Upgrade ideas

S

stevem5000

New member
A local band asked me to digitize a R2R tape they had...about 35 years old...
So I pulled out my Panasonic 1020H...downloaded Audacity and went to work...
Came out with acceptable quality, wound up making a double CD...
Now they want me to do more...I have another 10" reel, 2 vinyl LP's to start on
and supposedly about 50 cassette's coming...

And they (the band) is telling me that other musician friends are interested in what I;m doing...

So...my questions are...
I'm setting up a new PC for this, Win 8.1...

What should I get for an audio card...???
Should I look for something with RCA inputs...???
On my other computer I have a Diamond Xtreme 5.1 16bit card...and we were quite happy with the results...
But we had nothing to compare it to, except commercial CD's...

Is upgrading the audio card worthwhile...???
Maybe an exterior audio card...???
Suggestions...???

For vinyl I tried out a cheap USB turntable and didn't care for it...so I have a Technics direct drive turntable...I will use that...Thought I would run it thru my receiver, Onkyo TX-4500MKII...this should give me the proper signal increase...
And I understand there is something with an RIAA audio curve...????...not sure what this means...

So...this is turning into a retirement hobby...but I suspect later this summer/fall...I'm gonna be pretty busy...
So I'm trying to get things set up so I'm productive and turning out good quality CD's with out taking out
a 2ed mortgage,,,:>)

I am open for any and all ideas...

Many thanks
Steve

BTW...My first post here and it sure looks like this forum is 'tilted" toward Tascam...:)
 
Its cause there are so many Tascam users around here. But that doesnt mean they don't welcome all brands in here, as long as its analog :o
 
Hi there,
Normally, if I were shopping around for a sound card for a computer, I'd avoid a USB sound card due to the latency issues. However, it's been a LONG time since (10 years?) since I've considered recording with a computer, and even if latency were still an issue with the USB interfaces, it wouldn't be a problem for you since it doesn't sound like you'd ever be doing overdubs.

That said, a Tascam USB interface would probably work just fine. :P Not sure how the analog-digital converters are going to sound on one compared with what you're already using. If you're happy with the results, you may just want to stick with what you have. If this becomes a true side gig, and people start judging your transfers based on the quality of your converters, then you'd be looking at a pretty hefty investment.

-MD
 
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