problems mastering from analog to digital

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thebrontosaurus

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its all pretty simple, but i seem to have run into a problem.

first of all i recorded on an analog tascam 488, everything went fine.. sounds good in playback.

i can easily transfer to my computer through a rca to headphone jack which goes through the line input in my sound card. i know there must be a better way to do this but due to the prices im scared of, i havent looked into it.

the sound card is 24 bit, but i put on all the tracks as 16 bit using an old multitrack program. i didnt use adobe audition because i havent fully become use to it.

now the problem (i think the problem is proabaly somewhere in my procecess) when i playback the mastered tracks (all normalized and stuff) there is a distortion on certain parts of the music. it seems as though something is overloading and spilling an evil fuzz. causing a terrible distraction from the music. nothing is clipping, and i know that the original track from the tape isnt either.

im confused, and i dont like spending money.
thanks,
noah
 
I'd guess that the problem may be the sound card if you're using a cheap factory stock card. Also, probably check that you don't have any gain turned up on the sound card... maybe try a different RCA cable just in case it's that.
 
Also make sure you're going into the "line in" and not the "mic in" on the soundcard.

G.
 
earthboundrec said:
I'd guess that the problem may be the sound card if you're using a cheap factory stock card. Also, probably check that you don't have any gain turned up on the sound card... maybe try a different RCA cable just in case it's that.
Click to expand...

its not the soundcard from when i bought the computer. its a soundblaster audigy 2 24 bit. its dont think its meant for what its doing so your probaly right. suggest anything? ill try the other rca-headphone cable when i find the damned thing.

thanks,
noah
 
For what you spent on the Audigy, you could have gotten an M-Audio 24/96

The Audigy is only 24 bit on the playback, 16 bit recording. It's a gamer card.
 
So pre-mastered tracks sound okay after dumping in to the computer?

It's when you master the tracks (post) that things get distorted during certain parts of a song?

If so, "normalizing" the tracks in to the computer is not a good idea.

Are you using an overall limiter plug-in as opposed to treating each verse and chorus as a separate automated mastering output?

If you're getting distortion during certain parts during a "mastering" it's most likely a pre-set limiter/EQ over the whole song(s) without compensating for over-saturated levels. The best rule of home mastering is to find the loudest part of a given song and adjust the overall limiter to that before distorting (also make sure the output level for the limiter is at most -0.3dB).

If I'm off the mark of your original post or if you have any other questions, let me know.

-- Adam Lazlo
 
I had an Audigy2 and used to transcribe tapes into the DAW at 44.1K/24bit without any distortion using Soundforge. You should be able to verify if you have your cabling and gains set up correctly by monitoring the input prior to recording - if your audio app will let you do that. You mentioned you have an old multitrack program, I don't know what it is, Adobe Audition will also do a fine job of recording but I'm not sure that one lets you monitor the inputs. Regardless you can still record 30 seconds into the DAW (don't normalize it yet), put on a set of decent cans, crank up the volume and check for distortion. If there's the slightest bit of distortion at this point it'll just get worse later during rebalancing (even a fully mastered tape may need a bit of touchup after being brought into the digital domain, depending...).

Once you determine you have a clean signal then rebalance your tape transcriptions to taste in the DAW using normalization, eq, compression, whatever you like. Good luck!
 
i bought it for half the price, but i shouldve looked around more.
 
Yeah, you might have the wrong input jack. If you jam a line signal into a mic pre, what you described is usually what you hear.
 
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