Copying cassette tapes to PC - volume, quality etc.

BrianD3

I have copied a cassette recording (a concert recorded off the radio years ago) to my PC and saved it as a .wma file using Windows Sound Recorder - however I'm not happy with the quality (hissing and harsh sounds) and looking for tips to improve it as I don't know what I'm doing.

To see if it was my PC speakers causing the poor quality I burned a CD of the .wma file and played it on a hi fi - however it was no better - and worse than the tape that had been used to produce it.

Here is what I did:
My tape player is a Sony MHC 550 mini hi fi
I connected the headphone socket to the line in of my PC using a 3.5 mm stereo cable
Set the volume of the Sony to about one quarter
Set the equalisers of the Sony to 0
The sound settings of the line in are in the below screenshots
Recorded to a .wma file

Anyone got any tips or ideas on how to improve things? Thanks!

mordeith

BrianD3 wrote: »

I have copied a cassette recording (a concert recorded off the radio years ago) to my PC and saved it as a .wma file using Windows Sound Recorder - however I'm not happy with the quality (hissing and harsh sounds) and looking for tips to improve it as I don't know what I'm doing.

To see if it was my PC speakers causing the poor quality I burned a CD of the .wma file and played it on a hi fi - however it was no better - and worse than the tape that had been used to produce it.

Here is what I did:
My tape player is a Sony MHC 550 mini hi fi
I connected the headphone socket to the line in of my PC using a 3.5 mm stereo cable
Set the volume of the Sony to about one quarter
Set the equalisers of the Sony to 0
The sound settings of the line in are in the below screenshots
Recorded to a .wma file

Anyone got any tips or ideas on how to improve things? Thanks!

Firstly download Audacity (free) and use that to record your tape. Save resulting file as a .wav
Audacity has a noise cancellation feature. You sample a silent section of the recording which will still have the tape hiss and the software removes that noise from the rest of the recording. There are various options to play around with. You don't want to be too aggressive as it distorts the volume.
After that you can use Audacity's eq tool to bring up the middle and high frequencies (usually poor on a tape recording)

beauf

I don't think you can improve the quality. While you might remove the hiss and noise, I've always found it to reduce the quality, especially the higher/lower frequence. Its sounds like its been compressed. Perhaps you won't notice it. I also found that old tapes and tape decks generally have degraded over the years. Which in my case changed the pitch of the music.

I tried doing my old cassette collection, using HiMD lossless and even a decent separates cassette deck. The quality wasn't there. In the end I only kept the few I couldn't get elsewhere. With older stuff you can generally get cheap "greatest hits" CD's often of concerts and the sound quality is vastly more enjoyable. That said if it your own recording, it may have memories associated with it. Nothing sounds the same regardless of the quality. Sometimes I think I preferred the cassette version of some of my favourites.

BrianD3

Thanks for the replies, I will try Audacity, removing noise and saving as a .wav. I had heard of Audacity before but didn't realise it was a free program. I won't expect too much in any case.

One other detail that may give some clues - when I plug the hi fi into the PC line in and listen to the tape through my computer speakers without recording, I get the same sound quality issues that I get when I record as a .wma. So I don't think the compression on my recording (done using Sound Recorder without noise reduction or any other processing) is the issue. It makes me think that experimenting with the volume of the hi fi and with the soundcard line in settings might help.

PS the cable that I'm using to connect the hi fi to the PC is cheap and about a metre long, I don't know if that would cause a significant issue (I doubt it would)

One other question:

After that you can use Audacity's eq tool to bring up the middle and high frequencies (usually poor on a tape recording)

Would using the equaliser on the Hi fi also help (rather than setting everything to 0 like I did)

Thanks!

beauf

I assume (open to correction) What cleaning up does is delete the noisy bit and fill in the gap with an approximation of what was there before. So it removes the noise, but what comes out the end might be different. If there only a little noise removed, you might not notice the difference. If its a lot removed it may sound different enough to notice.

