Hello All_
I have some very old tapes . this tapes has only voice recorded on it ,it is belong to my grandpa ,he record on it story of his life and some great usefull info. .
now i want to digitize them , i want to convert it to digital and save them on CD's.

1) what is appropirate hardware (sound card,cassette,cables)
2)what software i have to use (i need software to capture the voice as it is included the backgroud voices and any jumbling)
3)is there is any issues or suggestions i have to take care while i capture this tapes like volume or equalizer

nb: i'm from egypt so i will not be able to buy any hardware from internet but there is radioshack near me so i can buy any thing from it ,and of course there is a lot of hardware in the market but not all brands and not all models ...

nb:i'm IT professional but i'm beginner in sound and audio and capturing.

thanks

First, obviously, you need a tape player that works for your source material (cassette or open reel?). This player has to have a line level output (a headphone output can work but will not be optimum). This output has to be connected, via interconnect, to the line level input of a soundcard so it can be recorded onto the computer hard drive.

You will get better results if the tape path is clean, the metal parts demagnitized, and the playback head aligned.

Unless these recordings are very old, the appropriate tape player will include the necessary playback equalization. It should be exactly the same as was used to record. If the tapes are old enough, you may need specialized help in finding an appropriate player and finding out how to EQ them.

If you have a computer soundcard, and this is a one time project rather than just the first of many, that soundcard will probably give adequate results. If you don't already have one, it would be best to first find out what is available, then consider the various qualities of those realistic candidates.

Many, if not most, tape deck line outs have no output level control. If the output is too high for your soundcard's input, you need something, such as a mixer, in between tape player and soundcard to control the level. However, it is more likely that the tape deck output is at a lower level than optimum. If your highest peaks are much below about -12dBfs, you will probably get better results using a mixer or preamp to amplify the signal a little before feeding it to the soundcard. As long as things are not too too extreme, you can probably get acceptable results with a lower than optimum input level.

Cables are not critical as long as they have the proper connectors at each end to fit the tape output and the soundcard input, and they are in good condition.

Almost any recording program will let you capture the material. The freeware program Audacity will allow you to record and has various functions to improve the recording once it is on the computer. There are other programs with more powerful features, generally at a higher price.

how do you go about making sure about that..?

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Tape head demagnetizers are probably still easy enough to buy. They come with instructions. Apply to the tape heads and the rest of the metal parts in the tape path.

There is a screw through the tape head mounting plate that, when turned, will change the playback head's azimuth. Of course on the many two head decks it effects both record and playback heads since they are in one package. This screw is adjusted while listening to the tape of interest. Adjust in small increments until you have the best signal.

This is important becasue alignment often varies significantly from tape machine to tape machine. Especially if the tapes were recorded on a different machine than the one used for playback, the playback head gaps will quite often not be well aligned with the actual recorded portion of any particular tape.

There is a trade off in doing this if you expect to later use the deck for recording, at least for two head decks. Adjusting to get the most out of an existing tape may well put the heads well out of optimum range for standard recording. It is therefore best if this can be done on a deck that is only thereafter intended for playback.

There are standard alignment tapes that can be used to realign the heads so they are ready for recording onto blank cassettes. These were always quite expensive and are probably more so in these days of relatively little tape usage.

Assuming you start with a well aligned deck, I've seen instructions somewhere on the web for making your own (probably more or less adequate) alignment tape, but I didn't have the interest to pay much attention. For aligning the playback head to standard, I would guess you record a pure tone (or maybe a combination of several) onto a good cassette, then later use that to align playback to standard, just like when matching any other pre-recorded tape, as above.

thanks for this great info. , i have creative audiopci(ES1370) sound card .is it good enough ?
i have aiwa cassette player with phones output (not line output), is it egough or i have to buy another one ? any recommandation models ?

what is that mean?


what is tape path?

??? you reply to this but i don't understand anything ? do i have to be ware and understand this things(or just i can capture the tapes as easy as i play it)


i'm afraid that the tapes is old enough ... wher or how i get specialized help ? by the way the tapes was recorded with cassette with no EQ , i have this cassette it is so old and have no options , it just play and record tapes (unfortunetly it is not working)


what is that mean? (i want to capture it as it is with out any refineing in the sound or removing jumbling or noise)

thanks for help

thanks for the detailed info, AndyH-ha. :)
was very helpful.

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soundcard The soundcard you have is not particularly high quality but it is probably adequate. If you were going to do a lot of audio projects I would recommend a better card, but for a one time project you can probably get by with what you have.

