Tutorial: Audio Tape Backup to CD

HB13DISH

I have a lot of audio tape courses that I would like to backup on CD (not DVD) and the preferred format is CDA (not MP3)
I had my tape recorder chewing up some precious tape and it is getting harder and harder to buy a decent tape recorder nowadays.
Any idea what is the best way to do this?
Would be great if it will not involve using a PC.
Are there any standalone CD recorders?
I could do it easily using my DVD recorder, but it will be more work after wards extracting the audio.
Thanks for any brilliant suggestions.

mhku

Sony make a recordable CDP: SONY RCDW100

But it's fairly easy to do with a PC (I've done it) and you can use software to remove any cracks, hisses etc. from the recording.

Analoguesat

As long as you have a reasonable tape player with audio out you can connect it to the line in on the sound card of your computer.

Thats the easy way to do it, and as mhku says you can the post process the audio to remove pops clicks and other minor faults using something like the Audacity freeware.

Analoguesat's message to the world Analogue forever!

HB13DISH

Thanks for the replies.
Using a PC is not that convenient.
The Sony RCDW100 is just what I need, but it is expensive and is not available locally, so I will use the DVD recorder instead.
I have an old Teac tape player with audio out which is still working (I have better quality Onkyo tape recorders but they need servicing).
The tape player sits right next to the DVD recorder so I am thinking of recording to the HDD, insert chapter marks as needed, then burn each tape from the HDD to a DVD-RW and finalize it.
Then use the PC to extract the audio track ONLY from the DVD and convert the audio track to a CD-R CDA format, hopefully keep the original chapter marks.
This way I don't have to dismantle the tape player every time I have the time to do a backup.

PoloMint

How far apart are the tape player and computer?

While your idea would work, it would be far simpler if you could do as mhku and Analogue suggest and connect the tape player to your soundcard line in and record to waw file, then clean up the recording, set tracks and burn to CD

'All you need is duck tape and WD40; if it moves and it shouldn't, use duck tape - if it should move and it doesn't, use WD40'

d122k7trb

Dear Friend,

I have Maratz DR-6000 digital CD-R, CD-RW recorder. It has both optical and coaxial in/out. BUT my idea is that you'd better not to change your tapes to CDs. 'coz you'll have extra noise on them. 'coz the quality of tape was not the same of the CDs' or DVDs'. Changing the record level to 3 or 4 or whatsoever will make extra noises like phessse that you were not expecting. If you're that much willing to do that you've to use the analogue source not the digital ones. From your deck to amp and then to the digital recorder.
P.S.: The noise is been added to the recorded CD because of the Dolby B,C,S, or HX pro that were been using at that time.
My advice is to find the original CDs though second hand. I've your problem too. I can't find the best of the '80's, they’re out of print or are been selling in the market for don't know how much that will cost you an arm and a leg.

Arbi

HB13DISH

Hello Arbi,
Thank you for your feedback.
The tapes are speech audio without music.
They were made only on tapes at the time of purchase, otherwise I would have bought them in CD if they were available at the time.
Will be using analogue not digital.
Will make a test over the weekend, but I don't believe that the noise will be that noticable.
The main cocern is to have a backup, just in case the tape player starts chewing up the tapes again.
Also the life of a tape is short, even if unused.

HB13DISH

Tutorial: Part 1 - Recording to DVD Recorder HDD

As mentiined before, it is a lot more convenient for me to record from Tape player to DVD recorder HDD instead of recording to a PC.
This saves me dismantling the tape player every time I have time to do a recording session.
Tape player Audio output leads (Red and White RCA connectors) were connected to the RCA Audio input connectors on the DVR.
It is important to have a video signal also, otherwise the recording would have a black screen all the time which is not very interesting afterwards during the play.
The Video input signal was taken from Nokia 9600S video output.
With Channel 10 on, the recording session started.
One of the objectives for this backup project was to add chaptering to the recordings so as to have easy access to any part of the tape.
With audio tape, one has to do a fast play, listen, move forward until the required part is reached.
While the recording was on, it was possible to add a visual chaptering mark to the recording by simply pressing the info button on the Nokia 9600S remote for few few seconds and then releasing it back to normal.
See photo below, bottom left side.
At the end of the recording, used edit mode to add chaptering marks to the actual recording on the HDD. The info mark was a great help to see the marks with fast forward on the actual HDD file.
Next a DVD-RW was inserted into the DVD recorder and the tape recording was fast speed copied to the DVD-RW media. Time taken about 4 minutes for 1 hour tape.
The choice of the erasable DVD-RW media is use it as a scratch pad to move the recording between the DVR and the PC.

Next: Extract the audio file only from the DVD

Attached Thumbnails

 

HB13DISH

Tutorial: Part 2 - Extracting Audio from DVD-RW

Will use DVD Decrypter to extract the audio from the finalized DVD-RW prepared in Part 1.
Insert DVD-RW into the DVD drive, open DVD Decrypter
Open Tools > Settings
Click IFO Mode
Options > File Splitting : By Chapter
Close this window and select Mode IFO
On the right, select all the chapters
Click on Stream Processing
Select only 0x80 Audio AC3 / 2Ch
Then select at the bottom stream : Raw
Then click on the DVD icon to start decrypting
The application will extract the audio files in AC3 extensions and will make several files according to the number of chapters.
Total time taken ~ 3:00 minutes

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HB13DISH

Tutorial: Part 3 - Burning the *.AC3 Audio files to CD-R

we have now *.AC3 files and we need to burn them to a CD-R.
Luckily, Nero can compile these files into Audio CD, without the need to convert them to any other format like *.wav.
Open Nero, select CD at the middle top, select the audio symbol and click on
Make Audio CD
New Compilation
Select all the *.AC3 files and paste them to the left side
Then click on the Burn icon
Finished burning with success.
Now we have an Audio CD with all the different chapters as tracks.
Insert in any DVD or CD player and select any chapter (or track) that you wish to listen to.
End of tutorial
Notes:
I am very happy with DVD Decrypter. It is one of the best applications that I have come across.
What a shame it didn't last for long.
Wonder what happened to the author.
With this project, I didn't need to spend any money on new applications, as I have already Nero and I just discovered it can handle AC3 files without the need for conversion.
Checked several applications, and they all gave me after installation an annoying limitations, although they were supposed to be for a month.
Wish they stop tricking users into using their products without giving them limitations details beforehand.

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d122k7trb

The Marantz I’m using has both coaxial and optical digital output. Depending on which one and the level quality you’re seeking for, you can directly have the output from your CD-player, DVD-player. As for tape or the phono stage you can have the analogue output.
1) Directly connected to your amp.
2) Then from amp to your recorder.
There can be an equalizer between them too, as I use. A Marantz Spectrum EQ561. It’s enough for me. Telling the truth, I’ve lots of tapes from my childhood and these things to be converted to CD, but I’m hesitating to convert them.
Watching your photos, I’ve got another idea. If you wanna burn them on CD, with CD-burner, You’d better convert them to dat format and adding them background and these things making avi movies. By certain programs you can, the burn it on a CD or DVD.

Arbi