[peel] Equipment

[u n d i u]

Good equipment is only a part of the story.
You also need to know what you're doing to audio.

Taping at 24 bits is absolutely great.
But 96Khz is a nonsense.
At least, tape 88.2Khz. But no 96Khz.
Why?

Because, to put it on a CDR you'll need to convert your file to 44.1Khz.
Try to divide 96 by 44.1, you'll get a crazy number.

While 88.2/44.1= 2

So your computer will make less error in the conversion.
Your sound will be better.

Now, how do you set your levels when you convert the tape to your PC?
Do you try to hit (peaks) 0dBfs? -3dBfs? -6dBfs? -9dBfs? -12dBfs? -18dBfs?

What converters do you use?(THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!)
If they are cheap converters, you wont have great sound.
If the internal clock is not good, your sound wont be good.

Let's say you have a nice converter with a nice internal clock, so you have a nice file at 24bits/88.2Khz.

What will you do to the sound before you'll decide to make the file ready for a CDR  conversion?
Normalization? How? 
Eq? How?
Hiss removing? which one?

Then, what software will you use to convert the 88.2Khz to 44.1Khz? (THIS IS IMPORTANT, depending on the software and the conversion quality you wont have the same sound from software to another one)
Now, What software will you use to convert the 24bits to 16bits?(SAME THING)
Will you apply a dither? Which one? (SAME THING)

Then you have your CDR.

There are numerous parameters that could change your sound from the hardware you will use (quality of the analog to digital conversion) to the software you will use (quality of the conversion programs, dither, etc...) and also the way you tape, and what you will apply to the sound.
And also (often missed), the cable quality is really really important.

And oh...Of course, you keep the transfered file as being an exact copy from the analog tape somewhere on a HD or a DVD-R.
The CDR is just the way to listen to the thing.

Hope this helps.

-undiu. 










  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: llrc057 
  To: peel@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 9:43 PM
  Subject: [peel] Equipment


  You don't need anything like the equipment I've got here Jimmy if you 
  just want to get good tape to pc transfers. Any decent cassette desk 
  (assuming your tape is cassette of course) should do. It's surprising 
  how good an old tape can sound on a crummy cassette deck after you've 
  cleaned the heads & played around with the azimuth head alignment 
  screw. A decent sound card capable of recording at 24 bit depth and 
  96 KHz resolution is a must. Say an audiophile 2496, their cheap now. 
  I use sound forge to record & mess with most of my audio. This will 
  run on just about any spec pc these days. Just remember if recording 
  at 2496 you will need 1.5G of hard drive space per side of a C90. So 
  big drive comes in handy. That should do you really. 
  Since you asked my front end recording hardware consists of a 
  Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck, and an E-MU 1616m analogue to digital 
  convertor. After this it goes downhill a bit. The pc I use is about 4 
  years old not fast but with plenty of hard drive space, and the 
  software as memtioned above is Sound Forge 9. 

  Oh and you'll need time. Lots and Lots of time. 

  Hope this helps.

  Regards
  Gary