You can easily decide if the soundcard is good enough. First you have to get to the place where you can play tapes and record to computer. Record a minute or three. Listen to what you have recorded onto the computer. It should sound just like it does from the tape player, not different, not better, not worse. The recording process should not change anything. If it does, either you are doing something wrong or the soundcard really is too poor to be satisfactory.

A condition upon that test is how you listen to the original tape and the computer recording of it. If, for instance, you listen to the tape player with headphones and the computer recording with ordinary computer speakers, things will almost certainly sound significantly different. You need to monitor both in the same manner with the same transducers.

You are going to have to learn a bit about digital audio and using some audio software to get really satisfactory results, however. On of those things to be learned has to do with sample rate conversion. With this not so remarkable soundcard you will get the best results recording at 48kHz. For CD you will need to convert the recording to 44.1kHz. This is fairly easy and you don't need to worry about converting until you are almost ready for the write to CD step, you just need to do the recording step correctly.

tape player If this Aiwa player is a portable cassette player designed for headphone listening, you are not likely to get the full potential of your tapes from it. Still, if you record from the headphone output into the line in of the soundcard, and you are satisfied with what you hear from the computer, then you have your answer.

A decent quality tape deck, one that plugs into the mains power and has real line out jacks, is almost certainly going to do better, but you have to balance cost against the results you will accept. Once you have a computer recording that sounds -- to you -- like it is reasonably acceptable, improvements will be smaller and smaller for more and more money spent.

tape heads The requirements for recording onto tape and playback from tape are different from each other. The best taped decks have completely separate heads for those two tasks. The majority of tape decks, however, have the record and playback heads incorporated into one single package. In addition, there is always a separate ‘head' to erase. Thus the majority of tape decks are ‘two head' -- an erase head and a record/playback head. The better ones are three head. On these you can adjust, replace, remove, the playback and recording heads separately and independently.

If my guess above about your Aiwa tape machine is correct, it probably doesn't have any erase head or record head, it is just intended to play cassettes. Essentially all HiFi cassette decks allow both recoding and playback so they are as described in the previous paragraph.

tape path The tape path is the route the tape travels in the tape player between the supply reel and the take-up reel. For cassettes, both supply and take-up are in the same shell, of course. In the center of the tape path is the tape head(s). Beyond that, towards the take-up reel in the capstan, that shiny rotating rod, and the pinch roller, the rubber wheel that presses the tape against the capstan. Reversing tape players, and better quality one way decks, have capstan and pinch rollers on the supply side of the heads too.

cleaning and demagnetizing The tape rubs against all these parts of the tape path as it is recorded or played. Oxide and binder particles, and various kinds of dirt, will accumulate on these parts. If they are not kept clean they don't work as well, they wear out sooner, and they tend to gum up, stick to the tape, and induce the machine to ‘eat' the tape.

Also, because some of these parts are metal and the tape is covered with magnetic particles, over time the metal in the tape path becomes magnetized. These magnetic fields add noise to your tapes and destroy part of the signal previously recorded on the tape, especially the higher frequencies. Therefore occasional demagnetizing is part of normal maintenance.

Alignment There are either two or four tracks of data on the tape. Older mono only machines recorded only two tracks, all stereo recorders create four tracks. Since these tracks are just an alignment of the magnetic particles in the tape coating, you can't see them, but you can imagine narrow lines being drawn along the tape surface as the recording is written to it.

Ideally these lines are perfectly straight and perfectly parallel to the sides of the tape. They are significantly narrower than the tape itself and are at particular standard distances from the edges. These ‘lines' of recording are created by narrow openings in the recording heads where a magnetic field, controlled by the signal you are recording, reaches out from the recording head to the tape.

For playback, there are similar, but different, openings that are able to detect the magnetic signal previously recorded onto the tape. If these playback openings are not perfectly aligned with the recorded ‘lines,' the machine cannot capture all the information from the tape.

Ideally the record and playback heads are always in the specified standard alignment relative to the tape path. Very often, however, this is not the case. Factory alignment is often less that optimum, especially on less expensive tape machines. Alignment is changed by bumps, vibration, temperature changes, and wear.

In general, unless alignment was controlled at record time, the recorded ‘lines' on the tape are not exactly where they are "supposed" to be. Added to that difficulty is the fact that the machine on which the tape is play will most likely have a different misalignment than the recording machine. The best possible playback from the tape, thus the best recording into your computer, can only be done by adjusting the playback head alignment to fit the particular tape you are currently recording. Some professionals will adjust it for every song on some tape albums.

