Digitizing lecture cassettes project - guidance requested

  • Thread starter Thread starter jelson
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First up I checked the 202 specs and it's actual max is +2 (-10 with headroom), so a loud +4 output may be a bit hot, I understand the problem that there is no way to turn down the incoming volume unless the device plugged in has a output volume control. A cassette deck would usually only be a -10 output so even a maxed tape will not overload the 202, I have converted tons of tapes to digital and never had an overload problem.

The mono thing is, if you create a mono track in say Sound forge, it sums the L & R inputs to mono, I have done this when recording lectures from a PA system, in this case as the cassette is alreay mono there should be no phase issues. I assume most softwere will do this.

Cheers
Alan
 
witzendoz said:
The mono thing is, if you create a mono track in say Sound forge, it sums the L & R inputs to mono, I have done this when recording lectures from a PA system, in this case as the cassette is alreay mono there should be no phase issues. I assume most softwere will do this.
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If the tapes were recorded on a mono deck then it would be best to play them back on a mono deck. A stereo head, while it works with mono recordings, doesn't get quite all the signal available on the tape, especially if the recording levels are low. If the tapes were done on a stereo deck with the same signal on both tracks then I would use a stereo deck for playback and record both channels. Then if I needed to be aggressive with noise reduction I could process each track separately and sum them later to reduce some of the processing artifacts.

And of course clean and demagnetize the heads and adjust the azimuth for optimum results.
 
Done some numbers on my 202.

Vin for 0dBFS= 1.282 V rms at 1kHz = +2.2dBV
Vin for -1dBFS = 1.121V rms " = +1dBV

At neg 6 pk the 2nd harmonic was 72dB down on 1kHz, all others being insignificant.

Baseline noise, osc' off but still connected -87dBFS

A Sony K611s deck gave -10dBFS for a tape peaking to +3Dolby level and the machine erased noise (Dolby off, OP's condition) was -50dBFS.

So, for the non nerd/non-teks here the Behringer UCA 202 is vastly better(even better than I thought) than any tape machine ever made in terms of noise and distortion and you never really need to record higher than -10dBFS.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Done some numbers on my 202.

Vin for 0dBFS= 1.282 V rms at 1kHz = +2.2dBV
Vin for -1dBFS = 1.121V rms " = +1dBV

....

So, for the non nerd/non-teks here the Behringer UCA 202 is vastly better(even better than I thought) than any tape machine ever made in terms of noise and distortion and you never really need to record higher than -10dBFS.
Click to expand...

Much obliged Dave!
 
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