converting tape to CD

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Hi. I have CoolEdit Pro 2.0 and an Audigy Platinum 2 ex soundcard, and have used neither yet. I am trying to convert a cassette tape master of some home recordings to CD, but can't work out how to get to first base.

Thus far, I have my cassette player connected to a hi fi amp, which is in turn connected to the line-ins at the back of the Audigy external module.

I have read through Creative's utterly useless "How To" directions for the Audigy and have learnt approximately nil. Ditto the Cool Edit Pro PDF user manual (I plead ignorance in extremis here - probably not right to blame the manual).

Would some kind soul please spoonfeed me some initial directions on how to record my cassette on to my HD in the first instance, please? Then, how to go about burning to CD (best possible sound quality - not MP3, please).

While I have quite some experience in multitrack analogue recording using a Tascam 244, I really know NOTHING about HD recording, so would be most obliged for some basic help to start me off. Thanks in advance. :confused:
 
I look at a question like that and groan - not derisively, because you can probably do a whole lot of things which would puzzle me greatly, but because I could write pages trying to answer your question in a way that would cover all bases.

The trouble with the Cool Edit manual is that it's non-procedural - it doesn't take you step by step through the cycle of operations necessary to perform the quite modest function you have in mind.

One Richard Riley wrote a book about using Cool Edit which I believe is a bit more step-by-step. I wonder whether you could find that in a bookshop to check it out for suitability? Also, there are Cool Edit tutorials around on the net - in Google search for
"cool edit" tutorial
and you should find some help that way.

An alternative would be to let us know what you've tried and to describe what's gone wrong - try to go through it more step-by-step.

Step one would be to see if, when you play the tape, you can hear the sound on your computer's speakers, without worrying about Cool Edit for the moment. You should be able to accomplish this by setting the playback side of your soundcard's mixer to "line in", have the soundcard mixer's line in fader raised half way, likewise for the soundcard's master fader. What happens?
 
Ozpeter

Thanks for your response.

Several frustrating days down the track, I am now able to get sound through the computer speakers (there was a problem with the installation of the Audigy soundcard - now rectified). I think I am beginning to get the basic picture with recording from cassette deck to HD.

I have my cassette deck connected to a hifi amp, and the amp to the Audigy module. I was puzzled as to why, when playing the cassette deck through the computer, the volume dial on the amp did not amplify the signal coming through the computer speakers, and have just been informed that hifi amps only amplify sound going directly to speakers or earphones, not via line-outs. Apparently, hifi amps are ok for amplifying phono connections (so I would be able to use the hifi amp to record vinyl to HD from a turntable via the Audigy module). However, to record to HD from my cassette deck, I need a line amp between the deck and the Audigy module - correct?

OK. I have been told I can use my Tascam 244 analogue 4-track recorder as a line-amp. Can you, Ozpeter, or someone else verify that this is correct, and if so, advise on how this works? I have the following inputs/outputs on the Tascam:

Line Out R & L,
Aux out R & L
Aus Send R & L
Tape Cue R & L
Aux Rcv
Tape Out 1, 2, 3, 4
Mic/line Input 1, 2, 3, 4
2 earphone inputs

All are for RCA plugs, except the Mic/line Inputs and earphone inputs, which are bigger (guitar leads fit into these).

On the Audigy module, I have a spare Line In (R and L).

Apologies for my ignorance here. Any help appreciated.
 
The line outs on the hifi (hifi?) amp will work fine. The reason they are not connected to the volume control is that there should be no need to change the signal level of something that is already at the correct level, and it simplifies tape-to-tape dubbing, for example. Speaking of which, what you are attempting is the same sort of thing, except that instead of a second tape deck you are recording into CEP. You actually should be able to plug the RCA cables from the tape deck into your sound card, since the amplifier is not processing the signal in any way.