Now as to whether or not you need to do alignment, we are again at a value judgment. When you play the tape, are you satisfied with what you hear? It is highly probable that without alignment you will not be getting the best it is possible to get, but if you get playback that satisfies you, then it does. If it doesn't satisfy you, maybe you can improve it, maybe the tape is just too poor to ever be what you really want.

specialized help I gather that your tapes are cassettes, not open reel, yes? If so, you may not have to worry. I'm not certain, but it is quite possible that record/playback bias and equalization were standardized and built in by the time cassette recorders reached the consumer market. If you can play the tapes and they sound reasonable (aside from extraneous stuff like hum and noise), you don't need to worry about that aspect.

There was more variation with older open reel recording. You would have to find someone with a functioning player that will work with the particular open reel tapes you have. There are a number of professionals who do that sort of thing. I have some references in France and Spain that might be useful, but let's not worry about that before we know if it is relevant. (another possibility, requiring more money but less personal effort, is to utilize one of these professional services to do all the work for you)

output level control Much like ‘volume control.' Just as when listening you need the level to be reasonable -- too soft and you can't hear or understand very well, too loud and it hurts your ears -- the soundcard needs a proper and reasonable input signal level. Line level outputs are manufactured to some particular standard but unfortunately not all to the same standard. Most line outputs are not variable; there is no level or volume control such as may exist for the headphone jack.

If no adjustment is possible on the tape player, it may be necessary to make an adjustment between the tape player and the soundcard. You may need to increase the signal level so the soundcard receives enough signal to make a good recording, or you may need to decrease the level so the soundcard is not overloaded.

The VU meters of the recording program will tell you what level of signal you are getting into the computer. Download the shareware program WaveRepair
http://www.delback.co.uk/wavrep/
It is freeware if only used for recording. It has large, easy to read VU meters. Experiment a little and see what levels you get before worrying if you need to change the level with additional equipment.

I'm no expert (not even a knowledgable enthusiast) on this subject but I have done a lot of cassette to digital restoring and can offer a few extra observations.

1) With old cassette tapes often the tape doesn't wind onto the spools evenly, the springy pad thing under the tape often deteriorates over time and heat/storage can cause the tape shell to become warped. I've even had tapes with mould growing on the spools To get a good recording its best to have the tape in as good a condition as possible. I've successfully used a cotton bud dipped in video tape cleaner, pressed against the cassette tape and run on fast forward/rewind a few times to clean off mould and oxides without stretching or damaging the tape. Also it can be worthwhile getting a brand new high quality blank tape that is held together with screws, dismantle it and carefully transfer the tape out of an old cassette into the new shell. This can help keep the tape alignment consistant on the spools (so it stays in the same place as its passing the playback head) and the springy pad will be able to hold the tape firmly against the playback head too.

2) Keep a copy of your unprocessed recordings! Personally I like to record at a high resolution (usually 24bit/48kHz) for processing with better accuracy, then converting down to 16bit/44.1kHz. I know a lot of people will object to that method but thats fine, to my ears I like the results I get. Anyway, everytime I record a tape I immediately make a copy of the recording and back it up (I use flac to compress the file without losing sound quality). Then you can work on cleaning up with a copy, you will end up making some mistakes and trying different methods and this way you don't have to re-record the tape each time. Plus in a year or two when you are more experienced you will probably be able to improve your cleanup results, so again you can just use the backups of the original recordings instead of having to re-record again.


Good luck with it, I've learnt a lot from the great people on this forum and still have so much more to learn

Azimuth adjustment - head alignment - is absolutely essential. I bought an older Sony 3-head deck just for putting tapes on my hard drive. When you adjust the azimuth, listne through headphones, and listen to the high end. When the high end sounds best and full, then that's it. It's not a subtle difference - you'll really hear it. Do it for every tape, and demagnetize in between. When you demagnetize, don't forget to turn your volume OFF or you can damage your speakers.

Also, make sure you have a decent soundcard that takes analog in.

I have no enough words to thanks you for your great info. , thanks AndyH-ha.
And really if you are here in egypt i will not hesitate to give this job to you and bay what ever you want , but i think i have to do this sensitive and Valuable job my self.

thanks to you all ... this forum is really good .

The early experiences can be very frustrating and confusing, perhaps much like picking up a musical instrument for the first time and trying to make something other than awful noises with it. You will most likely have to go through a lot of trial and error in order to really understand what works and what doesn't. Eventually, if you become interested enough, you will gain much insight and be able to come much closer to what you really want.