Question on cassette-to-digital conversion

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kirobaito
  • Start date Start date
When we had cassette as our kind of standard, nobody really followed rules that much. You stuffed a connector in and if the level into the mic jack was too much so that the meters pegged without hardly turning the gain up you pulled it out and stuffed it in the ones on the back with a bodges up bit of cable using twisted wire joints and a bit of tape. And of course vice versa. One of the two was virtually guaranteed to work fine. Now we worry about a few dB here and a few dB there. We get stressed about consumer level and pro level, as if they are being connected without a gain control in circuit. If things hissed, level matching had been messed up, and if they distorted same thing and then you fix it!

Nowadays people seem to buy equipment and then use it without understanding it? Checking and testing how equipment works is essential. Two bits of kit may well respond differently to under or over levels, so finding out the limits of your kit is a priority so you can squeeze the best out of it.
 
rob aylestone said:
When we had cassette as our kind of standard, nobody really followed rules that much. You stuffed a connector in and if the level into the mic jack was too much so that the meters pegged without hardly turning the gain up you pulled it out and stuffed it in the ones on the back with a bodges up bit of cable using twisted wire joints and a bit of tape. And of course vice versa. One of the two was virtually guaranteed to work fine. Now we worry about a few dB here and a few dB there. We get stressed about consumer level and pro level, as if they are being connected without a gain control in circuit. If things hissed, level matching had been messed up, and if they distorted same thing and then you fix it!

Nowadays people seem to buy equipment and then use it without understanding it? Checking and testing how equipment works is essential. Two bits of kit may well respond differently to under or over levels, so finding out the limits of your kit is a priority so you can squeeze the best out of it.
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Funny, reading this I remembered when I got my first cassette deck in the very early 70's had no volume controls at all (auto level thingy) and I wanted to record my records, so I hacked into the Gramophone, connected wires to the speaker terminals, made up a lead that plugged that into the line in of the cassette, and experimented until I found the volume level that recorded the best, and put a little mark on the volume control. These recording actually sounded pretty good for the day.

Alan.
 
witzendoz said:
The Tascam has a software control panel, you can adjust the levels there
Alan.
Click to expand...
I can set the levels in the control panel, but I can't find anything in there that lets me choose to send inputs 3/4 (the line inputs) rather than the default lines 1/2 (mic/instrument), which is what would allow me to use Audacity. Again, now that I know I can use Reaper, it's not that big of a deal anymore, since all I'll really need to learn there is how to do a little bit of mastering and compression.
 
Kirobaito said:
I can set the levels in the control panel, but I can't find anything in there that lets me choose to send inputs 3/4 (the line inputs) rather than the default lines 1/2 (mic/instrument), which is what would allow me to use Audacity.
Click to expand...

This would be done in the software, I don't know audacity, but it may be in the preferences under audio or in some software you select the input on the empty track.

Alan.
 
You want the playback deck to be the best heads and you want to clean them and make sure there is no wow or flutter. If you have a friend with a professional cassette deck like the Akai, you might do it at his place onto his recording system.I have a cassette to digital, VHS and DVD to digital USB systems for just this reason. Just play it back on the best system you can. Good Luck,
Rod Norman
Engineer

Kirobaito said:
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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