Of course, you have already gone to Options/Device Settings and made sure the sound card is selected as the input device for Cool Edit Pro, right? Go to File/New Session and click. A box will come up that asks you what sample rate to use. Select 44,100, and 16 bit. Use Multitrack View in CEP, and for the inputs right-click on the "In" button and set Channel One to record "1L" in mono; do the same for Channel Two except that it will be "1R". Click on the red "Record" button for each track. That "arms" them for recording. Probably you have some leader tape on the cassette, which will allow you to start the tape deck, then click on the red "Record" button in the transport section of the Multitrack View screen. Be sure to record a little of the "empty" tape at the beginning of each song.

When the song is finished recording, save it to a new folder, which you can name according to the title of the cassette or the artist or your favorite color or whatever, then record the next song in the same way.

When you are through, go to Edit/Mix Down To File/All Tracks (or similar language) and click. This will take you to the Edit View, where your song is now in a stereo file. Highlight the area of the track before the first notes of the music begin, and go to Effects/Noise Reduction/Noise Reduction, select "Get profile from selection" (or something similar), wait for it to process, then close the box. Press Ctrl/A to select the entire song, then press F3 to begin the noise reduction process. What you are doing is eliminating much of the hiss and noise from your recording. Then place the cursor just before the beginning of the music and, holding the left button of the mouse down, drag the highlight all the way to the beginning of the track. Press Ctrl/X. This crops the song so you don't have "dead air" in the beginning of the song on the CD. Do the same for the ending. Save the song to a fresh folder with its name, so that it is (for example) "Springtime In Hell.wav". Do this for each of the songs.

Then use your CD burner software to assemble the songs in the order you want, and burn a CD.

Hope this helps.

Oh yes, and refer to the manual for clarification. As Ozpeter pointed out, the manual is non-procedural, which means it won't tell you step-by-step how to do something. Richard Riley's book is a step up, and I use it (Audio Edititing With Cool Edit Pro) but it can be hard to find.
 
Firstly,you should be able to plug the line out from the cassette deck straight into the line in of the computer. Alternatively, if your hi fi amp can accommodate two cassette decks as many can, you can treat your computer as if it were the second cassette deck and simply set it to copy from deck one (the actual cassette) to deck two (the computer). Do those thoughts have any merit in your situation?
 
Firstly, thanks a lot, guys, for your input. WIll go direct from cassette deck to module, as you suggest. I was assuming that the sound quality would be better if I could amp up the ingoing signal from the tape, but apparently not...thanks for putting me right on this.

Ipdeluxe,

I thank you particularly for your effort in setting out step-by-step instructions as you have. Just what I need. However, I am stuck on a couple of the steps - maybe I have a slightly different version of CEP, maybe I am not understanding you properly.

Re your comment: "Of course, you have already gone to Options/Device Settings and made sure the sound card is selected as the input device for Cool Edit Pro, right?"

I hadn't done that, and when I attempt to do so, I cannot find "Device Settings" under Options. There are only "Device Properties", "Device Order" and "Settings". I can't find anywhere within these items to select the Audigy soundcard as the input device for CEP. (Maybe it's already selected?).

Re: "Go to File/New Session and click. A box will come up that asks you what sample rate to use. Select 44,100, and 16 bit." OK. Have done this.

Re: "Use Multitrack View in CEP, and for the inputs right-click on the "In" button and set Channel One to record "1L" in mono; do the same for Channel Two except that it will be "1R"... I can't find the "in" button!!

That's as far as I have gotten. Frankly, I am embarassed at my level of ignorance. Begging your kind indulgence here, in getting me past these two steps I'm stuck on...
 
OK, I was going by memory...I'm not at my recording computer. I'll go look this up and get back to you. Meanwhile, here's a link to CEP 2.0 manual:
http://www.alfors.com/Ruzne/cep2man.pdf The weakness of the manual (and the one for Adobe Audition) is that, as Ozpeter has pointed out, they are not "procedural". In other words, they tell you how the software works rather than how to accomplish tasks with it. "Audio Editing With Cool Edit Pro" by Richard Riley is an improvement on the manual, and I have a copy. It is especially useful for setting up CEP.

