Dad's Recordings

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tdukex

Man of the Muse
I need some advice on copying some of my dad's recordings from cassette to to CD. These are the only recordings he ever made, so they have a huge sentimental and memorial value to me.

The recordings are mono--not high quality to begin with, but they have vibe. He played in a trio (guitar, bass, and dad's clarinet). The recordings were made in barrooms (full of people and background noise) with a good quality cassette player with a built in mic sitting on the stage.

I will be using a Kenwood KX-W597 cheapie dual cassette as the playback device.

My amp options are 1) a Denon AVR 600 stereo amp, 2) a Behringer MX 802 mixer, or 3) a Joemeek VC1Q preamp. Any ideas on which would be best?

I will be recording into an M-audio Dman 2044 card into either Sonar or Soundforge 5.0. My guess is straight into soundforge would be best. Any opinions?

I will record and keep one master file.

I'm thinking of cloning the master file and using the new file to experiment with the following:

Steinberg Clean

Compression: either Joemeek or Waves

EQ

Creating a stereo field by cloning two tracks then panning one hard left and EQing off some of the low end, then panning the other track hard right and EQing off some of the high end. This is probably a stupid idea.

Any and all advice, ideas, opinions, and suggestions will be greatly appreciated--especially on the basic recording part.

Thanks
Tom
 
Just my opinion but I wouldn't use anything between the playback deck and your soundcard. Line out to line in. Also if it's a mono recording, I wouldn't try to do any pseudo-stereo stuff to it as you may induce some phase gremlins into it. Also be careful with any noise reduction plug ins as they can do some nasty things as well. I have SoundForge 5 with its noise reduction plug and it can do amasing things but it can also introduce artifacts that you don't want if used too aggressively. YMMV.
 
I echo TrackRats remarks ... go straight into your soundcard to get the cleanest signal you can going in. I don't think you'll need a compressor much, but I guess it depends on the program material. I can say that you'll increase hiss a bit no matter what compressor or settings you use.
I'd also leave it as mono ... fake stereo will sound ... well fake. Maybe if you can get the tracks cleaned up enough to put a short reverb on it ... that may work out better.
I cleaned up some old shellac records and reel-reel tapes (about 30-50 yrs old) with an old app called SoundLaundry (this was about 4 yrs ago) .. worked pretty well, but it wasn't perfect.
Whatever app you use, don't overdo it ... because you'll hear all sorts of weird stuff. Like everything else, you gotta experiement with it until it sounds how you like it.
 
Track Rat and BigKahuna,

Thank you very much for your replys. I didn't realize I could go directly from the cassette to the sound card without a signal boost. I'm going to give this a try today. Thanks again.
 
High!

I'd not compress the tracks as you'll be bringing up the background noise a lot. You MAY succeed with a combination of compressor and expander, but I'm afraid, the stuff will loose a lot.

Don't get me wrong - I'm really a 'fan' of compression, and compress almost everything, but I'd really not in your case...

Axel
 
Yo T-Du-Kex----]


Send me one of your Dad's cassettes and I'll remaster it in 16 bit and send you the CDR result.

I've done this with stuff I recorded on my Tascam 488, and MD8 and have had some good results.

I may be doing in a simple manner; however, simplicity usually equates to success.

You can contact me via the E-mail circuit -- No charge for doing one cassette tape. If it doesn't come out, I'll mail you back the cassette.

But, I'll do that anyway.

Green Hornet:D :cool: :p :p :p :p
 
You might want to e-mail jgourd about the best way to remove noise from a cassette tape. Jonathan does that "professionally" for the Boston Police Dept. on tapes that are evidence (for trials), and also on professional recordings that were transferred to cassette.

Trust me on this... I've met him in person and have heard much of his work. He's the guy you want to talk to... and he's a really good guy.

Here's his website, which has his e-mail address...
http://www.lamoateffe.com/
 
This is way too obvious but I'll say it anyway...Before you do anything else, send the original cassettes to an expert, dick around on your own, whatever...copy clean, and burn ( not one, two) copies to CDR.

You never know when the next trip through the capstan will be the last.

lou
 
Hi everybody, thanks for the replys. I really appreciate them.

volltreffer, thanks for the good advice. If I do try compression, I promise it won't be with the master copy.

Green Hornet, I can't send the original tapes because they belong to one member of the band--the bass player and widow of the guitar player who passed away about a decade ago. However, I could send you a CD recorded direct from the tape deck into my soundcard, if that would do. Or I could send you a copy of the tape. I would be interested to see what you could do with it.

Buck, I will contact Jonathan to see if he feels it is worth it to try to remove noise from these recordings, thanks for the link. A little good advice from someone like him could save me many hours of frustration trying to do something the wrong way with the wrong application.

Sky Blue Lou, excellent advice. I am indeed copying clean, and there will be three CD original copies (oxymoron) of each tape before I go messin' around. Just to confirm how good your advice is, while recording Tape #5 to my harddrive the tape broke off from the one of the reels when I rewound it. Luckilly, I had a copy of the tape my dad had made for me a couple of years ago, so I used it to make a digital copy.
 
Jonathan Chiming in

Send me the original cassette or a digital copy. I too have some tapes such as this and completely understand the personal value. I will of course do it for free.

Buck62, Coming by again this December so set up that ride along. I'll be bringing gear goodies.
 
Jonathan, thanks for checking in. I will indeed send you a CD of the best stuff untouched by me. It may take me a couple of weeks to get it ready. I have just now copied all six of the cassettes to my hard drive. It will take me one or two weekends to sort through the material to find the best tracks. And, unfortunately, I have a terminal illness in my immediate family I have to deal with (my wife's mom, who lives with us).

Green Hornet, if you are still interested in giving this a shot I'd still like to send you a CD also.

You can both email me at tdukex@hotmail.com

Send me your mailing address and I'll send you a CD with return postage.

Thanks for your generosity
Tom
 
Hey, Jonathan...

Sounds good to me!

Make sure to give me at least a month's notice before you head out this way, so I can set up the ride along. :)
 
There's an article in this month's SOS about restoring vinyl and cassette tapes and burning them on CD
 
BrettB said:
There's an article in this month's SOS about restoring vinyl and cassette tapes and burning them on CD

Excuse my ignorance, but what is SOS ?
 
SOS is (I think) Sound on Sound magazine.

Don't use compression.

Use a good tape deck, not a cheapy. Worry about azimuth. The tape probably doesn't have tones on it, but you can probably improve the sound by adjusting azimuth by ear. Depending on the machine it was recorded on, azimuth might change in the course of the tape. If this is a problem (high end starts to vanish) and you feel confident in your ability to adjust azimuth by ear, you might try riding it and adjusting it in the course of playing.

Another potential weak link is the AD converter in your soundcard.
 
I am clipping at my line level input on my soundcard. Specifically...

I transferred a few songs from an old Quiet Riot tape to digital (to test) and it seemed to work just fine. Then, I decided to start the process for real. I grabbed Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon" album as my first victim and was amazed when it was clipping.

I adjusted the line input on the soundcard to 0 and it was still clipping.

My config is: Im running the two rca outs from a Pioneer Dual cassette deck to my line in on the soundcard. I thought that since these were both line level I wouldnt have any distortion. Im pulling my hair out trying to figure this out.

All the information on the net seems to say that I am configured correctly and yet...I know I am not. I must not be or the recording would not be clipping.
 
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