putting music onto computer from tape

Subject: putting music onto computer from tape
From: SueH
Date: 03 Feb 99 - 07:19 PM

Does anyone know how to take a piece of taped music and put it onto computer. We have programs to convert from wav to midi etc, once it is on there.

I have found utilities to do a similar thing with CD tracks but nothing else. The PC will be running Win98 and has a microphone, sound card etc.

Thanks

SueH

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Musicman
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 02:11 AM

You could plug your tape deck into the line in on your sound card, then use Real Audio Encoder and make an RA file of it. That works great for analog music. I would imagine that there is a way for doing it with digital music (probably off a DAT tape, similar to CD transfers i would expect).

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 02:19 AM

The secret is in your sound card instuctions, Sue. Check and see what inputs and outputs you have - the one you're looking for is the line input. There was probably some sort of software package that came with the sound card that will control that input. Once you get it set up so that the cassette player will play over the speakers of yor computer like you do with CD's, recording will work just like it does for CD's.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 03:05 AM

Hi SueH,

Joe's advice, as usual, is very sound. Before you embark on this, howeber, do you have the impression that you can then convert this music to Midi, and (say) print out the music. That technology doesn't exist - yet!

Regards John

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 05:17 AM

G'day SueH,
If you do have a program which converts wave to midi reliably, let us know how to get hold of it. We all need it.

If you've been using a "ripper" program to extract CD tracks, you will find that recording from tapes or LPs is a bit different. Connect as per Joe's instructions and either use the recording software that came with the card, or a program like Cakewalk Audio or one of its many competitors or even the Windows sound recorder.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: SueH
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 05:23 AM

Hello all

Thanks for your advice. All I need to do to try it is to get the right size jack converter....

The audio we want to put on the computer is tape of our own sessions. I've replied to a thread on wav files and listed several shareware programs I found which perform various conversions, but I haven't found wav to MIDI yet.

Which raises the question - how do all these midi files we find on the Web get there? They can't all be off CD or put in via a MIDI keyboard...

SueH

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 05:45 AM

G'day,
I doubt if they're off CD, but a MIDI keyboard is easily the best way to create a MIDI. Look at all the MIDIs Alison has been creating lately. They take her a couple of minutes each. (I'm a lot slower but it's still the easiest way for me.)

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: AndyG
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 08:57 AM

I've recently been using Goldwave to convert taped recordings to digital (.WAV) format, as, beause it's an editor, you can do some useful "clean up" operations during and after conversion. A sharware version was available (?), I recommend it.
(However as I'm then converting .wav to real audio I've no knowledge of midi convertors.)

AndyG

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 11:26 AM

I've just downloaded some MP3 thingies - which allegedly will convert .wav files to the much less space-hungry MPEG files. Plus it gives a nice interface for the playback. SO - that means that I should be able to create a .wav file via a microphone into my soundcard, then convert said .wav file & store & playback & even send via email to my sister in Japan. The software is free-ware, and I gave it a quick test on my PC at work and it seems OK. The web site is :

http://www.soundbytes.dk/products.htm

Can't wait to get home....

Kris

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Frank McGrath
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 07:47 PM

I hate to be smug and I deplore unhelpful comments but this I cannot resist -
Trade your PC for a Mac

Sorry

Frank

(PS) Musicman and Joe have certainly given sound (pun intended) advice and you should not have too much difficulty.

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 09:21 PM

KingBrilliant,

Dowmloaded what appeared to be the best mp3 encoder, but it requires Win95. Aware of any 3.1 versions which encode?

Regards John

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Feb 99 - 11:05 PM

ah, John...! It is very slightly comforting to find someone else who is still in Win3.1....I can't help you with that one, but I have a LOT of win3.1 programs which make life easier, (some were buried in some quite deep holes.*grin*) I'll be glad to suggest places to look for any Win3.1/16 bit stuff you may need...(It has only been just over 3 years, for God's sake, and some of these place almost refuse to admit that 3.1 even exists...they make NO effort to label their stuff as Win9+ only....)

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 04:43 AM

tragically, that which I downloaded is fine on my work PC, but the playback part just hangs on my home PC. I just knew it was too good to be true. Any ideas anyone?

Kris

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 04:48 AM

Yeah, Frank, that's good advice - with a Mac, you use cassettes instead of those complicated disk drives, don't you???
I'm not in the mood to speak favorably of Macs. Apple announced today that they're going to farm out assembly of their popular new computers to some firm in Korea, and lay off a couple hundred workers here in Sacramento.
-Joe Offer, mad at Apple-

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 08:41 AM

G'day KingBrilliant,
I think Winamp is probably the best MP3 player (it also converts MP3 back to wav).

The encoder I use is the freeware program "Plugger". It behaves like a DOS program (OK by me) but it's a 32 bit program (sorry John - won't run under Win 3.1). If you're good with batch files Plugger can easily encode many wav files in one run. There's also a GUI shell available free (I think) which makes using it a lot easier but slows it down to about half speed.

I would avoid using Audioactive Production Studio (AAPS) for encoding unless you want to fork out over $300. I trialled the cheaper shareware version & nearly registered it but found that for maybe 10% of songs/tunes I could hear obvious differences between the mp3 and the wav files. The same wav files converted using Plugger had no such differences.

