Hi all, I want to attempt to capture cassette tapes to a hard drive, clean up the the audio and burn it to a CD. I also want to change the song (when it ends). I understand that Polderbits will assist me in capturing the music. Will it clean up the quality of the capture?? Does the quality of the Sound card make a difference?? If so, what would anyone suggest to buy for a good sound card to capture the music with?? If anyone has used Polderbits, what did you think?? My goal is to capture the track, clean it up, and edit the trak to stap at a different time than what the manufacturer did. Wil Polderbits do this?? Thanksfor the info
I'm not familiar with the program you are using so I can't comment on its capabilities. I am in the process of converting all of my vinyl's and tapes to mp3, so I've had some experience with this. The program I use is Steinberg Clean which can do what you want. Mine is an old copy and now I believe it's marketed by Pinnacle. Don't expect CD quality when you perform the task. My experience is that the finished product is 'thinner' than the original but I do everything 'flat' without any enhancements. SC is a very good program and from what I have read is much better than my version in its present form.
Thanks for reply, I appreciate the input. I have been doing some reading, am I correct in understanding that when the tape player/record player is attached, it must be ran through an amp first?? I really haven't begun using Polderbit but am going to try it and see how it works. I had converted some albums using a standalone cd burner, then I transferred the recording to the computer and used a program (I'm at work and don't recall the name of the program)to clean up the recording. This was very time consuming but seemed to work alright. I want to use a computer and perform this function. I don't own the cd burner and the recording was at first not good to say the least. That is why I was wondering about the quality of the sound card to improve the captured track. I was kind of wondering about the speed of the computer. My thought was to use a old Pentium 133 and add a decent sound card to it but I don't know how this will affect the quality of the capture, with a slower processor like this. I just didn't really want to tie a whole computer for this function. Thanks for the input in advance.
Yes you'll need an amp. Take the patch cord from the line out or auxiliary of the amp into the line in on the sound card. The jacks on the rear of the amp will probably be RCA females and the input on the sound card will probably be a 3.5cm stereo bayonet so you'll need a cord going from 2 male RCA to 1 stereo bayonet. Tandy or Radio Shack will have one. They are readily available. Regarding the old i33 pentium system. It will probably handle it but remember you'll probably be capturing the sound to a .wav file initially and these are large compared to mp3. Generally about 50mb per song so make certain you will have plenty of hdd space. Don't blow big bucks on a sound card for it. The local electronice yokel will probably have an old soundblaster card lying around he'll sell you for 10 bucks. I convert all my finished .wav files to mp3 using a freebie program called CDex. A bit of googleing will find it. You correctly state that it can be time consuming but this is where Steinberg Clean comes into it's own. If you can obtain a trial of SC, do it because this is a great program. SC will complete the task in a fraction of the time as with other programs.
