recording music through a tape deck and equalizer

Audacity 3 Help Forum GNU/Linux
1

Dear Friends,

I am trying to get the best way to record my old rock and blues cassettes onto .WAV files so that I can burn them onto a CD.

So, I have a tape deck → with separate connected amplifier and equalizer (I set it to ‘clear’ instead of ‘flat’) → Then stereo cable via tape deck’s headphone socket → to the Line-in on a PC sound card.

I press record in audacity and play on the deck. I have ‘view clippings’ selected.

As soon as some clippings show, I reduce volume on deck and let it continue.

Now, since the overall volume wasn’t loud enough and there was far too much treble ( probably because of the tape-deck’s equalizer ), I decided to redo
the whole thing without the equalizer (so, basically ‘flat’ on the tape-deck).

OK, then since the volume was still a bit soft I played around and got a good result with

  1. apply distortion (hard clipping)
  2. then, compressor with default setting
  3. equalizer setting in audacity to wmp-blues

That worked great. However is the above sequence correct? When I used the distortion, the waveform were very high looking like a band across.
After compression the wave forms were visible again, but did I lose any data?

What is the best way to get this done please? Please give me ‘all’ the steps and though I’m not an audio expert, I just need a brief guide on the correct steps.
Thanks so much!

2

Ouch. If you want it louder, use (soft) limiter with make-up-gain.

Don’t use distortion unless you want it distorted.

3
  1. apply distortion (hard clipping)
  2. then, compressor with default setting
  3. equalizer setting in audacity to wmp-blues

All of those things will affect the sound and there will be some interaction so it’s up to you. Are you applying those effects because you like the sound, or is it just a random procedure you found on the Internet?

If you want maximum loudness, run Amplify or Normalize effect as the last step (to maximize the peaks at 0dB). You can either normalize song-by song or you can normalize the album as a whole so that quiet songs remain relatively quieter as originally intended. Or if EQ pushes your peaks over 0dB, normalizing before you export will prevent any additional-unwanted clipping.

Most people want to avoid distortion so you might want to keep an unmolested archive copy. FLAC is a good archive format. It’s lossless, about half the file-size of WAV, and tagging (metadata) is well standardized for FLAC.

Compression (and limiting and clipping) reduce the musical dynamic contrast (making everything trend toward the same loudness). That’s the “secret” to “winning” the [u]Loudness War[/u]. But that modern constantly-loud style is one reason some of us find modern music boring! :wink: These effects also bring-up any background noise (such as tape hiss). It’s your music for your enjoyment so do whatever you want, but personally I don’t compress, limit, or clip, when digitizing analog music.

….I’m lucky enough to have a killer home theater system and a killer system in one of my vehicles so I can go “too loud” even with a fairly-quiet digital recording. My other car has an average factory stereo but I can still push it into distortion with “average” recordings. If I wanted to go louder, I’d upgrade the system rather than trying to boost my digital files.

Compression can be tricky. You can end-up with volume “pumping” so listen carefully to make sure you’re getting the results you want. Limiting is usually an easier way to get “loudness” with fewer side-effects. The “hard limit” setting (with make-up gain) should get almost as loud as clipping but it uses look-ahead so it doesn’t clip/distort. On the other hand, clipping can enhance the perception of loudness so you might like it.

equalizer setting in audacity to wmp-blues

Again, if you like the sound go for it! And, it is usually better to EQ after digitizing because you can tweak the settings or change your mind.

EQ presets like 'blues" “rock” or “jazz” are nonsense. A high-fidelity system is supposed to play the music accurately, as-recorded. It’s up to the producer and recording and mastering engineers to make it sound like a real blues band. EQ has two uses.

EQ is normally corrective. For example, some of your older recordings may have weak highs or some may have weak bass, etc. (But you have to be careful because when you boost the highs you’ll also boost tape hiss.) Every recording is different so you normally have to listen and EQ by-ear. You can also use EQ to correct the frequency response in your speakers, but that should be applied at playback time, not permanently to the recording. And there are limits… A small woofer will never put-out the sound of a real bass guitar or kick drum and if you try you’ll just get distortion.

Or, EQ can also be used as a “personal enhancement”. i.e. Maybe you like lots of bass. You do have to be careful with bass boost because when you boost the bass you usually have to reduce the overall volume to avoid clipping in the digital file. Again, it’s best to EQ your playback system instead of altering all of your recordings to your taste. If you’ve got plenty of amplifier power and big woofers you can boost the analog bass without reducing the overall volume.

You didn’t mention [u]Noise Reduction[/u]. With tape, it’s usually a good idea to try some noise reduction to reduce the tape hiss. But, you have to be careful because you can get artifacts (side effects) and “The cure can be worse than the disease” so listen carefully to the results. And, apply noise reduction before compression (because compression can make the noise go up-and-down and it works better if the noise is constant).

4

Thanks so very much for both the replies friends,
I’m sorry to reply so late because I was waiting all this while for an email to notify me that someone had replied :slight_smile: until I thought I’d
better check directly in this website.

I am still in the learning process for digitizing audio and whatever you wrote has therefore taught me so much more. Thanks.

So, I will try not to use ‘distortion’ - sounds scary anyway :slight_smile: - and try to use ‘amplify’, ‘normalize’ and / or the Soft Limiter with make-up gain.

And, I’ll try to use the EQ after recording instead of recording equalized sound from my tape-deck-±equalizer input via headphone to sound card. Makes sense.

And yeah, though all this terminology can be daunting to a newbie, I’ve understood all that you’ve said, so sincerely speaking: thanks again.

Just out of curiosity, is there a website that explains audacity’s plugins’ effects in a more plain-English, everyday language manner, instead of only focusing on the technical terms, please? Especially for when it comes to digitizing music-audio from music-playback devices (tapes, vinyl, mini-disc etc instead of electric guitars and such :slight_smile: ?

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This set of tutorials useful: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_copying_tapes_lps_or_minidiscs_to_cd.html

This workflow should be useful: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/sample_workflow_for_tape_digitization.html

WC

6

Hi again,

So I find that simply using one of the effects plugin, called “Bass and Treble” (newer versions of audacity have this plugin) can achieve exactly what I need.
It has 3 controls, 1 for bass, 1 for treble and 1 for volume output.

Tweaking these helped me to get the sound just right.

For some extra push, increasing the ‘gain’ slider bar positioned just above the ‘balance’ slider bar on the left hand side of the main window also helps :slight_smile:
It is so well hidden :slight_smile:

The distortion plugin is awesome but I don’t know much about it and the compression and limiter plugins, though they can increase the sound, didn’t feel right.

I find the first method above to work just right for making an exact clone of the tape ( or any music input, I’d think ) without adding any other effects except giving a little extra oomph! :slight_smile:

I will move onto my old mini-discs now, hoping the same way helps.

Thanks to everyone!