Anyhow, you must select what device you want CEP to use for its recording/playback. If you don't have your sound card, or all the inputs, for example, in your sound card, properly selected and set up, you will have "dead" channels that don't record. I use a Terratec EWS88D with ADAT fiberoptic I/O which should give 8 channels record and 8 channels playback. I could play back 8 discrete tracks into 8 channels of my mixer, but I could only record on Tracks 1-2. What I eventually figured out was that it would not record if "Try As WDM" was checked...and each pair of inputs had to be unchecked for all of them to work for recording. Live and learn.
 
I'm looking at Adobe Audition now. Go to Options/Device Properties/Wave In to check or uncheck "Try as WDM"; Options/Device Order/Recording Devices to make sure your sound card is listed and enabled in the right-hand field. Note that you must select one pair of inputs for "Use in EV" ("Use in Edit View") or you won't be able to play back when in Edit View. This puzzled me for a long time....

In Multitrack View, to the left (in the default screen arrangement) of each track is an area that has blocks headed "Track 1 (for example)" and below that is a row of blue buttons reading "Vol", "EQ" and "Bus". The "Vol" button must be pressed for the rest of this to make sense. Below those are red/yellow/green buttons labeled "R (Record)", "S (Solo)" and "M (Mute)", then an area just below has a field labeled "V0" (for setting volume) and "Pan 0" for panning that track. To the right of those 2 fields are 2 buttons labeled "Out 1" and "In 1L" or something similar. Press the "Out" button to bring up a box that lists all the possible output pairs for playback. Press (I see I told you to right-click, but I was wrong: left-click) the "In 1L" to bring up a box that lists all the possible input pairs plus, to the right of that, checkboxes for "Input Options" which can be "Left", "Right", or "Stereo". For each input pair, to get separate tracks, you would select (for example) "[1] (Name of device) Wave 1/2" and "Left" for Track One, then "[1] Wave 1/2" and "Right" for Track Two. (This assumes you are recording from Tape Out 1-4 on the Tascam. Rereading your post makes me think your sound card has only stereo ins.) You also have the option of selecting "Stereo", in which case Track One would record tracks 1-2 of the deck (and, if necessary for 4 tracks) Track Two would record 3-4, but you would have less control over the finished mix.

I don't remember if CEP has this feature, but with AA, once you have selected the I/O for each track, you can go to File/Default Session/Set Current Session As Default to save all those settings. If you are regularly recording from a 4-track into (most likely) Tracks One-Four as 1L, 1R, 2L and 2R, you could set that as default and every time you called up a new session the inputs would be set the same way. This was really useful to me in my latest excursion where we recorded acoustically over 4 days and I kept 6 inputs active all the time. We recorded 17 songs and all I had to do each time was to make sure the tracks not being recorded were muted at the mixer.

If I knew how to capture screen shots I could probably show you more quickly, but this is as complete as I could make it.

Hope this helps.
 
you guys are making this sound awfully complicated

Normally, I am one to go over the top, and make things simple sound worse than they really are.....


1) the microphone input on my cheap soiund card records in stereo, so i cant picture an expensive one doesnt

2) anything i can plug headphones into and listen, i can run a double male patch cord into the mic slot. Play with the voume knob on the source until you get test recordings level correct.

3) if the track is mono, it will come up on one side only on the recording track. Just bounce it to empty track, and select stereo there...or vice versa to go TO mono.

4) the worst thing to fidle with is the myriad volume settings under windows volume settings, or youre soundcard might present you a bunch of volume knobs and sliders. Obviously, maker sure mic is turned up and fiddle with the setting. I cant explain it, but on my buddy's computer, for some odd reason, you have to MUTE the mic line to get a decent signal level. None of us know why.

