Audacity Forum

I got a tape that I made, of recordings of music. I did this as the music was from vinyl to cassette. I don't have a turntable or USB cassette. I got mini jack to jack lead, and it's connected from headphones to microphone. It worked with stero mix turned on. It's not the cable as I can hear radio.

It worked with stero mix turned on.

Good! ...What's the problem????

DId you find Your First Recording ?

Stereo Mix means you are recording what you are hearing from your computer speakers/headphones. Otherwise, the Windows recording "mixer" is completely separate from the playback mixer, so you don't always record what you hear.

I got mini jack to jack lead, and it's connected from headphones to microphone.

Does your computer have line-in? It's a better match to headphone-out. The mic input is designed for a lower-level signal, and you can get noise & distortion. Most laptops and USB soundcards don't have line-in. The Behringer UCA202 is a low-cost way to add line inputs.

I did this as the music was from vinyl to cassette. I don't have a turntable or USB cassette.

Now, you've got both vinyl clicks & pops, and tape hiss, and probably loss of high frequencies. You can do some filtering, noise reduction, and EQ, but you'll never "CD quality", or even the quality of the original-new vinyl...

The problem was stereo mix was turned on, but no sound was comig out. I checked levels on W7 and it was fine. Sound was up and youtube played with no hitches.

Stereo Mix means you are recording what you are hearing from your computer speakers/headphones. Otherwise, the Windows recording "mixer" is completely separate from the playback mixer, so you don't always record what you hear.

Yes I know that which is why I got a mini jack to mini jack, plug one end in headphones of stereo and other end in Microphone. It was stereo mix that wasn't working. I restarted, no luck. I then checked preferences and realised I ticked something not to use with stereo mix. I also had a problem where audacity turned sound off.

The mic input is designed for a lower-level signal, and you can get noise & distortion

True but not always, I connected cable and turned stereo ddown until I was happy. Yes it was disorted but a bit of normanize effect helped.

Now, you've got both vinyl clicks & pops, and tape hiss, and probably loss of high frequencies. You can do some filtering, noise reduction, and EQ, but you'll never "CD quality", or even the quality of the original-new vinyl...

You don't always get pops/crackles. It depends if vinyl is looked after. I could do filtering, but don't know how. I'm just/be transferring Clannad Harry's Game vinyl single, Runrig Loch Lomond single, Runrig Dance Called America viyl 12 inch. I haven't tried Dario G Sunchyme frokm cassette yet.

Yes it was disorted but a bit of normanize effect helped.

So, I'm still getting the impression that you aren't having a problem, I guess you are recording OK or you wouldn't be able to normalize...

FYI - Normalizing doesn't reduce clipping or distortion. It only helps if you can reduce the level during recording to prevent overdriving/clipping of the analog-to-digital converter. (Audacity does have a Clip Fix effect, but it's much-much better if you can prevent the distortion in the first place... There is no way for the software to know the height & shape of the original unclipped waveform.)

I connected cable and turned stereo down until I was happy. ... You don't always get pops/crackles. It depends if vinyl is looked after.

OK. As long as you know what you are dealing with.

I could do filtering, but don't know how.

First, noise reduction can be tricky. It's almost always worth a try, but sometimes you can get artifacts and sometimes "the cure is worse than the disease". (For good reasons, pros still record in soundproof studios with good equipment.)

For constant background noise like hum or tape-hiss, Audacity has a Noise Removal "effect" (filter). You feed-in a "noise fingerprint" (i.e. the silence between songs) and it tries to separate the signal from the noise.

For vinyl "snap", "crackle", and "pop", Audacity has a Click Removal "effect". But personally, I use a program called Wave Repair ($30 USD) It does an amazing job with most defects, and in the manual mode it only "touches" the audio where you identify a defect. But, it's very time-consuming in the manual mode and it usually takes me a full weekend to clean-up a vinyl transfer. This page lists some other special-purpose click-removal programs and and tons of information about digitizing vinyl.

There is also something called a Noise Gate (maybe an optional plug-in for Audacity). A Noise Gate completely kills the sound (digital silence) when the level falls below a preset threshold (i.e. between tracks). Or, you can mute and/or fade-in/fade-out between tracks.

DVDdoug wrote:There is also something called a Noise Gate (maybe an optional plug-in for Audacity). A Noise Gate completely kills the sound (digital silence) when the level falls below a preset threshold (i.e. between tracks).

There's a noise gate plug-in for Audacity here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyqui ... Noise_Gate
A noise gate does not necessarily "completely kill" the sound. In this noise gate the amount of attenuation (how much the level is reduced) is adjustable.