If you go to www.mp3.com you can track down Plugger and Winamp and download. Plugger is officially free, Winamp costs about $10 to register but is not crippled in any way.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 10:00 AM

Thanks Alan Have downloaded all three - ready to take home and try tonight... X-fingers.

Kris

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Frank McGrath
Date: 05 Feb 99 - 08:34 PM

Let us know how you get on KingBrilliant.

I have a friend with a PC and a zillion cassettes he made of sessions over the last 500 years. I'll get the job of cleaning them up and transferring them from zip disks to CD's but I couldn't face having to do all the work. It's a two year project for two people and there's no way I would do it on my own. So your findings could help me greatly and I hope you have found a very successful formula.

Joe - Apple this week announced many job losses in Apple Ireland also. But I can't be too mad at them. They are only reacting to market forces. To compete with Wintel they have to get the price right. If they get the price right they will survive and grow and hopefully they will recreate more jobs in the home markets as a result.

Anyway, best of luck to you KingBrilliant.

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Feb 99 - 10:40 AM

SueH-

The MIDIs get into the DT in a somewhat circuitous (and tedious) fashion. I enter them, using a program called SongWright, and then convert them to MIDIs. There's a reason I can't just take the MIDIs that Alison, Alan et al send in, and incorporate them directly: The downloadable version of the DT has a "follow the bouncing ball" feature that displays the words synchronized with the tune, and I don't know how to do this with MIDIs. I also take the liberty (and responsibility) for editing the timing errors that seem to be endemic in transmitted MIDI files. AND, I've had less-than-ideal results with programs that print scores from MIDI files: initial pick-ups tend to be lost. Since one of my objectives is to ultimately provide all the music in printable form, with lyrics attached, it looks like I'll be excercising my typing finger for some time to come.

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: gargoyle
Date: 06 Feb 99 - 11:36 PM

mr. greenhaus

For those of us with the intent of uploading MIDI melodies and lyrics....is there a set procedure...ie "cookbook approach" to preparing files (be it with SongWright etc) that would permit us to take some of the burden off of your sholders?

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 02:17 AM

Noteworthy Composer does a nice job of putting lyrics with they music and playing them in a "bouncing ball" fashion. Trouble is, Noteworthy has their own file type, not playable on other software. There is a free Noteworthy Player. Noteworthy can export MIDI files, but not with the lyrics.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Susan of DT
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 11:52 AM

Joe- and Noteworthy files are considerably bulkier than SongWright files, which becomes a consideration when you're dealing with 4000-plus files.

Gargoyle- SongWright, apparently, has gone out of business, and is unreachable by E-mail or phone. I can't give away copies of their software (for both legal and ethical reasons) without permission, and I can't reach them to request permission, so that avenue is closed, at least for the present. What we're now doing works, though. I can take MIDI, ABC or photocopies delivered through snailmail. I can also handle MusicEase and Noteworthy files, though I'm not sure how well they E-mail.

dick greenhaus

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 04:59 PM

Hey, Dick, do you know an easy way to hyphenate lyrics? When I paste lyrics into Noteworthy Composer, I have to enter the hyphens manually, and it gets tedious. Know of an easier way?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 10:28 PM

Dear Interested Readers,

I am in the process of putting together a beginner's guide to submitting tunes to Mudcat, which I will circulate before going to print. This is I guess a kind of cook-book that Gargoyle refers to.

With regard to the bouncing ball provided by Songwright, I would respectfully ask whether this facility is still required? I an hesitant to extrapolate my own experience, but as an avid and grateful user of the off-line database, I find that using ABCMUS1.1 to Import the Songwright files is very fast and flexible. I have never found the lack of synchronicity between tunes and lyrics to be a major problem, beyond (say) the second hearing of a new song.

Dick, my motivation here is to make life less complicated for you and the many others that we may encourage to submit and missing tunes.

Regards John

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 07 Feb 99 - 11:35 PM

Joe-Sorry, but I don't know a short-cut.

John- A great many people have told me that the bouncing ball is a valuable feature; I hate to even think of giving it up. With it, you can still use ABCMUS.

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 08 Feb 99 - 06:40 AM

Yaha!! I downloaded winamp & plugger & the plugger shell thingy, and it all works!!! So now I can record & store stuff on my hard disk - I'll get a CD writer when I've got some spare cash (some what?), and then I'll be really happy. I had a go at the weekend, recording my daughter's rendition of Tom Dooley (again!), and found I could edit out the long pause where she forgot which chord was next - so that was a very successful test. Now I just have to teach her something different.... just for variety you understand. And then maybe I will get a go.

Kris

Subject: RE: putting music onto computer from tape
From: SueH
Date: 04 Mar 99 - 07:32 AM

Thank you all very much for your input; I downloaded goldwave & found it marvellous; I'm now going to try converting the .wav files to MPEG to (hopefully) make them smaller.

Oh, & to Frank McGrath - this PC is the only one I use (for reasons of compatibility - ha!); our systems at work run under RiscOS - which I would have been very pleased about until a couple of months ago, when Acorn closed their desktop division.....

SueH