Question on cassette-to-digital conversion

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Kirobaito

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Hi,

I have a friend who wants tape recordings he made in the late '80s/early '90s digitized. He asked me if I could do it, and I said yes because I wanted a copy of the end results. The thing is, I don't own a cassette tape player anymore.

I'm using a TASCAM US-800 USB audio interface into Audacity, which I know how to use. The interface has L and R mono 1/4" or XLR inputs. I tested the setup out using my mp3 player's 1/8" headphone jack to 1/4", and it worked to my satisfaction, i.e. no recognizable loss or noise.

I have a couple of options for tape players, and I'm wondering if y'all had any advice on which would be better for someone who wants to spend next to no money doing this:

1) I have at my parents' house a shoebox tape deck that I bought from Radioshack for $50 new in 2008. I hardly used it, and if I asked them my parents would mail it to me. Like I did with the mp3 player, I would use the headphone jack to send the signal to the TASCAM.

2) I can rent from my university for cheap a Marantz PMD-201, which is twenty or so years old but looks fancy. It has tone and pitch controls. It has a 1/4" stereo headphone out that I can use, but it also has L and R RCA line outs.

So which do you think would be better? If it's the Marantz, which out would produce a better end product, the 1/4" or the RCA? I know there's an impedance difference between the two, but I don't really know enough about the technical side of things to say how that matters here. The inputs for the audio interface have 1-Mega ohm impedance.

Thanks!
 
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What are the original tapes like?
If these are hissy old low-q recordings that you want purely for nostalgia, I'd just use what you have.
 
Being that the Marantz is 20 years old -do you know if it has been maintained - heads demagnetized, aligned, etc?
 
Get the best quality cassette player you can get hold of, even though the Marantz is 20 years old, if it has been maintained and works correctly I would use that every day over the radioshack.

Use the RCA outs from the cassette as they are -10db line level outs, the headphone out is for headphones.

Alan.
 
Steenamaroo said:
What are the original tapes like?
If these are hissy old low-q recordings that you want purely for nostalgia, I'd just use what you have.
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I have not heard the original tapes yet. These are musical field recordings (my friend is an musicologist) that may or may not hold some kind of value for future researchers/archivists. I want them just because I'm interested in that kind of stuff, but my tastes on music preservation are such that I'd prefer as good a transfer as I can get under the parameters I've set (i.e., not actually wanting to spend any money for a professional to do it).

mjbphotos said:
Being that the Marantz is 20 years old -do you know if it has been maintained - heads demagnetized, aligned, etc?
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I doubt it, but I also doubt that it's really been used all that much recently.

One thing I'm considering is asking my parents to mail me my deck. I have some cassette albums handy that a songwriter friend gave me for free. I'll try my setup on those. They're studio-quality and never-before-played, so it'll be easy to see how much degradation or loss there is in the process of doing it that way.

witzendoz said:
Get the best quality cassette player you can get hold of, even though the Marantz is 20 years old, if it has been maintained and works correctly I would use that every day over the radioshack.

Use the RCA outs from the cassette as they are -10db line level outs, the headphone out is for headphones.
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It may behoove me to go up there and, before deciding to rent it, take a look at it. This is basically renting from university classroom services, so I tend to doubt they've put a lot of effort into maintaining it. Outside of cleaning it, I don't think there's a whole lot I can do.
 
Good luck - neither of those units sound any good. I see tapes getting eaten.
 
You do not really want to rent or borrow a deck because you will need to get into it to adjust the replay head azimuth* alignment in all probability and there is always the risk that you will bugger something!

The Marantz is a portable machine I see so it is not likely to be of "top end" spec. Still, if these are "field" recordings they are hardly likely to be super quality anyway? That is NOT to say you should not do the best job you can!

Re head demagging? Buy a blank cassette and run the machine in record mode a dozen times. Virtually all cassette decks use a common rec/play head and the bias will de magg it.

For tape there would seem no need to use 24 bits (44.ikHz) but it might be advisable if you intend any processing down the line, a lot of soft/hardware is now 24 bits only. The only downside is bigger files and HDD space is cheap.

