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chopper 
Special Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 13 2005 Location: Essex, UK Status: Offline Points: 19942 |
 Topic: Tape to MP3Posted: December 09 2005 at 08:31 |
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What's the best way of transferring my treasured old bands' demo tapes onto my PC so I can keep them in MP3 format? I have a rather old PC at the moment, although I'm hoping to upgrade early next year. |
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Snow Dog
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: March 23 2005 Location: Caerdydd Status: Offline Points: 32995 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 08:35 |
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plug your tape deck into your PC and copy them to wav!
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krusty
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: September 27 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1777 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 09:41 |
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^Yep, that's the way I have done it in the past.
I used a program called Cooledit which also has a load of noise fillters & such like for removing hiss from tapes and any hum you might get from your amp. Then I used dbpoweramp to convert the waves into mp3s. I do the same with vinyl and Cooledit can remove any pops & clicks. |
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MikeEnRegalia
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 20422 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 09:50 |
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I suggest you wait until you can afford a new PC, and buy a nice Creative X-Fi. Then record the tape to wav with no filter/mogrification whatsoever. On that wav you can then use all sorts of software to de-hiss, de-noise, etc.
Edited by MikeEnRegalia |
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goose
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 20 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 4097 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 10:54 |
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Creative X-Fi should be fine, but you can get equally good performance for much cheaper by buying a stereo card without all the gaming effects - even something as simple as the low-end M-AUDIO, I think.
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porter
Forum Senior Member
Joined: August 07 2005 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 362 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 10:57 |
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MMM, I wouldn't suggest going for cheap stuff, because it sucks anyway. You could look for a used audio card, ECHO's are very good.
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"my kingdom for a horse!" (W. Shakespeare, "Richard III")
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Certif1ed
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 08 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 7559 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 11:25 |
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M-Audio and Echo make great soundcards - get one now and transfer it to your new PC, so you can start copying straight away I use Wavepad (software) for recording - because it's FREE, records to WAV by default, and you can use it to convert into practically any format you like.
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MikeEnRegalia
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 22 2005 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 20422 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 12:09 |
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The smallest X-Fi is priced at €100, and even with this you get really good gaming performance. So while I agree that some low end M-Audio cards would be cheaper, if you're also a gamer the X-Fi is the best choice. |
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goose
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 20 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 4097 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 13:22 |
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Fair enough - I thought that X-Fi was much more expensive than that  , but then it probably is in the UK  .
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krusty
Forum Senior Member
Joined: September 27 2005 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1777 |
Posted: December 09 2005 at 16:17 |
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^ Well the cheapest I could find a x-fi card for was £86 here OK I didn't do an exhaustive search.
My question is why would you need the "World's most powerful audio processor!" to quote Creative Labs just to capture audio? Then turn it into a lossy compression format which MP3 is? I have done what Chopper is trying to do using just a Creative Labs 5.1 live PCI card and I'm pretty sure you can do it using onboard audio if that's all you have. The best (cheapest) solution may be to use Wavepad as suggested by Certif1ed along with the soundcard you already (must) have. Cost ZERO. Or alternately, instead of spending £50 up on a new soundcard, use the money to buy the CD versions 
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Certif1ed
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: April 08 2004 Location: England Status: Offline Points: 7559 |
Posted: December 10 2005 at 16:31 |
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If you want a decent source (ie the wav file you create when you initially record the sound) then you need a decent 24 bit soundcard.
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goose
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 20 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 4097 |
Posted: December 10 2005 at 17:25 |
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Definitely not onboard - I don't think anyone provides good quality sound as part of a normal package. At the same time unless, as Mike says, you're playing games as well, there's no real benefit to the X-fi over any other card - especially if you're paying more and will have to fiddle around with the settings to remove all the compression and EQ (I believe, although I couldn't say for sure, that they're on by default, which is not at all what you want for doing a copy!)
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Tape to MP3
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goose wrote: