recording Cassette audio onto my PC

[invictus32]

I'm on a quest to take my old (but oh, so great) audio book cassettes and put them on my hard drive so I can make them into audio CDs. I recently purchesed all the cables, hooked my stereo to my PC, and tested it. everything is ready to go. well, I now have my system geared up, ready to record, but I'm having a bit of trouble doing this in the software side. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions about free, easy to use software that lets me record music from my stereo onto my hard drive, with good quality. I know the "sound recorder" that comes with the PC is one, but I'm looking for something with a bit more options (other than MusicMatch Jukebox). anyone have any freeware suggestions? I would greatly appreciate it.


:fire

[CCSDUDE]

Originally posted by invictus32
I'm on a quest to take my old (but oh, so great) audio book cassettes and put them on my hard drive so I can make them into audio CDs. I recently purchesed all the cables, hooked my stereo to my PC, and tested it. everything is ready to go. well, I now have my system geared up, ready to record, but I'm having a bit of trouble doing this in the software side. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions about free, easy to use software that lets me record music from my stereo onto my hard drive, with good quality. I know the "sound recorder" that comes with the PC is one, but I'm looking for something with a bit more options (other than MusicMatch Jukebox). anyone have any freeware suggestions? I would greatly appreciate it.


:fire

Messer kicks ass - free
Get it here..... http://www.dago.pmp.com.pl/messer/

Or you can *cough* get Total Recorder for free *cough* but IMHO Messer should do just fine.

Later

[invictus32]

........you uh....you ok?

[phalkon30]

Originally posted by invictus32
........you uh....you ok?

lol, dont worry about him............he's never ok :)

One *cough* free application would be Roxios Easy CD creator 5 Platinum, its got some great recording features and lets you clean up the recordings, set filters, etc

I'm sure you know where to find it, or if you don't try CCS's proggy, I'm sure it works ok to

[CCSDUDE]

I'm never *all there* I'm all HERE!

Stick with Messer.....

Anything by those clowns is bound to crash or be buggy.....

Besides Messer is a program to do just that, not a burner app or this or that. Download the LAME dll along with the program and yer set.

If you need any help with it or your recording set up (getting hiss, ect.) don't be afraid to PM me....or be afraid and PM me anyway. lmfao

Caio

[invictus32]

well, I've DLed and installed Messer, and it works great! lol I have about 7 or 8 books I'm trying to convert (around 130 hours) so I know I got a long road ahead of me, but now I kan actually do it. tha x 4 all the help guys.

:fire

[nasrules]

the easy way would be to do them on minidisc but owell

[invictus32]

by all means friend, if you know an easier way please do post about it!!! I'm not quite sure what you mean, nor what it is, or how to do it, so please let me know (in great detail)!

[CCSDUDE]

Stick with recording off your line-in with Messer....

If you wanna retain the best quality, record directly to wav's then burn you're audio CD's then convert them to Mp3's to share or just archive.

Going to MD won't accomplish what you seem to want, anyway.

Nas: I'm about to go Krell on your ass.....

My field is A/V, I know video in and out as well as audio. So stop fucking butting in with useless "opinions". If you want credentials feel free to PM about it.

Firstly MD discs are proprietary, a MD player is required to play them........not something he wants. Secondly that would take more time.....
Thirdly a half a cent CD is better then a MD. MD's use a certain compression (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding - ATRAC for short) , CD's are wav's with a different file structure, big difference in quality down the line as well as in the here an now.

So please dude, DON'T butt in on shit you know little to nothing about.

Krell: I'm starting to understand why you wigged. It gets annoying as hell when you're trying to help someone and someone decides there a fuckin' expert over night and add there shitty 2 cents......

Caio

[invictus32]

yeah, I got to thinking, minidisks require a certain type of player, don't they...and Messer is, yes, working just fine and dandy. the quality is a helluva lot better than the standard Sound Recorder that everyone has with Windows. plus, after I DLed that LAME DLL file and attatched it, recording is a snap! just start the tape player, click record, name the file, and you're on your way to konverting Cassette audio (...geez I sound Billy Mays, that TV commercial guy). so yeah, I'll not reinvent the wheel here, I'll stick to what's working. thanx again.


OH, but there is one other small thing I do need a suggestion on: well, we all know that, most of the tyme, when an audio book is recorded onto cassette, they usually leave a few minutes of dead air at the end of the tape. sometymes it's not alot at all, but most of the tyme it's about 3-7 minutes of dead air! I need a free audio editor, so to speak, that will let me cut and trim the audio files so as to remove this dead air. also, if this audio editor had a way to merge audio files, that'll be all the more better toward the end goal.

see, what I want to do in the end is edit these audio files and make them into sections that are at or around 75-80 minutes, so it will not waste alot of CDs. most of the sections I have now are around 45-50 minutes. if I could use a program to cut out the dead air, splice theminto said minutes, and just....well, I think you get what I'm after. this should be the last step in the ladder. it won't be long, my audio book collection will FINALLY be on CD (mad, cackling laughter), lol. take that, Simon and Schuster!

