Audio to Dig PC Recording Issues

**Thor** · #1 03-01-2004, 01:24 PM

I have some specific issues I need some help with.
The project is to convert a clip I have on Audio tape
to an mp3 for the TB Sampler.

Equipment notes:

The clip is on cassette tape currently, I have adapted the
player to the line in of the PC. There exists a reel to reel
master somewhere, I have to dig thru a bunch of reels to find that.

The PC is a pentium III, 233 RAM = 64 MB.

I just installed Soundeforge 6.0, and it appears to load fine.

The clip is approx 6 mins long. It was recorded with 2 mikes at a live session in 1989.

Problems and issues:

I recorded the clip at 16 bit stereo at 44,000 hz.
I saved it as a wav file. I converted it to a mp3 (LAME) as
my computer seems to have a built in function to do that,
I used 192 as the encoding speed.

During the initial recording, I noticed that the recording btton and time hesitated a few times. Upon listening to the final product, there were irregularities and discontinuities apparent. The file size was over 8MB when done.

I next increased the buffer size options to the max available
like 15000 on the options preferences menu.

I decreased the bits to 8 but everything clipped, so I went back to 16 bit and down to 22000 hz.
I recorded again and saved as wav. I encoded this time at
160 rate, but still found the end product had a lot of errors.
The file size was now about 6MB.

I am beginning to suspect that the errors coincide with when the recording function halts temporarily, and maybe the 64MB
does not provide enough memory to record, thus starting a
hard drive swap or something. There are some memory resident programs there like Norton Disc Doctor chewing up RAM as well.

Or I am just not using the right settings.

Any thoughts on the above would be appreciated.

After I solve the discontinuities issue, I need a tad more volume and a noise reduction, how would that be done on this program?

One final thought, that just came from wulf on PM, my son has a computer at school, that is a new Sony PC with Soundforge and Acid that runs on XP, he sequences and edits all the time. Should I just haul the tape deck up there and sit down and do it on his computer? I'd rather solve this myself, but I can't submit a final mp3 that is full of glitches ...

Thor

NJL · #2 03-01-2004, 03:24 PM

here's a bump for your issues

Oysterman · #3 03-01-2004, 03:47 PM

Which OS do you have? With that little RAM, anything newer than Win98 could cause problems. Even with Win98, it could certainly be a not-enough-RAM issue. Close ANY and ALL applications running in the background that you don't need loaded for this specific task. Such as ICQ, Norton, Anti-Virus, Firewalls, the lot. I don't know SoundForge, but see if it has the feature I've seen some other programs have, namely where you can choose destination to record to - RAM or Hard Drive. Do by all means choose the hard drive!

There's nothing wrong with the file sizes you list for the final MP3s.

**Thor** · #4 03-01-2004, 08:13 PM

Oysterman,
good info.

As mentioned above W 98
Pentium 3 processor,
64 MB RAM
at least 60% system resources free...

Tak fyrir

Does anyone here know how to direct the output to the hardrive
without suffering buffer overrun, etc.

Could this be a processor speed issue? arent the old pentium 3
like 75 mhz or so. When I was looking back at it, it occurs to me
that could be the case ...

Matt Till · #5 03-01-2004, 09:21 PM

Hey Thor,

Very generic contribution on my part but do you know anyone with a more modern computer? I really think it's a RAM issue. These irregularties you speak of, are they just little pauses and sections missing from the song, etc? Because I think that means soundforge is a little too powerful for you computer.

Try, you may have already, running your computer as bare bones as possible, including getting a more simple recording program. I can't think of any off hand, but something like the Windows sound recorded, but that allows more record time than a minute. OOOH, I got one www.goldwave.com

I think that's their website, if not Google for Goldwave. It's a more bare bones program, and if you want to do any additional stuff, just edit the wav later.

But if this doesn't work, I'd try my damnedest to get to a more powerful computer.

**Thor** · #6 03-02-2004, 08:30 AM

That is next, I have access to my son's 2 year old Sony VAIO
with XP. Going there tonight to knock this down on his hotrod
machine.

Once I have it in a good wav file I should be able to manipulate it.

Oysterman · #7 03-02-2004, 03:27 PM

GoldWave, why not indeed. It is one of the programs I know where you directly can choose the hard drive as "temporary storage", thus minimize the risk of the Windows swapfile coming into use.

Also Thor, it's not a Pentium III processor you have, those started at around 500 MHz IIRC. If it's a 233 as you mentioned in your first post, then it is a Pentium II 233 MHz. Should be more than enough for recording 2-track audio. I've done that on my old 200 w/ 32 MB RAM, with excellent results.