Can't record from tape

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Vio
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Can't record from tape

Post by Vio » Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:18 pm

Hello. I'm a great fan of this software. Big thanks to the developers and everyone involved for making it. May you have great karma for the rest of your lives :)

I have a problem -

I want to convert some tapes into mp3s. This doesn't work for some reason. I plug the headphone input into the headphone output on the tape player. I select Turtle Beach both for Playback and Recording; Stereo. I hear the music playing on the computer speakers, but nothing gets recorded. I tried everything - Wav, Line in, CD player, etc.

What works is recording from the computer though. For example I've tried converting MIDI to MP3 using Audacity on "Wav", Computer integrated soundcard for Playback, and it works for some reason.

Help please....

kozikowski
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by kozikowski » Tue Oct 16, 2007 12:27 am

The headphone output of the tape machine should be plugged into the 'Line In" of the sound card.

Select Line In for your Audacity signal source and it should start working.

Koz

Vio
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by Vio » Tue Oct 16, 2007 10:41 pm

kozikowski wrote:The headphone output of the tape machine should be plugged into the 'Line In" of the sound card.

Select Line In for your Audacity signal source and it should start working.

Koz
Do you mean that I need to get a new cord with two outs to be able to do this?

I still don't see why it can't record "what u hear"?

kozikowski
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by kozikowski » Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:49 am

You may be confusing the ins and outs.

You need a cord with two male ends like this:

Image

One connects to your tape player in place of your headphones and the other connects to--I think it's the blue connector on your sound card. It's should have a symbol of a fan with an arrow pointing in. It may be also labeled Line In.

It should be possible to capture from Line In in the Audacity settings.

Please tell me you have a deskside machine and not a laptop. Windows laptop machines have problems.

Koz

waxcylinder
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by waxcylinder » Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:49 am

kozikowski wrote:Please tell me you have a deskside machine and not a laptop. Windows laptop machines have problems.
Koz, my wife's windows laptop, Windows XP, seems to work fine with Audacity when I use my external USB soundcard.

WC
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kozikowski
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by kozikowski » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:15 am

<<<my wife's windows laptop, Windows XP, seems to work fine with Audacity when I use my external USB soundcard.>>>

I told you not to tell me that.

You may be out of luck. Unlike Macs, Windows laptops tend to only have microphone inputs. That makes the signal you're trying to record roughly 1000 times larger than it should be. I doubt you will ever walk away without significant distortion in the sound.

So what happened to the external USB mixer (with line inputs)? That's a good way out of this problem.

Koz

Vio
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Re: Can't record from tape

Post by Vio » Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:01 pm

Problem fixed with cable. Thanks.

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