed, heads cleaned & aligned, speed calibrated with an ancient test tape & oscilloscope); this inputs into an SB Audigy value soundcard (it has an auxiliary input that I have wired to a set of RCA jacks at the PC rear to save me from 1/8" jack ignominy). To capture I use Adobe Audition 2, which has a very good hiss & noise reduction function. It removes all sorts of hum and noise and leaves the audio pretty much intact. I consider this noise reduction procedure better than any real-time outboard h/w solution because in Audition, I can tailor hiss reduction to that exact captured file and manipulate it along the way. I can tweak and adjust it all I want to get the right balance of residual noise versus audio (important on very hissy tapes). I can also normalize, equalize, & balance the audio as I go. Everything is monitored with Roland RH-50 headphones (NOT any external speaker).
I used Audigy instead of the built-in sound function of the motherboard because the latter actually added a peculiar noise of its own to anything captured (so much for HD audio and 5.1 ch. tags); I will graduate to something from E mu or M-audio soon.

[friendlyzookeeper]

Turk690 would you please explain how you align the heads? Is there a certain angle you perfer or do you do it by ear? And with the oscilloscope is there a certain wave you perfer?

[friendlyzookeeper]

Depending where you live a ups helps, I live in a very small town and current isn't a constant because of grain elevators and others, tape seem to slows down ond up without a ups. We have 4 places here that have grain dryers within a couple of blocks from me, one on each corner.

[turk690]

to friendlyzookeeper, I have a very old (>15 years?) cassette test tape that was given me that has a series of sinewave tones from 100Hz to 10KHz recorded at -20db, -10db & -3db. There are two ways to align the head: aurally through a pair of monitor (high quality) headphones, and with an oscilloscope. Alignment couldn't be easier: play the tape (using the 7.5KHz tone), then tweak one of the alignment screws that bolt the head to the carriage (the one with the spring beneath) and listen as the tone volume goes up & down while turning the screw. Of course you stop at the screw setting that produces the highest volume of that tone. While I do this, I often simultaneously also feed either the L or R audio jack to an oscilloscope and see the waveform rise and fall as I tweak. There is (predictably) a big difference either way in adjustments when using the 10KHz tone that can only be ascertained with the oscilloscope (waveform level changes but aurally hard to tell), so I use both methods in conjunction with each other. Test tones below 1KHz like 100Hz & 250Hz can still show the effects of misalignment but it's not as pronounced & easy to judge as when using 10KHz. These low frequencies can show, however, how much crosstalk the heads have between the channels (the fancier heads have shields, etc. to bring it down to a minimum).
Depending on the construction of the particular cassette machine, it may or may not be difficult to access the adjustment screws for aligning the heads. Any machine with good heads can be expected to put out relatively strong signals when playing back the -3dB 10KHz tone. You know the heads are either worn or misaligned or both when there is either a gradual or drastic decline in output levels after about 1KHz.
Because the oscilloscope I use has a built-in frequency counter, I use the same opportunity to tweak the speed of the cassette motor such that, say, a 1KHZ test tone duly registers as exactly that (or nearly so); .1% either way is the absolute best I can get on cassette decks with conventional DC motors, but some Nakamichi & Denon monsters with servo control can get by with .01% or better wow & flutter.
The absence of a test tape is not a hindrance; an approximation can be had by playing a commercial tape with lots of high-end content with Dolby NR off, and align the head while monitoring headphones.
You can create your own test tape with a high degree of accuracy, but you will need at least two or three decks for comparison, Audition 2, and a lot of trial and error. But this is another story...

[friendlyzookeeper]

Thanks turk690, helps very much. I have been doing it by ear.

[jstropp]

One issue with head alignment is the best results are obtained when your read head is exactly aligned with the record head on the machine that recorded the music tape you are playing. When you use an alignment tape as mentioned you are aligning your read head with the record head of the machine that made the alignment tape. Now doing this is a very good thing to do beacuse the alignment tape should have been made on a machine that was carefully aligned before making the alignment tape. The problem arises when the record head of the machine that made the music tape was not so carefully aligned. The best results would be obtained if the music tape itself had an alignment tone on it so you could align your head to it. Pretty much that aint gonna happen.

[turk690]

While it's true that I'm aligning the head based on some tape that was recorded elsewhere, this tape is a professional cassette alignment tape that will most likely have been recorded in some fancy professional machine. Using an alignment tape is merely returning a cassette deck to a reference point. Anyway, I don't stop there: whenever I get any cassette tape that has to be digitized, I still tweak the heads anyway, the alignment tape notwithstanding. Using high-quality headphones and an audio spectrum analyzer, heads can be tweaked for pretty much any cassette tape. That there is a test tone on any given cassette tape is not gonna happen is nitpicking.