[CCSDUDE]

Well, you have a few free choices as well as some 'free if you want 'em bad enough' programs.

EAC - has a built in burner app incase you don't wanna use your's - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Mpegcut - simple mp3 trimmer (no need to re-encode the files) - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/mp3DirectCut.zip

Mpegcut mp3 decoder - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/mpglibdll.zip

Mpegcut manual - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/mp3DirectCutManual.zip


Mp3 Merger - use it to splice in those
extra bits to fill yer CD's - http://mp3merge.netfirms.com/

And of course Cool Edit Pro 2.0.... you can find it on Kazaa Lite (just look for the funky one named like this "PARAd0X" it should have a shit load of sources.

The latter would be you best bet for major tweaking on the files. IE killing hiss/bringing up the volume/normalizing/pretty much everything under the sun.

Oh...and if you're on DSL/Cable or some other form of broadband and feel like sharing the wealth, it would be wise to either share two versions of the books or one low quality one. HQ would be 96kbs and above all separate mp3's totaling exactly 79 minutes each (with the exception of the last one lol). LQ would be taking all the parts, removing silence, encoding them to something like 64kbs or 32kbs in mp3 format then joining 'em all. Around 30 minutes @32kbs will get you in the 4 to 5 mb range so you can calculate how big each one is before you do it.

Tata

[nasrules]

hey ccsdude fuk u i was only trying to give a valid opinion.

if the guy already HAD a minidisc player he could use that and it would be easier than doing it on cd. an in case u hadnt noticed.........CASETTES ARENT UP TO CD QUALITY. so u dont need cd quality audio to get the full potential of audio from tapes!!!!!!!!!!!! if he recorded onto md in lp4 he could get nearly 5 hours of audio on one disc, and it would be much easier than doing it through a comp!!!!!!!!! md's and md players are smaller than cds and although not as cheap as cds they are still cheap.

IM NOT A FUKIN EXPERT IN AUDIO, I DONT THINK I DO, AND MY POST DINT SUGGEST THAT. I DO KNOW SUM SHIT, IM NOT IGNORANT ENOUGH TO NOT KNOW THAT ATRAC ISNT UP TO WAV QUALITY SO DONT FUKIN PATRONISE ME YOU STUPID FUKIN BASTARD

[invictus32]

I'll try those links/softwares asap. I was also thinking about sharing these books. it's just not fair that no one has put most of these on CD yet. again, thanx 4 all the help. I'll keep in touch here and let you know how the first book komes out. if it works out ok and I have no probs, it won't be long 'til I have them all done and sharing with everyone. but of kourse, first and foremost, I'll be tweaking and whatnot to make them CD lol. thanx again.

:fire

[invictus32]

ok, I have one book fully recorded onto my PC, no sweat, but now I've ran into a problem I kan't BELIEVE I didn't see earlier: I've been rekording them as .WAV files. all those great MP3 splicing and splitting wares are great, but I kan't use them yet, lol. so, I'm now in the process of konverting the WAV files to MP3 files. so, if you have any suggestions for FREE konverters (the one I'm using allows 20 free konversions, then I have to pay....luckily I had only 16, lol).

BUT, to save meself from this problem in the future, is there a way to configure Messer to automatically konvert WAVs to MP3s? or, even better, to have it just rekord the files AS MP3s!
anything to make this easier, lol. it's a learning process, but I'm getting there. thanx.

[ryan2_2]

cdex is great. download it from here (http://www.cdex.n3.net/).

[crazytrain]

Or you can use dBpowerAMP you can find it in the tools section here on ZP.It will convert many types of formats if you have the right codecs for it and its easy to use.

[CCSDUDE]

Originally posted by invictus32
ok, I have one book fully recorded onto my PC, no sweat, but now I've ran into a problem I kan't BELIEVE I didn't see earlier: I've been rekording them as .WAV files. all those great MP3 splicing and splitting wares are great, but I kan't use them yet, lol. so, I'm now in the process of konverting the WAV files to MP3 files. so, if you have any suggestions for FREE konverters (the one I'm using allows 20 free konversions, then I have to pay....luckily I had only 16, lol).

BUT, to save meself from this problem in the future, is there a way to configure Messer to automatically konvert WAVs to MP3s? or, even better, to have it just rekord the files AS MP3s!
anything to make this easier, lol. it's a learning process, but I'm getting there. thanx.


Cool Edit Pro 2.0 will batch convert whatever you want into mp3's at whatever bitrate ya want. If you download the one I suggested in the previous post, it'll be free. ; )

Also, in Messers setting you can set it up to record to mp3 on the fly, set the bitrate and tick the box for on the fly recording and yer set.