For me it tended to make things duller, less zing and kinda make the sound smaller. By how much varied from track to track. In the end I just left mine as is. I converted mine to HQ MP3 which was only going to make it worse anyway.

There was always noise on cassettes.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=55447
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Recording_from_Cassette
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jul94/cassettecare.html

mordeith

beauf wrote: »

I assume (open to correction) What cleaning up does is delete the noisy bit and fill in the gap with an approximation of what was there before. So it removes the noise, but what comes out the end might be different

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=55447
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Recording_from_Cassette
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jul94/cassettecare.html

It certainly can make the recording duller which is why you can adjust the level of noise reduction. You will always have some noise left. EQ afterwards can help brighten the recording again.

OP: The cable won't make any difference as long as it's not damaged or anything. I'd leave the hifi eq on neutral. Recording volume is more important. When recording in Audacity you can see the input level as it records so you can try a short sample to make sure there's no clipping (volume too high)

ZENER

I think the first problem you have is that you're using the headphone output of the tape deck. The impeadence matching will be completely wrong and the response way off the mark. I'm assuming the tape sounds ok with headphones plugged into the Sony ?

Does the unit have a line output of any sort ? What's the make/model ?

Ken

The Black Oil

As it happens, I'm trying to convert a tape cassette as well, but I can't seem to configure Audacity's preferences correctly to get a result...

mordeith

The Black Oil wrote: »

As it happens, I'm trying to convert a tape cassette as well, but I can't seem to configure Audacity's preferences correctly to get a result...

What exactly is going wrong?

BrianD3

Tried this again this evening using Audacity with noticably better results. I think the initial bad result was due to the volume on the hi fi being a bit too high and/or the surround sound button being on. PS I didn't use the noise cancellation function in Audacity as it didn't seem necessary.

Thanks!

The Black Oil

mordeith wrote: »

What exactly is going wrong?

There's definitely audio on the tape, but Audacity doesn't seem to be pulling it in, at all. It must be that I've not selected the recording or playback preferences correctly. USB Audio Device is the playback and recording Built-in Input. It's probably something obvious...:o

BrianD3

There's definitely audio on the tape, but Audacity doesn't seem to be pulling it in, at all. It must be that I've not selected the recording or playback preferences correctly. USB Audio Device is the playback and recording Built-in Input. It's probably something obvious..

Have you pressed record (red button) in Audacity - it won't "pull in" audio until you do that.

Apologies if a stupidly obvious suggestion

The Black Oil

Yep, no waves bopping up and down in response to the audio content.

BrianD3

Does Sound Recorder work? If it does but Audacity doesn't then it would seem to be the Audacity settings.

Whereas if neither work then it could be an issue with your soundcard, line in etc. configuration

Audacity worked for me immediately, I didn't have to play around with any settings. See screenshot below for it recording. I don't know what "MME" is.

When you plug your tape deck into your PC, does the tape play through your PCs speakers?

mordeith

The Black Oil wrote: »

Yep, no waves bopping up and down in response to the audio content.

You said playback was USB audio. Have you an external soundcard? What other options are available in the record dropdown menu?

The Black Oil

Recording device is Primary Sound Capture Driver or Microphone Array (USB Audio Device)

Playback is:
Primary Sound Capture Driver
Speakers (USB Audio Device)
Realtek Digital Output
Speakers Realtek High Definition Audio
1 - 22EA53 AMD High Definition Audio

No yellow warning signs on these in Device Manager.

mordeith

The Black Oil wrote: »

Recording device is Primary Sound Capture Driver or Microphone Array (USB Audio Device)

Playback is:
Primary Sound Capture Driver
Speakers (USB Audio Device)
Realtek Digital Output
Speakers Realtek High Definition Audio
1 - 22EA53 AMD High Definition Audio

No yellow warning signs on these in Device Manager.

Well record should be primary sound capture. Make sure nothing is muted on the volume control panel in Windows.