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chopper View Drop Down
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Joined: July 13 2005
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Points: 20029 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Tape to MP3
    Posted: December 09 2005 at 08:31

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 View Drop Down
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Points: 32995 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 08:35
plug your tape deck into your PC  and copy them to wav!
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krusty View Drop Down
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Points: 1777 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 09:41
^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 View Drop Down
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Points: 21138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 09:50
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.

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goose View Drop Down
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Points: 4097 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 10:54
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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Points: 362 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 10:57
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.
"my kingdom for a horse!" (W. Shakespeare, "Richard III")
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Certif1ed View Drop Down
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Points: 7559 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 11:25

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.

www.nch.com.au/wavepad/

 
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MikeEnRegalia View Drop Down
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Points: 21138 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 12:09

Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

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.

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 View Drop Down
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Points: 4097 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 13:22
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

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.


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. 


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 View Drop Down
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Points: 1777 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 09 2005 at 16:17
^ 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 View Drop Down
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Points: 7559 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 16:31

Originally posted by krusty krusty wrote:



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?

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 View Drop Down
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Points: 4097 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 10 2005 at 17:25
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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