5) this isnt brain surgery, and youll quickly get the hang of it, then go back and select a different signal level.

TIP: if you like what youre hearing in the real ife mixing board, the monitoring headphones jack works the exact same way. This is how i record LIVE musicians jamming.

TIP#2: someone told you about the digital noise reduction, and to always have a few seconds of sience at beginning and end. This is important, and the CEP nr functions work miracles.
 
Thanks a lot, guys. Just a quick note to tell you I haven't had time to follow your recommendations yet, but looking forward to doing so. Will get back and let you know the results.

Cheers
 
Ipdeluxe

Firstly, to clear something up. Think I was a bit unclear in my previous posts on one aspect. I am currently trying to record songs I have mixed down as masters on to cassette tape - so, I want to record from cassette deck to HD, then transfer to CD. I want to keep the recordings as close to the master mix as possible, but am not averse to cleaning up hiss etc, and maybe to slight enhancement of the quality through adding a bit of reverb or whatever. Mostly, though, I just want a nice, loud, clear stereo version on CD.

I mentioned the Tascam 244 4-track only because I had heard it could be used as a line amp. Seems this is not necessary, as according to advice from you guys, I can get equally good sound going straight from cassette deck into Audigy module Line-ins, which is what I've just done with moderate success. (I do have some other stuff that I recorded on the Tascam and might re-mix down to HD in time, but until I have gotten a basic understanding of CEP, I'll leave that!).

I have now managed to do as you suggested in your threads above, and have gotten a song on the cassette tape recorded and saved on to my desktop. It's ok, but volume level is a bit low. I now have some new queries.

1. To record from cassette to CD, do I need to bother about setting Channel One to record "1L" in mono and setting Channel Two to record "1R", or will I get the same stereo mix as on my cassette tape simply by selecting "stereo"? Is there an advantage in selecting the L and R
mono settings, rather than "stereo"?

2. Although I have selected "Monitor Record Level", and can see the volume levels while playing the song on the cassette, I can't work out how to increase the master volume to record the song louder, so the peaks are just under 0dB. How do you do this, please, and especially how do you do it while the cassette is playing prior to recording, so the correct vol settings can
be made before actually recording the song?

3. How do you apply reverb and/or other effects and adjust them while listening to the song playing prior to recording (so you know how the song is going to sound once recorded)?

4. I recorded 2 versions of a song, one without "de-hissing" and one removing hiss. The one that wasn't de-hissed sounds louder and clearer. Any tips on why?

I have spent quite a lot of time trying to work out the answers to these queries myself, and have been pouring over the CEP manual, but am either thick in this context, or just too ignorant yet to make sense of things. Would really appreciate your spoonfeeding me the answers to the queries above. As soon as I have managed to set vol levels correctly, add fx and mix down to saved format, I think I'll be right to work out other stuff, but for now, I need a bit more basic education. Would be obliged...

Cheers
 
Good morning. Glad things are improving. After I reread your thread I realized you were doing stereo (2-track) transfer. Here are some thoughts:

Cool Edit Pro is really an audio editing program that got into a shotgun marriage with a recording program. Because of that it works backwards from what you might expect, especially in processing recording. It is difficult and sometimes impossible to apply effects or other changes while recording, but very easy to do so after the fact. From my perspective it took about a year before I finally realized I was working with a computer and software and not a mechanical mixer and tape deck; after that things went much more smoothly because I stopped trying to make CEP work like a tape deck. As a result I tend to record everything very dry and apply effects to the recorded track. Once you get into working this way it makes sense.

1. With only 2 tracks there's no reason not to record on Track 1 in stereo. I always go with separate tracks because I seldom record from cassettes. You can separately process & edit stereo tracks in Edit View, so go ahead. There is a button in the tool bar in the Edit View that looks like 2 waveforms separated by a slash: this will select the left or right portion of the recording.

