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General discussion

Creating .wav from old tapes

Jul 4, 2012 12:36PM PDT

I have been converting old cassette tapes using my Onkyo sound system ("mid range" quality), and the input of my built-in sound card. I have been using Sony Sound Forge to do the processing.

I have just received an ad for the Roxio Easy LP package - which contains an input from a sound system, to USB. Is this likely to give a significant advantage over the system that I'm currently using? I was wondering if if would be superior to my current sound card.

Discussion is locked

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(NT) I'm going with no.
Jul 4, 2012 12:51PM PDT
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Creating .wav from old tapes
Jul 4, 2012 1:13PM PDT

Thanks - any opinions from others?

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use goldwave
Jul 21, 2012 3:26AM PDT

Robert
I have converted all my records and tapes to wav and mp3 with excellent results. My tapes were played on an Akai/Roberts crossfield head tapedeck to my pc using a Pioneer SA5200 amplifier. My records were played on a Garrard Lab80 Mark 2 turntable and the same amplifier.
I found the Goldwave program, created by a sound engineer in Canada, that will do things to audio that you will not believe! Check the web at http://goldwave.com a lifetime license is only $49, and considering what it can do it is well worth it. To try for a year is only $19, but it has taken me about 5 years to copy, edit and catalog my music which my player says will run for 40 days. I have used another program mp3 tagger to add metadata about the selections including the album covers (copied from internet). One more thing, Lame decoder will need to be installed so Goldwave can work on mp3's. Itunes can also be handy for editing the metadata.
My old records have no rumble, static, and volume can be equalized over many selections to minimise volume changes between selections. Tape hiss is removed completely with a couple mouse clicks, and frequency ranges can be modified to make it sound like you want it to.
Any problems can be solved with a huge help file, and Craig always responds to questions within a few hours. Again, it appears quite complicated at first because it can do so much, but mastering a few functions and playing with parameters will make all your music seem as if they were ripped from a cd.
Go for it and enjoy the results.