The best way to transfer the analog signal from my 244 to my computer

Any interface that is less than $500 won't be noticably better than the onboard soundcard.

USB is fine now. The only concern would be throughput on high track counts, but that isnt an issue in this case.

There is really nothing wrong with using a rca to 1/8 adapter.

Unfortunately, you would have to spend close to $1000 for a two channel interface with a noticable quality jump from your onboard sound. (assuming the computer is less than five years old)
 
Farview said:
If you plug your turntable into the cd input on your stereo, it will sound like that too.

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Negative. Any analog source going in becomes scratchy in the DAW only. Play back at home to powered monitor off reel does not sound scratchy or thin. I have reiterated this fact many times.

What 2x2 is $1000? Bedazzeling it with LEDs doesn't make it good, what are they doing differently?
 
mark1971a said:
Negative. Any analog source going in becomes scratchy in the DAW only. Play back at home to powered monitor off reel does not sound scratchy or thin. I have reiterated this fact many times.
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My 70s era Sony RTR sounds fine thru my modern day circa 05 Tascam 2488 into my PC. No scratchy. No Thin.
 
mark1971a said:
Negative. Any analog source going in becomes scratchy in the DAW only. Play back at home to powered monitor off reel does not sound scratchy or thin. I have reiterated this fact many times.

What 2x2 is $1000? Bedazzeling it with LEDs doesn't make it good, what are they doing differently?
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Then there must be something wrong.

High end converters simply use higher quality parts, better design, more stable power supply, more stable clock, better analog path, etc... Just like with any sort of gear. Once you get past 'decent', every 10% improvement costs 10 times the price...

Much the same as the difference between a cheap Mackie or Behringer board and a Neve or API console.
 
mark1971a said:
I have this same problem and would also like to know. If I input a played vinyl record into the RCAs of my 2x2 usb, it sounds really scratchy and thin on the DAW.

What is coming in is not what is going out.

Not to invade your thread, I think this is related enough to share. This is a clip showing the sound break up . It becomes thin and scratchy. Not Huge and spacious.

View attachment 86150
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You've got to stop hijacking other people's threads. The OP is talking about transferring from his 288 to the computer. You're talking about bringing in from vinyl. Start your own thread.
 
Chili said:
You've got to stop hijacking other people's threads. The OP is talking about transferring from his 288 to the computer. You're talking about bringing in from vinyl. Start your own thread.
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Actually he said 244. Which BTW has as amazing manual. I DL’d it the other night and read with great interest the explanations of the signal path thru the recorder and gain staging. Quite an informative piece of manual.
And yeah, it’s like watching Fox news in here where everyone talks over the top of the other.
 
I would like to make clear why I included the turntable to computer reference in my original post. I wanted to illustrate that I did know something about transferring an analog signal to the computer so that anyone who responded would have an idea what they had to work with. My real question was how to best transfer the signal from my Tascam 244. What I should have include, to make my inquiry clearer, was that I felt there was a considerable degradation in sound quality while transferring data from my turntable to the computer that I wanted to avoid when transferring the signal from my 244. I have a lot more of myself invested in any data transferred from my 244 than I do from a vinyl record.

I am thankful for the responses I have received and they have helped. Beck, I haven't yet discovered the name brand and model of my mother board but your inquiries have been quite useful. I am now thinking that a good quality sound card with RCA ins and outs might be the way to go. I will have to do some research, but I seem to remember that at one point Turtle Beech sound cards where preferred product. I don't know if this is still the case.

Thank you all.
 
Illsidgus said:
I will have to do some research, but I seem to remember that at one point Turtle Beech sound cards where preferred product. I don't know if this is still the case.

Thank you all.
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Turtle beach was 15 years ago. The name was bought out and now they make junky gaming headphones and stuff like that. Nothing anyone should use in a pro audio context, at least for anyone who is worried about quality.

You are more likely to find good interfaces with 1/4 inputs. But buying two rca to 1/4 cables will take care of that problem.
 
Farview said:
Turtle beach was 15 years ago. The name was bought out and now they make junky gaming headphones and stuff like that. Nothing anyone should use in a pro audio context, at least for anyone who is worried about quality.

You are more likely to find good interfaces with 1/4 inputs. But buying two rca to 1/4 cables will take care of that problem.
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When you say "interface" are you talking about a card that I can plug into my mother board or an external interface that I would still need to connect to my computer?
 