2. As we covered before, the outputs of either the deck or the amp will be at line level: that is, you can't control the volume. Nor can you control the volume in CEP. The only thing left is to adjust the volume after the track has been recorded. The alternative to this is to record through a mixer where you can control the gain but you may find that that method adds distortion and noise as well. Ctrl/A to select the whole track, Effects/Amplitude to bring up a dialog box that allows you to raise the level by however many dB. Experiment a little. Use that instead of the "Normalize" function since you add some compression with normalizing and it will affect the sound.

3. You can record WITH reverb or other effects, depending on the version you have; I don't think you can preview without recording. Again, there is an alternative: record the tracks, then go to Effects/Delay/Reverb (there are several reverb choices there) and use the Preview function to listen to track with the selected reverb. If you apply a reverb and change your mind, restore the original track with the Edit/Undo. Listen to the reverb through speakers, not headphones: hp will fool you and you may select something that sounds bad with speakers. Again, experiment. Some of the reverbs allow for tweaking (predelay, wet/dry, etc) and your perfect reverb may be just a knob turn away! Remember that you're not burning tape, and there's no reason not to redo a take several times to get it right, especially since that will speed up things as you get more experience.

4. Probably the "dehisser" is removing part of the musical content. I prefer to use the "Noise Reduction" feature instead, because you can tailor it better to the individual noise on the tape, including telling it how much to apply. To repeat, experiment. To use noise reduction, highlight an area of the recording such as the leadin that has no music on it, go to Effects/Noise Reduction/Noise Reduction; select "Get Profile from Sample" (or similar language -- I've gone from CEP SE to AA 1.5 and they keep changing the terms); then, in older versions, click on "Close", then Ctrl/A to select the whole wave file (on the latest one there's a "Select Entire Wave" button so you skip this step), then press F3 (or OK on the latest version) which will apply the noise reduction.

Hope this helps.
 
"You can record WITH reverb or other effects, depending on the version you have; I don't think you can preview without recording." - I'm not sure whether you meant what you said, but I'd clarify that no version of Cool Edit / Audition allows you to apply an effect to a track while it is being recorded. You 've always got to record first and apply the effect after (which is perhaps what you implied with the bit about previewing). Effects are applied destructively in edit view or non-destructively in multitrack view (where recordings on separate tracks can have effects applied and then can be mixed together to create a new file - see "mixdown" in the help file).

Sorry for the quibble - I admire the detail of your advice, lpdeluxe!
 
ThanQ, Mr Ozpeter. I have never attempted to record with effects, and so didn't know...naturally I made a guess! I don't like to commit to an effect that early in the process, but I guess I was thinking of the "Effects Rack" feature.
 
One more post on this: if you MUST set your levels and add reverb or other effects while recording, you MUST use a mixer that includes effects or has the outboard signal chain to include them. Personally I think the "Preview" function in Edit View serves the same purpose and, once you get into the workflow of doing it that way, is just as easy as any other.
 
Ipdeluxe

I want to thank you again - sincerely - for the time and effort you have put into answering my questions so thoroughly and patiently (and thanks Ozpeter for sticking with the thread, as I slowly make some advances into this new, exciting, but challenging world).

I have not done any more recording since reading your post 19 Aug posts, but I think I am beginning to understand.

So, to concept check...

I can't increase the vol level of the initial recording off the tape, except by using a line amp (which may add distortion and unwanted effects of its own). I have set the Audigy soundcard input vol levels to maximum, at the same time enabling a distortion-prevention function on the card - I guess this is the most I can do to maximise recording levels in the first instance, without a line amp/mixer - yes?

Also...it seems best to record from tape to HD without effects initially, then to apply any effects in the editing stage before saving the file for transfer to CD - correct?

And if I am reading you and Ozpeter correctly, I can preview any effects in the Edit view of CEP, adjusting after monitoring the effects until I get what I want, THEN save the final mix with effects to a new file, which can then be recorded to CD - correct?

