johnpaul215 Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 So I finally got around to digitizing some of my old cassettes. Things like demo tapes of bands I was friends with, live recordings etc. I hoped for the last 10-20 years that they would all get digitized from the DAT, but not all of them have, and I have come across a scary amount of DATs from the 90s that are unplayable. Anyway, I don't do any post, so I don't have any pro software for this. Pretty much the only thing I may do is cut up recordings, but even that is rare. I used to clean up recordings of interviews and bands when I was doing radio stuff, but I had access to a college radio production room with a rack full of gear, and everything was on cassettes and reels. I'm not trying to clean these up to be released, but to be a bit more listenable on my iPod. Any suggestions? I just got a decent Tascam 112B on Ebay for almost nothing, and recorded a few tapes into my Fusion, so I have the raw wave files. This is for personal use, so I'm not looking to drop a bunch of money on software. Is there something else I should look at beyond Audacity and the built-in EQ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nathaniel Robinson Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 Cockos Reaper! 2 licensing levels available ($225 full commercial, $60 small business). You can also download a fully functional demo for free. The ReaFIR plug-in has some basic noise reduction capabilities. I'm a huge fan of this software and use it daily for music tracking/mixing. http://www.reaper.fm/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juanignacio Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 John Paul, you have access to a DAT? I was going to call you about this for the same exact reason. I have a couple live shows and stereo mixes of friends bands in DAT that I want to digitize as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 Most important thing you can do to help those cassettes is clean and demag the deck before you try to play them, and tweak the alignment before you digitize. It's not hard and doesn't require special equipment. And it'll give you a major improvement in s/n and high-end response, something you can't replace with software. I used to include full instructions, with photos, in my audio post book. I took that section out in the latest edition because I was already running too many pages with new material. The good news is that I put the missing sections on the web: http://www.dplay.com/gotcha/06AnaTape.pdf -- BTW, I still have DAT decks in my rack if somebody needs digitizing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 If your transfers are for archives, I would do the very best transfer you can from the best cleanest deck you can get ahold of into the best AD convertors you have (prob your field recorder!) and then make multiple copies of the file, well named, with an index or database somewhere. Don't do noise reduction or anything now--once the material is digitised that can happen in the fullness of time. Doing that well takes some experience and specialized apps, and you'll want to keep the original anyhow. One secret: it's not about EQ very much. philp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Duffy Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 Audacity is reasonably good at cutting and splicing bits of audio around, and exporting them to MP3. It is however terrible for real time DSP processing such as EQ or Dynamics, both of which you need a little of to clean up a cassette recording. (Audacity doesn't let you change the EQ or Dynamics parameters while you are listening to the audio, everything is a batch process: guess, listen and repeat). If you're OK with investing a little more money, I'd recommend getting one of our USB interfaces, such as the US-122mkII (street price well under $100), which comes with Cubase LE4 - that will give you more than enough tool to tweak the sound, and is a gateway to a whole new world of audio fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karlw Posted December 20, 2012 Report Share Posted December 20, 2012 I just recently went through this. My sister in law sent me a box of cassettes (mostly her demos and some live shows with various bands). I started by setting up, cleaning and aligning my aging Sony 3-head deck. From there, I went through a Sound Devices USB Pre into Audacity. I maxed the levels before clipping while transferring, then did some basic cleanup, fades, and normalizing. Most of the cuts didn't need any help. But the few that did needed some mild EQ to sound best. I was pretty pleased with the results and now plan to mine my own archive of cassettes. Only problem? It takes a gawdawful amount of time!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 I use a Nakamichi DR-10 which gives amazing playback Straight through a DBX Quantum mastering processor onto an SD704T Then once in the digital domain I can tweak/denoise with Izotope or Magix mastering software Great fun, good ear testing but a great user of time!! mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old school Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 Real time sucks in a digital workflow world. CrewC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnpaul215 Posted December 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 John Paul, you have access to a DAT? I was going to call you about this for the same exact reason. I have a couple live shows and stereo mixes of friends bands in DAT that I want to digitize as well. Juan: yes I have a DAT deck that I need to pull out of storage. I think it was a high end home user model when Sony tried to sell them to non-pro users? Whatever it is, it worked last time I used it, and it played DATs that were unplayable in some much nicer decks. I actually got it from a buddy back in the 90s for a Palm Pilot, a burrito and maybe $100. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnpaul215 Posted December 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Most important thing you can do to help those cassettes is clean and demag the deck before you try to play them, and tweak the alignment before you digitize. It's not hard and doesn't require special equipment. And it'll give you a major improvement in s/n and high-end response, something you can't replace with software. I used to include full instructions, with photos, in my audio post book. I took that section out in the latest edition because I was already running too many pages with new material. The good news is that I put the missing sections on the web: http://www.dplay.com...a/06AnaTape.pdf -- BTW, I still have DAT decks in my rack if somebody needs digitizing. If your transfers are for archives, I would do the very best transfer you can from the best cleanest deck you can get ahold of into the best AD convertors you have (prob your field recorder!) and then make multiple copies of the file, well named, with an index or database somewhere. Don't do noise reduction or anything now--once the material is digitised that can happen in the fullness of time. Doing that well takes some experience and specialized apps, and you'll want to keep the original anyhow. One secret: it's not about EQ very much. philp Thanks! I learned all this sound stuff in college radio, so cleaning and demagnetizing cassette and cart decks were part of our routine maintenance (ahhh carts). I have to borrow a demagnetizer, but I did clean the deck before playing back one tape. I just put the Tascam 112B straight into my Fusion (I use a Mix12, so no analog mixer in my normal setup). Philip: It's really just for me to listen to, but I don't want to make a total mess. I'm sure once I put some time into it, the people will find their DATs and we can copy straight from them. A few of my studio friends have spent a lot of time trying to clean up old demos and live tapes to add them to reissues of old records, and I know they go a little insane working on it. Stuff that was never intended to be revived 20+ years later can be a lot of work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted December 22, 2012 Report Share Posted December 22, 2012 Don't forget to tweak the alignment (after you've cleaned and demagged). I don't think any two cassette decks on the planet were in exactly the same azimuth. If you're not aligned to the tape you're playing, you'll either lose HF in an all-mono situation or lose HF and get some flangy artifacts in stereo. I don't think any two cassette decks ran at the same speed, either... but you'll probably be within a percent or two, so at least the timbre will stay the same for most listeners. If you don't feel like borrowing a demagger, use a 100w soldering gun. Big transformer, does exactly the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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