Illsidgus said:
When you say "interface" are you talking about a card that I can plug into my mother board or an external interface that I would still need to connect to my computer?
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Could be both... a card that plugs into a PCI slot (or whatever slot) and an external interface with analog inputs/outputs which plugs into the card. These are still better than USB. Turtle beach had some good stuff and fortunately you don't have to limit yourself to new products. In fact, there are good reasons to avoid many new products. There are more choices today, but all that really means is there are more poor choices today.

USB for audio has inherent design problems that take some expense for a manufacturer to address. If the interface sells for $50.00 or $100.00 or even $150.00 you can bet those issues have not been addressed because the company that markets them can’t afford the build quality required at that price point. Worse than that is it seems everyone and their mother are making cheap USB interfaces. If it sells on the street for $39.99, guess how much it cost to make it. Not enough.

You can get a better quality interface that cost $1000.00 ten years ago for pennies on the dollar from ebay or Craigslist and have a far superior interface than a lot of the junky crap that's out there now.

What passes for usable today would not be taken seriously ten years ago. Once you figure out what motherboard you have you can narrow your options. I still have PCI 2.1 slots, so I'm still using My Echo Layla24 (Two of them). They sounded great when they came out and sound even better today compared to what people are settling for.
 
Illsidgus said:
When you say "interface" are you talking about a card that I can plug into my mother board or an external interface that I would still need to connect to my computer?
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Either/or. It's shorthand for computer audio interface. It really doesn't matter if it is a PCIe, USB or firewire, for what you are using it for. It only starts to matter when you are trying to transfer large numbers of tracks (24+) at one time.

A USB interface would probably be the most convenient, since you wouldn't have to open the computer.
 
Beck said:
Could be both... a card that plugs into a PCI slot (or whatever slot) and an external interface with analog inputs/outputs which plugs into the card. These are still better than USB. Turtle beach had some good stuff and fortunately you don't have to limit yourself to new products. In fact, there are good reasons to avoid many new products. There are more choices today, but all that really means is there are more poor choices today.

USB for audio has inherent design problems that take some expense for a manufacturer to address. If the interface sells for $50.00 or $100.00 or even $150.00 you can bet those issues have not been addressed because the company that markets them can’t afford the build quality required at that price point. Worse than that is it seems everyone and their mother are making cheap USB interfaces. If it sells on the street for $39.99, guess how much it cost to make it. Not enough.

You can get a better quality interface that cost $1000.00 ten years ago for pennies on the dollar from ebay or Craigslist and have a far superior interface than a lot of the junky crap that's out there now.

What passes for usable today would not be taken seriously ten years ago. Once you figure out what motherboard you have you can narrow your options. I still have PCI 2.1 slots, so I'm still using My Echo Layla24 (Two of them). They sounded great when they came out and sound even better today compared to what people are settling for.
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Hey Beck, I have essentially the same concern but transferring from a Tascam 234. I'm getting really confused by there being so many divergent ideas about it all! I bought a Focusrite scarlett 2i4 because I thought I needed one of these usb boxes to transfer my tapes to computer. Perhaps not? I can still bring it back, I didn't buy it for digital recording ha. I just have an acer laptop. Would something like the My Echo Layla24 soundcard you mentioned be better for transferring my recordings to computer? Would it be compatible with a basic laptop? As I may have betrayed, I know little about computers.
 
Help Help said:
Hey Beck, I have essentially the same concern but transferring from a Tascam 234. I'm getting really confused by there being so many divergent ideas about it all! I bought a Focusrite scarlett 2i4 because I thought I needed one of these usb boxes to transfer my tapes to computer. Perhaps not? I can still bring it back, I didn't buy it for digital recording ha. I just have an acer laptop. Would something like the My Echo Layla24 soundcard you mentioned be better for transferring my recordings to computer? Would it be compatible with a basic laptop? As I may have betrayed, I know little about computers.
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The Layla would be better, quality-wise. Whether it is compatible with your laptop will depend on how the Layla connects to a computer. If it is USB or firewire and you have USB and/or firewire connections on the computer, it will work just fine. If it requires a PCI card, you are out of luck using a laptop.
 
If you want quality transfers, I suggest using a direct box (like a Rolls Matchbox II, if they are still available) and plug the output to a high quality 2 channel interface via mic inputs. This will handle any impedance incompatibilities and provide the cleanest transfers. The tape noise then can be dealt with in your editing suite. I know that this might seem a pricey solution, but if you plan to do a lot of these transfers, it might be worth the investment. Best of luck
 
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