There are two ways to tackle this job. Connect up and Bish, Bash, Bosh, grab it all. Or very carefully!
Run each tape all the way through on play (a second deck is VERY handy!) then clean the tape path for EVERY side before recording.

*Done by adjusting the azimuth screw on the head assembly. Listen on headphones and turn the screw 1/10th of a turn at a time listening for maximum HF level. This needs to be done for each new tape.

There might also be pitch/speed issues but leave us K.I.S.Sir for now?

Dave.
 
I'd always treated the run in record trick as a total waste of time - everyone serious about recording had a demagnetiser - and HF bias current is an ineffective method of demagnetisation.

Virtually every cassette deck I have ever had did NOT need major dismantling to set azimuth - the small screw often having a nice convenient hole, and even on the ones that needed the panel removing, it was just a few screws. maintenance was essential on cassette machines, so only the really poor ones didn't have pretty simple access for tweaking and cleaning.

We are making this far more difficult than it really is - every second hand shop has cassette machines, some rather nice ones - and the Marantz would seem the sensible choice if it's easy to get and local.
 
rob aylestone said:
I'd always treated the run in record trick as a total waste of time - everyone serious about recording had a demagnetiser - and HF bias current is an ineffective method of demagnetisation.

Virtually every cassette deck I have ever had did NOT need major dismantling to set azimuth - the small screw often having a nice convenient hole, and even on the ones that needed the panel removing, it was just a few screws. maintenance was essential on cassette machines, so only the really poor ones didn't have pretty simple access for tweaking and cleaning.

We are making this far more difficult than it really is - every second hand shop has cassette machines, some rather nice ones - and the Marantz would seem the sensible choice if it's easy to get and local.
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Well Rob,
99.99% of all the cassette machines ever sold were 2 head jobbies and I bet 100% of the owners of said machines had never heard of head magging* and had never been bothered by it. This was either because the bias kept Mr Gauss at bay or, more likely, that the noise performance of cassette is so poor that a bit of magging went unnoticed.

The OP's tapes of course have been used (who knows how many times) and so will not have a bulk erased noise floor.

I agree access for cleaning and azimuth tweaking is usually fairly easy, I have back o me a Sony TC -K611S and a Technics RS-TR165 double decker and all you need do is remove the cassette door, a clip off part. My point was that I do not think it is polite or fair to "attack" someone else's property with a screwdriver! I would certainly NOT want my Sony interfered with!

I also agree this task need not be difficult. I actually said he could bosh it or take his time!

*I have a Ferrograph head de-gausser but I am NOT loaning that out. I would not cry if I lost the Berry in the post but would blub like a girl if me demagger were gorn!

Dave.
 
the OP said he had a couple of choices .... of those two I'd go for the Marantz and use the RCA's.
 
arcaxis said:
If you have a decent thrift store around take a look to see what they might have. Back when I was doing some stuff with tape I picked up a couple of older cassette decks (one was a Nakamichi, the other an Onkyo) that were in pretty fair shape and both worked. A Sony deck I bought still ahd the protective plastic on the front. I think I paid about $10 or so for each. Take a tape with you and test the deck to make sure the transport works in fast forward, reverse, and in play. Open the front and look at the heads to see if their gunked up or not. The meters on the deck should show levels on both channels when a tape is run. Sometimes a crap shoot, but I've been lucky with the ones I got.
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This is a good idea. I'd spent $20 or so to get one, since renting the Marantz will cost me $15 anyway. I stopped by the only Goodwill in town last night, but they only had DVD players and receivers. There are a few others within reasonable driving distance, so I'll check them as well.

So long as the mechanism looks clean and not gunky and the applicable functions all work, would pretty much any big tape deck like you'd put in a stereo system probably work better than my portable options?
 
Okay, guys, I took arcaxis's advice and stopped by the Salvation Army store and found a Sony TC-W345 for $8.99, still with all its functions and with clean mechanisms. For that price, I couldn't pass it up. So that's what I'll be using, after listening to my test tape on it.

