Recording From Tape

[kildon]

I am attempting to transfer a lot of my older material to digital medium and perform some mastering in the process. I'm using a SB Live and a high quality Sony cassette deck. I record a track into CEP 2.0. Once digitized and I play it back it is though all the high end has been stripped away. The sound is muffled.

I know I'm using some low-end gear, but I'm not looking for production quality. I'd just like to have a decent sound to store long term on CD.

Am I doing something wrong? Any tips or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

[MrM]

What is the sample frequency of your wave file? Should be at least 44.1 kHz, for SBL try 48 kHz, sometimes the SBL performs better at 48 kHz, mine does :)

I assume the analog tape sounds better then the newly digiyized version, at the moment?

[kildon]

Thanks I'll try the 48. I was bring it in at 41.

You are right in assuming that the source tape sounds better.

I've been playing around with my sound card settings and tweekaing XP a little and the quality has improved, but it is still muddy.

[MrM]

How are things connected?
RCA cables from your amp to the 'line in' of the SBL?

Or from the 'tape deck out' to the 'mic in' of the SBL? (I hope not)

[wockachucka]

Thoroughly clean the heads on your cassette deck before recording the source tape.

Does the SB have a headphone jack? If you monitor the input through cans, does it sound OK?

You don't happen to have the Waves Renaissance bundle, do you? It would be most helpful in this situation.

I was restoring some lectures recently from tape and found that using an exciter im moderation like BBE Sonic Max or Elogoxa X-Cita and then limiting it through Waves L2, Voxengo Elephant, or Kjaerhus Classic Limiter gave some good results while preserving the high end.

Experiment a bit, each source is different. Good luck.

[TimOBrien]

The SBLive is a 48k sample rate card. Using any other rate can cause problems.

Make sure you have all of the "EAX experience" gamer effects turned off, too.

Always record to the "line-in" port.

Since you're going to a 1/8" stereo plug to get into the SBLive, make sure you are using high quality cables and adapters and have the recording levels set proplerly.