Help: analog to digital music

Subject: analog to digital music
From: Ely
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 12:04 AM

My mom got a CD writer (??) for her birthday and my father is going on a technology binge; I know very little about computers and music but I told him I would try to help. They are hoping to save some of their out-of-production recordings before the originals wear out completely.

Does anybody have any information on converting analog music (tapes and records) to digital (CD's)? Is this possible? What kind of software does it take? We're completely new at this so any info, no matter how basic, would be helpful.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: The Crazy Bird
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 01:04 AM

It can be done.

Y' need a computer with a lot of hard disk. A fast processor and a lot of memory.

First you record the analog as a .wav to the hd, from there you can make your cd's.

Go to www.tucows.com, you should be able to find free- or share-ware there for what you want.

Lots of luck -- uh, start small, before you start recording them all.

Play around a bit with the burner also, to get familiar with what it can do.

Uhh, (just a joke) did your mom get the burner, or your dad, for (their) birthday?

rgrds CrzyBrd

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 04:26 AM

Hi,

I've recorded a few of my LP's to CD. I use my PC for doing home recording so I have a reasonably good sound card (ISIS guillimot) to do the A/D conversion, this gives to me acceptable signal to noise ratio and dynamic range. Of course it is entirely subjective but I think you may find that the soundcard in you PC (probably a soundblaster compatible) may not give acceptable performance - try it and see. As CrzyBrd advised for software try tucows or davecentral.

A couple of extra points regarding burning a CD's. You must use CDR's - CDRW will not work in an audio CD player at present - it may be possible in the future (I believe they do work in a DVD player though). Do not use your PC for anything else while burning CD's - go and make a cup of tea or something. In your CDROM settings turn off your CD autorun feature - this polls the CD and may cause data corruption. If when you listen to your CD you hear strange noises (pops and crackles) you may have the write speed to high - slow it down and try again. Prepare to make a few coffee mats before you get it right:)

Good Luck

Ian

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 05:33 AM

I read recently that recording live music via a PC can be flawed due to something along the lines of : the PC speakers are optimised in some way to compensate for PC limitations & therefore will tend to make things sound better than the recording you have made actually is. So when you get it right for your PC you then find that it sounds crap on any other system.
Is that true, or was it just because they were pushing alternative equipment?

Kris

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Grab
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 08:48 AM

Try a few initial recordings to see what your soundcard is like. Soundcards vary hugely in quality - the built-in one on my mobo is a real Hissing Sid but the ISA one I use instead is fine. Other ppl have experienced the exact opposite!

Plenty of free sound recording and editting packages - don't bother with the MS one unless you're really stuck. I use SoundForge and that's pretty good; a friend swears by Goldwave. There's always a few on magazine coverdisks.

Once you've got the sound recorded, it's a good idea to put it through a de-hiss filter if the recording is a bit crackly. All decent sound packages have filtering on them to do this, but it takes a fair bit of processing power, so expect to have to wait a bit on slower machines with less RAM.

Then just write it to CD. If you want an audio CD, it's best to write all the tracks at once, otherwise the CD can do strange things. If you're saving them on the CD as MP3 or WAV then it doesn't matter, just use the CD as a normal data CD. Every CD-writer comes with software to let you make audio and data CDs, so just follow the instructions.

On Win95 (the ones I've tried, at least), the CD-writer doesn't work properly above a 2x write - the hard disk simply can't transfer the data fast enough. Win98 (and maybe some Win95 drivers if you're lucky) lets you use DMA to transfer the data quicker, so 4x writes should be OK on that. As guest says, occasionally it does go pear-shaped, so don't worry about losing a few CDs, especially at higher write speeds.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Rana
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 09:50 AM

I'll echo the recording speed problems using win95 - 2x occassionally doesn't work, so now I just use 1x and go away for a few hours - no real big deal.

I'll plug the programme I use (again! - I have no commercial ties) - audiotools, shareware (about $30) but really being expanded and the author is always there, and improving it. URL is

http://www.unrelatedinventions.com/Audiotools/

As someone said, the other programs are also good, some are very fancy, so it's up to you.

Have fun!!!!

Rana

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Ely
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 12:06 PM

Thanks! We expect to have to upgrade some stuff but we at least wanted to start messing with it to figure it out.

Actually, although Dad is the one who can't wait to "play", Mom thought it was a great gift (most of the records are hers).

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,treaties1
Date: 02 Mar 01 - 06:44 PM

Great thread Ely. Thankyou everyone for the information. I'm not yet ready to use it but have printed the threads for future use.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Lane
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 01:25 AM

If I may take a small aside from the original question.... I, too, want to get audio from my analog recorder (fostex), into my computer and then a cd... but, while in the computer, I'd like to know how I can add some effetct... a little reverb maybe, clean up some background noise and hiss.... make my voice sound like Sinatra, you know.... so, without spending a fortune.. is there software that will do some simple effects touch up before I burn it to CD?

Thanks!

