I have a box of about 90 cassette tapes, and I'm in the process of archiving them, and then later try to remaster them. After much research, it seems I have narrowed down to two choices:

1. Monkey Audio

2. Musepack

Before my research, I was going to just archive them using mp3 LAME at highest VBR setting and 192 bitrate minimum. I still think that's a pretty good setting and should capture cassette tapes just fine--it's in fact probably overkill.

Now, after my research, it seems that Musepack is a better lossy encoder, and I'm considering using it to archive my cassettes. However, I have a simple question:

Others have suggested that I only use lossless compression to archive the cassettes, especially that I'll be remastering them down the line. That's what lead to my other choice, Monkey Audio. HOWEVER, I hate the fact that I'm going to have to burn close to 10 DVDs to archive my cassettes.

So, the question is, if I just use MPC, would it be good enough to still allow me to do remastering work on the resulting files down the line? (Keep in mind that after I do the remastering, I'll be encoding them again in MPC.)

although tapes are not great quality to begin with, it is not ever a good idea to do post-processing from a lossy file.

Why not do it in batches? Record 5 or 10 cassettes to WAV, remaster, encode to MPC. If you rather want to save the unedited files first, i suggest doing a small test. Save a file to MA and MPC --quality 7, remaster both the same way, then encode the resulting files to MPC --quality 5. I would almost bet that you can't make out a difference between them (also because of the relatively bad source material). Normally you should edit only lossless copies, but in this case, the space-saving alternative might just be excusable.

There's nothing wrong with MPC, other than the issues that you'd run into with re-encoding any lossy codec. The major drawback would be if you wanted to put them on a portable player or something - you'd have to transcode them yet again to MP3 or Vorbis or WMA or something else your player supported.

I will reply indirectly. Just keep in mind that in professional studios, they work with @ least 24/96 data when they have to manipulate music/sound. When they are done, they down-convert to 16/44.1. Why? Because manipulating data directly @ 16/44.1 would technically lead to earable artifacts.

You can extrapolate from that to what you want to do with your tapes...

Radetz

People already told you in another thread that it is _generally_ a bad idea to use a lossy codec for files which need to be edited afterwards and then recompressed again. And that if you are FORCED to use a lossy codec for this task then use a hybrid-codec without the correction-file.

You already got all info you need to make a decision in another thread - if you don't like the facts then do whatever you want - but continuing to reask the same questions over and over won't change reality. Especially in this forum you will have a hard-time finding someone to propose you to intentionally do audio-editing with lossy sources and then afterwards reencode them to lossy again. Still you even got info on how to do it with the lowest possible damage - but don't expect people in a fact-based community to tell you that its a good thing and that the effects aren't severe.

Do you really want advice or someone who agrees with your already made up opinion? If its the latter, then clearly state that instead of wasting peoples time.

- Lyx

I seriously doubt one can hear artifacts of MPC q7 re-encoded to q5 on THAT kind of source. In extreme case the guy can go up to q10 and it still will be about ~200-230 kbps on average due to lack of high frequencies.
On the other hand, lossless files will not get much bigger neither.

You are probably right. Still, by principle, if you want to do post-processing, don't mingle with lossy.

Radetz.

tape -> lossy* -> noise print based denoising -> lossy*

expect the result to suck.

tape: constant hiss (more or less)
lossy*: hiss is no longer constant (masking). In fact lossy* encoders usually have trouble with noise like signals.
noise print based denoising: works only if hiss is constant

If quality is of any concern, then recording to lossy* limits you to
1.) overall volume changes (replaygain)
2.) cutting (if the format is cuttable)

* lossy as in psychoaccoustic lossy compression

I have already did a conversion like your.

The first thing I have discovered has been the lack of experience I had. Before learing which is the best way to do a correct noise filtering I have spent a lot of time. It is best if you encode in a lossy format for arkiving because the day you will lear you did too much denoising or something could have be done better, you have another chance of doing thing better without resampling.

5-10 DVD are nothing compared to the value of that tapes.

MPC is good for arkiving only when you already have a lot of experience in sound cleaning and conversions and you must not edit the file later.

A last question: Have you already a preferred tape sampling tool ?

Hecatombles

No offence, but I find your post to be completely contradictory. It looks like you wanted to say "It is best if you encode in a lossless format...."

hold up im lost. are u saying that ur gonna rip the cassette into LOSSY, then do that remaster thing, then re-encode to LOSSY again?