*Helpful post finished*

Now...Nas....you asked for it....


Originally posted by nasrules
hey ccsdude fuk u i was only trying to give a valid opinion.

if the guy already HAD a minidisc player he could use that and it would be easier than doing it on cd. an in case u hadnt noticed.........CASETTES ARENT UP TO CD QUALITY. so u dont need cd quality audio to get the full potential of audio from tapes!!!!!!!!!!!! if he recorded onto md in lp4 he could get nearly 5 hours of audio on one disc, and it would be much easier than doing it through a comp!!!!!!!!!

IM NOT A FUKIN EXPERT IN AUDIO, I DONT THINK I DO, AND MY POST DINT SUGGEST THAT. I DO KNOW SUM SHIT, IM NOT IGNORANT ENOUGH TO NOT KNOW THAT ATRAC ISNT UP TO WAV QUALITY SO DONT FUKIN PATRONISE ME YOU STUPID FUKIN BASTARD

Learn to spell.....

Ok, smart ass....how does a 'cassette' work? What makes it less then CD quality? What are the specs for a standard mid range cassette deck? What are the specs for a high end deck?

How does a CD player work? What's the file structure consist of? How does the data on the CD get transformed into sound waves? How does a pre-amp work? What about D/A converter? How about "What are the principals of speaker acoustics?". What about....how does a speaker work?

When you can answer all that and give me a reasonable response then I'll waste my time debating this with you.

Until then kindly keep your uneducated guesses and opinions to yourself.

It's fairly simple....ATRAC is a lossy compression scheme, if you have hiss or certain anomalies on said tape, they'll transfer over and make the 'rip' sound
like shit.

Why would you even want a MiniDisc? They suck all around, they're reminiscent of the fuckin' 3 1/2 floppy days and they hold a massive 150 megs. The sound is lossy and they only play in MD players. Oh....you can record on them? And erase 'em? Big fuckin' deal! A CDRW can do the same and CDR's are dirt cheap, you could burn 500 coasters and STILL save more over buying into MD's shit. It's outdated crap technology that should be dumped for good. It's 2003 for christ sakes!

Also, genius.....tapes are better then CD's....if you don't know why...go figure it out...I'll give you a hint...it effects jpegs...but the results on a CD aren't visible to the naked eye.

So your lame ass "CASETTES ARENT UP TO CD QUALITY" speel is irrelevant drivel. I hadn't noticed seeing as I know for a fact, cassettes produce a richer, fuller sound.

Just because a CD sounds crisp doesn't mean it's better then a cassette you dolt.

Kindly fuck off until you can speak in a concise, civil manner. (I doubt that will ever happen...yay me...I don't have to argue with someone who puts PearlJam to shame...)


invictus32: Glad to have helped, sorry about mucking up your thread with this bull, but everyone has there limits.....guess I reached mine. :mellow

Later

[invictus32]

great! using now, konverting like a charm.

um, CCS, you there? you know anything about making the Messer rekord as MP3 files? lol maybe you're not up this tyme of the mornin. I'll check tomorrow morn. take kare all, and thanx 4 the help.

:fire

[invictus32]

alright, I finally finished the work. I konverted all the files to MP3, trimmed em down, and kut-'n-spliced em into 79-or-so minute sections. I'll have them written to CD in no tyme at all. this one took awhile, but I guess 'kuz I don't have a 2.8 Ghz proccessor lol. then again, they were 45+ minute files I was workin with, so I kan't say nothin. well, this is the first of many to kome. I kan't wait to burn em and try em out. I'll make one final post sometyme down the line about how they kame out. as I see now, they'll do just fine. again, THANK YOU, CCS for all the help. kouldn've done it without'cha.

[neoufo51]

You guys use WAAAAAAYYY too much commercial software.

Winamp with its line-in plugin and the ogg encoder plugin will make some sexy sounding oggs in almost realtime.

RazorLame with the Lame dll could've converted those wav's with the greatest of ease. With the BEST quality for mp3, I might add. USE NOTHING BUT LAME.

Next time, my friend, consider using Ogg for your recording format. It's immensely better than mp3 at low bitrates. Faster encoding times too. Your audiobooks would sound crystal clear at 64kbps Ogg.

[invictus32]

well, I said I'd post one last tyme to let you all know the final outkome, and here I am - a man of my word. I've listened to the entire audio book, and I'm so proud of m'self. it sounds great (that "remove hiss" works wonders). so, now I know how to konvert cassette audio onto my komp and then to CD format. 1 book down, 14 more to go....



:hole



also, I'm always up to trying new things, so neoufo51, I'll try your ideas on my next one.

...in saying that, I guess this isn't my last post. my next one will probably be one to type my opinion of which worked better. I know I've said this already, but thatx again every1.

:fire

[chipperrox]

im good with the a/v stuff but wouldnt going from cassete to minidisc doublle compress it? Or am i wrong? Probably the latter