Need tech help

Subject: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 07:57 PM

The place where I work has close to 600 reel to reel tapes and that many cassettes that we will be converting to digital recordings. These are live recordings of primarily tradtional music. There is some debate about whether they should be saved on hard drives, CDs, or DVDs. They will be kept in an archive for use of the public, researchers, or whoever may be inclined. Some thought is being given to making the music archive available over the internet. I am interested in any thoughts the technically inclined may have about this preservation project and any suggestions. One specific question to start is; in the initial recording from analog to digital can the sound waves be converted in the computer by means of software or must the sound pass through a DAT recorder? If it can be converted by software, which software is best? Also is there database software that is best suited to cataloging music information?

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: bflat
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:05 PM

Can I jump in here? Since this thread is likely to be answered by the more computer lilerati, any suggestions on how to pack up the PC for a physical move over the river and through the woods?

Arkie, I hope you don't mind too much my interlopper behavior.

bflat

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:06 PM

You can feed analog out from reel-to-reel directly into a computer and the on-board DAC chips will convert to digital. I recommend that you choose the strategy of storing them 625 MB at a time on the computer and writing these to master CDs using the best quality CD-burner and CD SW you can find. Or possibly DVDs. But not just stored on hard disks. Reason being that unlike CDs, HD storage is magnetic only, while CD storage of bits is based on laser penetration of layers, or burned into a surface; either way, much less vulnerable to random gamma rays and passing cellphones. From the masters thus made you can assemble production sets of any combination of individual filesyou want to produce, including sets for keeping on-line using a RAID array of CD readers.

Just my $.02.

A

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:14 PM

Interlopping is a highly technical term used to describe those who jump in to the middle of a thread and cut it off short.

bbc, the simplest thing is to shut it down, disconnect all cords, put it in a plastic bag the middle of a larger box with lots of styrofoam wedged firmly below it, above it and on all sides of it, tape it firmly shut, and send it on over. I recently sent a CPU box that way via UPS. It was on the road for two solid weeks due to being misrtouted -- it came to San Diego three times and back to Chad, illinois, twice, before finding its way to the East COast. Sheesh. On arrival it fired up as thought it had merely been sleeping.

A

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: bflat
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:26 PM

I had my lopping shears in hand, Amos. What can I say? I laughed at myself for once again not proof reading. But, then I think bbc got blamed and not I.

Jane Alexander.

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:34 PM

Amos, thanks. Do you think it best to save the music to the hard drive, or can one write the CD directly as the sound feeds into the computer?

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Joerg
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:39 PM

Arkie -

The first thing every sound fed into your sound card is converted to is a WAV file (german thinking sounds funny in english, eh?). So - yes it is possible to do that conversion by software. It is what will be done without further effort.

BUT-T--TT---TTT! Sound cards are built into PCs and PCs are designed to cope with digital data not with analog sound. That means you can often hear the data being processed in that sound you record - clicking of your hard drive, noise form - yes - the sheer bits hurrying through your computer. Let me tell you: Electromagnetic interference that can not cause a transition from zero to 5 volts within some nanoseconds is not considered critical inside of a computer. But when it comes to analog recording we have to talk about millivolts and milliseconds.

So if you want some real quality I would indeed recommend to consider recording with a DAT recorder first. They also incorporate digital electronics but much more care is taken to keep its noise away from the analog part than is within a computer. At least I hope so.

And I also hope that helps a little.

Joerg

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 08:52 PM

Joerg's point may be right-on. I use a Mac and haven't had the problem but there may be a level of noise on my results I don't care about. I'd get professional opinions based on the balance between your budget and your requirements.

No you can't usually stream straight from audio in to digital to CD; the reason is that CD writing equipment works at a fairly high speed and it can get hosed up if the timing of the incoming stream is out of synch. If instead you have a segment of your hard drive set aside for the 650 Megs of .aiff, .wav, .mp3 or simiular files to reside then the tranfer rate is constant and predictably in synch with the CD writer. This may change with advances in technology or more specialized equipment.

Another option, again depending on budget vs. requirmeents, is to contract the work to a fully equipped studio.

A

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Joerg
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 10:20 PM

Oh - sorry. I think I misunderstood the question.

Simply: You plug some sound source into your computer's sound card (on the rear). Then you start some software to record from that input plug (you won't be able to avoid any of these steps without a DAT recorder). The sound (waves) is digitalized (digitized?) by means of hardware on the sound card. ANY sound - also what is only created by electromagnetic interference.

Any recording software I know will first try to write that incoming digital sound to a so-called WAV-file first. That's some very common format for encoding. Also any software you start afterwards in order to write that sound to a CD will first ask for a WAV file as a source. So - this conversion to and from WAV files was what I meant when I said "without further effort". Of course I also don't know any means to create a CD from sound fed into the sound card 'on the fly'.

One should also mind that every song takes about ten megabytes of disk space for the WAV file, and the computer should at least be some Pentium version for speed. I am also quite satisfied with the quality of the sound I am recording, but - yes - I can hear my computer working and that may be prohibitive for professional purposes.

Joerg

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 00 - 10:29 PM

Get an IMAC. hey don't eve have a fan in 'em and they have a long tradtiion of satisfying sound professionals.

A

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: richardw
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 12:11 PM

Amos;

A couple of basic questions for you, as I too am a Mac user. I have about 100 hours of reel to reel analog tapes of my Dad and various radio programs and live taping. I have a Studer 2 track reel to reel that I am using to edit them. Then I want to transfer some of them to CD, likely using my Mac.

I have a 250 Zip drive for backup. As I have not input to the computer before I just thought I would check with you to see if there is anything I should be ware of. I can go through my miser so I wouod have RCA or 1/4inch output from the mixer.I do not have the CD burner yet. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

Richard

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 01:02 PM

Recommendations

1. for software - NERO - Burning ROM

(Easy CD messes up too easily) 2. save to HD - then burn 3. use a PC for everything (cheaper, more programs, can be tweaked in all dimensions)

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: Kerstin
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 02:40 PM

Hi GUEST,gargoyle I have been in Poenix on my way to Grand Canyon. It was very exiting and beautiful It was just a week ago since I heard that song, All Gods Children from a tape with a Scottish Band. I do´nt know anything about it. Under the tape-title there is a name Bill Staines. Hope you vill find more that I did. Greetings to you in the heat from me in a rainy Sweden Carpe Diem Kerstin

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 09:05 PM

Going from tape to digital requires a analog-digital converter. These can be outboard gizmos, they are built in to sound cards (quality varies) and they are included in a very nice device made by the Alesis company called a masterlink. With the masterlink, you can feed your line out from the recorder into the machine, which records it on an internal hard drive. From there, you can cut the audio into separate tracks, adjust volume levels, crop, fade, and add limiting (very useful) eq, and compression.

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 03 Nov 01 - 09:08 PM

Oh, one more thing. After you are satisfied with the sound of your audio on the hard drive of the masterlink, you can burn your cd in the same unit with a press of a button. Very cool.

Subject: RE: Need tech help
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Nov 01 - 08:49 PM


I can't contribute to the mechanics of getting things onto CDs and such, but the discussion in another thread HERE did touch on some generalities related to archiving.

Might be of interest?

John