Digitizing old recordings

[semloh]

Thanks, Mark.

I wonder if anyone would be willing to share their expertise on the subject of digitizing and processing music stored on reel-to-reel tape, audiocassette and LP. The forum relies on members doing this, and there must be better and worse ways.

I can sort out the equipment, stick the right leads into the computer, and get a digital copy, but I would be interested to learn what equipment the experts on the list are using, and would appreciate some advice about the best software to use. I currently use freeware, like Free Hi-Q Recorder, which gives good results, but doesn't allow me any room to manoeuvre in the case of poor originals. What do our great uploaders use?

[Dundonnell]

I am about to begin on this myself

I have an old reel-to-reel tape recorder (a Grundig TK 14) on which a lot of music was taped from BBC Radio between 1973 and 1981. Fortunately the machine is still working(touch wood ). I have had to buy spare drive belts in case these break and also a number of connectors, including a 5 Din Plug from the machine to jacks to go into the back of my amplifier. This allows me to listen to the tapes properly to determine whether they are still listenable to(95%+ are ).

The next task is to link the tape machine to the sound card on my pc. The connectors do this too.

I have downloaded a programme called Audacity which will allow me to re-record the music into MP3 format for future uploading.

I have a simple Audacity Guide kindly supplied by an audio-buff and if you wish I could send you a copy? (Just let me have an email address by PM).

[jerfilm]

Well, I'm certainly not an expert but have been doing exactly what you describe, semloh.  Old Sony reel to reel that dates from the 60s and seems to be in excellent working condition.  The uploads of the Weismann symphonies were captured from a r2r tape, in mono so only one channel was recorded.   I used a two plug RCA type jack to one plug RCA jack to get the signal into both channels.  Of course you also need an double RCA to Stereo miniplug to go into the computer or laptop.

For software I use Roxio Creator 2010 Pro - Under Audio there is an option to digitize Lps and Tapes.  It's pretty intuitive to use, but if you use that program, be sure you go to Advanced Options and choose where you want the recording to go and also to name it.

There is an audio editor with Roxio as well and you can cut noise, crackles, pops and such with it.  Also snip out bits of silence that may be too long.  Like at the beginning where you started the computer recording before you started the tape deck or turntable.  Having said that, like Dundonnell, I often use the free program Audacite (thanks to Mark for that one.....) as snipping out silence is easier with that program. 

Capturing from YouTube, I use TubeSucker - free if you only want to download one thing at a time - 39.95 US$ if you want to do multiple downloads.  WIth it you have the option of converting the video directly into an mp3 or whatever.  But you will have to always rename your file after it's through converting.  Oh and then delete the video file. 

For other downloads from videos, I use Movavi Screen Capture 2.  This works fairly well, but often the resulting recording is loaded with click-click-click-clicks ad infinitum.  Not sure what causes that?? Anyone have any expertise along that line?

Anyway, that's how I do it. 

Regards from Minnesota.  This would be a good time of year to be in Oz...... .   I have an old friend in Paddington - be a good time for a visit....

Jerry

[Mark Thomas]

Sounds like you're on the right track. As Jerry has said, there's software out there which will remove pops, crackles, hiss, hum and all manner of nasties. I don't know of any free software which will do it, but Jerry has mentioned Roxio Creator and I'm sure that other affordable user-friendly packages of the same sort, like Nero, also have these modules. I use Adobe Audition, which was hideously expensive but was a present to myself ("because I'm worth it"). It does a great job of "cleaning up" old recordings but I've learned over the years to apply the effects, especially de-hissing and de-crackling very, very sparingly, otherwise you either introduce distortion or you get a very dead and recessed result. Better to have some hiss, I've found. Removing pops doesn't have the same drawback especially if you do it pop by pop (anal? me?).

My only additional advice is always to rip, or record off-air to WAV if you can, as that is a lossless file format. I keep that original WAV to do any work on. Only when I'm happy with the finished article do I split it into tracks and make mp3s from it. If you make mp3s from an mp3 original then you loose data each time and the quality rapidly diminishes.

[semloh]

jerfilm, Mark, Dundonnell - thank you all for that very helpful advice. 
I am happy to purchase a programme, but there are so many it's hard to know where to start. I'll look at Roxio, Nero and Audacity and see what I come up with. My computer also has som eprogrammes pre-installed - better check those out too.

Dundonnell - I had a Grundig TK14 as birthday present when I was 15 - a great little machine. For the last 30 years I've been lugging round a big Akai 4 track. The tapes contain similar works to your own, but I suspect that the climate here will not have left me with 95%. Do you need an amplifier, or does the tape recorder feed directly into the computer, and come through your speakers OK?
My up-loadable material is almost all on the r2r so it is eseential that I sort it out.

For cassettes, I've been using a big old Marantz cassette deck, but the playback has suddenly gone all dull and fuzzy - as it it's playing back at a slightly slower speed than the tapes were recorded. The tapes themselves are fine. I've tried cleaning the heads but it hasn't helped, and I don't know how to adjust the playback speed, so ..... a trip to the secondhand shop to buy another is on the cards. All those old, once very expensive, hi-fi components are 'as cheap as chips' here now.

[Dundonnell]

Audacity is free software.

The tape machine does feed directly into the computer. It is just that before I started the digitisation process I wanted to listen again to each piece of music through my amplifier to check that it was ok to process. Half a dozen pieces have had to be discarded as a result but that's not bad out of 130 or so
At the present time the music-which was recorded in mono of course-only comes out through one speaker but a splitter will solve that: it won't, of course, give me stereo, just music through two speakers

[semloh]

Audacity is free software.

The tape machine does feed directly into the computer.

Ah! That answers the question I posed on the other thread, Colin.

It may be that you need to feed the signal through an amplifier first, or that the input leads/sockets you are using aren't the optimum ones. I don't want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs but I know that in the past I needed an amplifier to get anything listenable through from my r2r taperecorder - even though I don't need it with the record player or the cassette deck !!    I'm no expert but it might help with the volume.....  I dare say others in the forum will know. 

[jerfilm]

I haven't tried to digitize ops recently. But the old high quality phonograph cartridges were very low output and needed a pre-amp and may need pre amplification into a computer too.

Jerry