Hopefully, yes, yes and yes.

One more question to you, Ipdeluxe, if you still have any patience left. When, please, after the initial recording from tape to HD via CEP, can I best increase the volume recording level so that the CD is recorded at a high volume level (but cleanly, without distortion, clipping etc) -
1. in Edit view, after adding effects (if any) and saving to a new file
or
2. when transferring that file to CD?

Finally, to Ozpeter:
Re your comment: "Effects are applied destructively in edit view or non-destructively in multitrack view." Would you mind explaining what you mean by "destructively" and "non-destructively" in this context, pls?

Big cheers, guys.
 
I'll answer for Ozpeter, first: "destructively" simply means that you are permanently changing the wave file. "Non-destructively" means that you are listening to a temporary file that has the changes made to it, while the original file remains unchanged (this is why you need plenty of room for the temporary files with CEP). Mr Ozpeter, if you want to expand, go ahead.

First issue: in order to change the volume of the track in the recording process you need to go through an amp of some sort. Yes.

Second issue: it's not so much that it "seems best" to record first, then apply effects, it is that -- as Ozpeter pointed out -- the only way you can do it in Cool Edit Pro. So, yes.

Third issue: almost all the effects (also known as "transforms" in earlier versions of CEP) have a "Preview" function: you select the effect you want, click on Preview, and listen to the track with the effect added without it being permanently applied to the track. When it sounds the way you want, click "OK". And don't forget to convert to 16 bit when you're done. As mentioned before, if you change your mind before saving, Edit/Undo [name of effect] will take you back to the unprocessed sound. Note that you must SAVE the file again after applying the effects, volume adjustments, etc or it will revert to the unprocessed file when you call up the next song, or exit Cool Edit Pro.
Anyhow, the answer to this is yes.

The last issue is a little complicated, because you will most likely find the original files vary quite a bit in volume, how close they come to clipping, and so on. What I try for (since I record almost exclusively acoustic music) is to raise the level of the track as high as possible without compression, limiting, or clipping. If your tapes are already compressed, the first way will be best.

One way to do this is to do Ctrl/A to select the whole track, then Effects/Amplitude/Amplitude/Constant Amplification; select, say, "Boost 3 dB" and process it. Then look at the places where the peaks are highest (closest to the margins of the waveform -- AA1.5 displays a line at the -3dB level) and see how close you are getting. If you're at the edge, place the cursor just before one of the high peaks and watch the meters to see if it goes into the red. Then try again. If you are close, use 1 dB. You can then press F3 to repeat the 1 dB increase, several times if necessary. If you want to repeat the ampification but change the amount of it, press F2 to bring up the dialog box where you can enter the amount.

The second way is to use compression or hard limiting or normalizing to bring the levels up to where you want them. The advantage is that you can do all your tracks at once as part of the group processing; the disadvantage is that you may be adding undesirable tonality or excessive compression to your music. Obviously it is somewhat easier to automate the volume adjustment and reliably end up with your signal at, say, -1 dB below clipping, but in my opinion you'll be better off doing it the first, old-fashioned way, where you will get a much better feel for what's going on when you click on those radio buttons!

To correct the volume levels when you are transferring to CD would involve normalizing, with its attendant problems. I can't tell you not to do it, but it's not the best way.
 
Ipdeluxe

Fantastic stuff. Thanks a lot. I think you've set me up with the basics I needed to know, and now the best I can do is to try out all you've written and learn on the job.

Cheers
 

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Nothing more from me for the moment (my PC got zapped by a power failure and I'm busy reinstalling EVERYTHING - grrrrr - yes, I should have a full backup and a UPS....).
 
That's bad news. But why should a power failure wipe what's on your drive?

Good luck with the reinstall. Think of it as getting re-acquainted with your system... (Remind me of that when it happens to me next week.)
 
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