Korg D-8 sounds like mush on cass. mixdown

[artfuleo]

I have a Korg D-8, dig. 8 track, art pre and comp, monster cables, sony yamaha 7506 headph and an akg c2000 mic. When I listen to the playback from the d-8 it sounds clear, when I listen to the playback on my sony 3 head cass deck it sounds good.
Now when I make a master cass tape it sounds good also. Here's the tricky part.
When I take that cass. and play it in my car the sound is weak, hollow, the reverbs suck, the acoustic guitar sucks etc. Very weak, almost out of phase sound. It's not the levels. I tried diff cass brands, cleaned the sony head, rebias. When I put another cass. with pre-recorded music on in the car it sounds good.

This problem just poped up. I use ti have clear in your face copies. Could it be the sony cass deck has died? It's 5 years old. Could it be some settings on the D-8?
Also I was think of transfering the music to my HP puter. It has a CD-writer on it. Can I just go get a blank CD and run a patch cord and make a CD from the D-8 without much hassle. I dodn't know a thing about burning. Also I've spent all the cash I can now. What Can I do to make a clear copy? Thanks!

 

[Macca]

Hey artfuleo,

First, a question to answer your question: are you listening to your copied cassette on the same amp & speaker combination you're listening to the playback from the D8 on? If it's different, then your problem is probably a monitoring issue. There are plenty of threads here on monitoring/mixing to explain.
Listening to your mixes through different 'monitoring' systems (home stereo, car, boom box, etc.) will show up the weaknesses in your mixing/monitoring set-up.
A set of proper monitor speakers and a good amp are a must if you want consistency in your mixes, and you want them to sound good on all playback systems.

If it's sounding bad through the same amp & speakers, then it could well be your cassette deck.

Hope this helps.

Macca

 

[Macca]

... just one more thing ...

To burn CD's on your PC from your D8, you will need some sort of recording software to record to. If you have a soundcard with optical (S/Pdif) inputs, just hook up the optical out on the D8 to the optical in on your soundcard hit play on the D8 & record on your software. You should get a digital recording, perfect. If your soundcard doesn't have optical ins, you'll just have to use the analogue outs on the D8, and get an analogue recording. Not as good, but not bad!
Once your recording is in the PC, follow the instructions for your CD burning software, and fire away.
(Most CD burning software comes with audio recording software of some sort bundled for free!)

Good luck.

Macca