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,AEL
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 03:00 AM

Do a search at http://www.homerecording.com

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Dita (at work)
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 08:49 PM

I've just got gear to perform the same exercise. I didn't go for a computer based system but upgraded my audio system. The records are recorded analog onto minidisc, and can be edited at this stage, (You can make your own compilation, get rid of that track you always hated etc). You can then make optical digital recordings on to a recordable CD player using CDR(audio).
Not a cheep option, but worth the investment, the results are great.
love, john.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 09:12 PM

I asked Jim Russell (inventor of the CD) about doing it one time, and he said buy a good sound card with the fast A-to-D converter already set up to work. Anything short of that was completely impractical.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Mar 01 - 10:12 PM

I had nothing but trouble with the CD burner that came with my Compaq computer. Finally, my computer locked up while I was burning a CD, and I couldn't get the bad CD to eject. Compaq sent out a guy to install a new drive. He scratched my desk when he opened the computer, and then dropped the new drive on my desk. The new drive had the same problems the old one did, but I learned that I could eject bad CD's during the bootup process by repeatedly pressing the "eject" button during bootup. I learned that I can sole many CD burner problems by right-clicking on "My Computer" and choosing "properties" and then selecting the "device manager" tab. I delete the CD-ROM drives from the device manager, and then reboot. Windows then installs new copies of the CD-R drivers, and everything works well for a while.
So, the main thing I learned was not to trust Compaq technical support. I also learned that Easy CD Creator 4 is worth the money.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Bernard
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 02:35 PM

Any PC being used for CD burning must run at its optimum efficiency.

Make sure the ScreenSaver is disabled, and disable all the energy savers.

Disable things like RealPlayer and WinAmp, uninstalling them if necessary.

If the achine has a modem, make sure it isn't set to dial up by itself!

Anything that can disrupt the CD writer will do, so get rid of them all!

I don't have any problems burning CD's, and I use the cheapest blanks I can get. But the PC is dedicated to CD writing, and is used for nothing else.

It's not a blisteringly fast machine - a Cyrix P200+ with 32Mb RAM, and the writer is IDE (not SCSI).

I believe in the KISS technique - Keep It Simple, Stupid!!

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 03:17 PM

Ok Folks, I realize this may sound like a really simple question with an equally simple answer but the last time I hooked up my PC to my stereo for recording purposes, I fried my sound card beyond recognition. Luckly, my superior intellect quickly realised that I had made an equally superior mistake.

Question: How do I correctly hardwire my SB64awe to my stereo without having to break out the fire extinguisher?

Thanx In Advance, Pete.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Justa Picker
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 05:33 PM

Pete, (I had the same card). The Awe64 has stereo RCA speaker outputs. You buy a pair of RCA stereo cables (all male ends). One end hooks into your speaker outputs on the AWE, the other end can go into any stereo input on your received (ie: TAPE 1 or TAPE 2 or CD, etc.)

This should be very straight ahead. Keep the volume on your receiver rolled right off, when you first turn it on. You can also go into the Control Panel/Multimedia to set the correct levels on the sound card. Also, visit Creative's website and download the latest drivers for your sound card. Usually the website has more current drivers than what you sound card will ship with. Make sure as well you have the latest version of Direct X (currently 8.0) from Microsoft.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 06:13 PM

Thanx Justa Picker I'm looking to go out of my stereo and into my PC. I would like use my PC as the recording device. I should have made this point clearer, earlier. ....My bad. Thanx, just the same Pete

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 06:20 PM

Pete, when I have done that with my stereo, I have gone from headphones out to line in on the soundcard (AWE32). I don't know much about these things but I would guess if you have some line out output on your stereo, that would be safer. If you using my method or perhaps worse still using a speaker output from the stereo, be extremely careful with your volume levels - start with zero - or I think you would easily end up frying another card.

Jon

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 04 Mar 01 - 06:47 PM

Thanx Jon The "headphones jack" sounds like a good place to start, just as soon as I'm done feeling a little gun shy.

The first time I tried this, I used the "Line in - Line out" because someone told me that it was a neutral signal passage way (meaning there was no volume up or down...just signal...whatever that means)

On the other hand, if I fry this card, I'll just have to go and get that pretty "Platinum SB" card that I've been looking at.

Thanx Again, Pete.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: David Coffin
Date: 05 Mar 01 - 05:55 PM

I have to agree with the mini disc plan. I made a bunch of cds for my little girls' preschool teachers because their stereo fried. I went to mini disc, then created tracks so the burner would recognize them and just let it go to town. I was tempted to record the vinyl to the adat and then add some riduclous tracks of my own before burning it to cd but decided against it. As a general rule I stay away from the computer when it comes to recording. I just don't trust them for music. David.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Grab
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 08:50 AM

Lane, Goldwave and Soundforge both have filters on them to do stuff like that. Most sound editting packages do.

Grab.

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: artbrooks
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 09:08 PM

I asked about the same question several weeks ago (and I appreciate the responders, some of whom I see above). One of the responses led me here: http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/faq03.html which has a lot of good information (some very techie).

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 06 Mar 01 - 09:42 PM

Art, Thanks for reposting that link. There is, indeed, a great deal of good information there. As a convenience to others, I have turned your URL into an active link (i.e., blue clicky or "blicky") pointing to Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ by typing:

<a href="http://www.cdrfaq.org/">Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ</a>

right in the middle of a sentance. You probably know how this works but I thought it might be worth repeating in case there are folks who don't.

Cheers,

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Help: analog to digital music
From: Lane
Date: 07 Mar 01 - 07:01 PM

Grab, Thanks for the info... are Goldwave and Soundforge downloadable somewhere?

Lane