I'll still take a look inside to make sure there's nothing that needs cleaning. I took a test record today and was rather shocked at the total output. There's no volume control on the tape deck, which doesn't surprise me (my turntable doesn't either). I had to pull my volume knobs on my TASCAM interface as far down as they would go, and then still had to reduce the input volume on Audacity all the way down to 5% in order to keep it from peaking. Is that normal, or do you think I have something off somewhere?

That said, I'm totally satisfied with what I ended up with. This was a studio-quality, never before played cassette, but it sounded indistinguishable to me after ripping. It may be a different animal when I deal with possibly noisy and low-quality field recordings, but we'll see.
 
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Consumer line level is substantially lower than pro line level so you shouldn't have to worry about clipping unless you're connected to a mic or instrument input. If it's connected to a line input and clipping then something's definitely not right.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Consumer line level is substantially lower than pro line level so you shouldn't have to worry about clipping unless you're connected to a mic or instrument input. If it's connected to a line input and clipping then something's definitely not right.
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Yeah, I just thoughtlessly put it in my 1 and 2 inputs, which are mic/inst ones. That explains the high volume. I've used audacity plenty, but never this interface.

I just tried plugging into my 3/4 or 5/6 inputs, which are labeled mic/line. I'm not getting any sound at all from those into Audacity, unfortunately. If I plug my headphones into the interface it sounds fine, and there are tiny flickers on Audacity's meters like something tiny's coming through, but the resulting wave form is just a very slight wave line, which obviously isn't what it's supposed to look like.

The end result of plugging it into the mic/inst things still worked fine, I just had to move the volumes all way down. I wonder why the line inputs aren't working, though.

EDIT: If I put the the levels back to where they should be, Audacity's meters show something coming in, but no sound is being produced by it. The interface's control panel shows input volume, as well. Bizarre. This unit's had all kinds of known issues, to the point where it's now largely unsupported.
 
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bouldersoundguy said:
Consumer line level is substantially lower than pro line level so you shouldn't have to worry about clipping unless you're connected to a mic or instrument input. If it's connected to a line input and clipping then something's definitely not right.
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That Sony has a specified output of 0.44V (one presumes at Dolby level?) or -7dBV but levels could easily be 6dB above that, i.e. approaching a volt rms.
If this is to be a permanent setup it would be moot to make up some inline attenuators.

Sad isn't it? When domestic tape recording started here in the 60s, levels were all over the shop twixt bits of kit, the industry does not seem to have learned a damn thing since.

Dave.
 
You need to plug into line inputs not instrument inputs. Also there maybe a software selection for the input between -10db and +4db, set it to -10db.

Alan.
 
If you have the basic version of Audacity, it's a two channel system so you'll have to set the routings to send 3/4 (or 5/6) to the right tracks in Audacity.

Maybe somebody who knows your interface/Audacity can point you to the right menu to sort this out--but I wouldn't use the instrument input. Clipping would be a distinct risk even if you turn the levels down--you can overload the input stage even before you get to the level control.
 
witzendoz said:
You need to plug into line inputs not instrument inputs. Also there maybe a software selection for the input between -10db and +4db, set it to -10db.

Alan.
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It is an Audacity issue, I've learned. I downloaded the eval version of Reaper and was able to select the inputs I wanted and it worked fine. If I can learn Reaper okay, I can just use this. (I've got 60 days for the eval version and that's more than enough time to do what I want.) I've searched through the Audacity menus and can't find anywhere where it lets me fix it. I can choose between mono and stereo, but that's it (and totally irrelevant to what I want to do).

EDIT: I wonder if this is an ASIO issue? I don't feel comfortable recompiling Audacity with that particular code fix, so if that's the case, then I'll just use Reaper.
 
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Kirobaito said:
It is an Audacity issue, I've learned. I downloaded the eval version of Reaper and was able to select the inputs I wanted and it worked fine. If I can learn Reaper okay, I can just use this. (I've got 60 days for the eval version and that's more than enough time to do what I want.) I've searched through the Audacity menus and can't find anywhere where it lets me fix it. I can choose between mono and stereo, but that's it (and totally irrelevant to what I want to do).
Click to expand...

You've actually got more than 60 days. After the evaluation period you can continue to use uncrippled Reaper.
 
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