Recording audio tapes onto PC?

lukin

When I insert a line from a cassette player into the audio jack that is connected to the motherboard of my PC and try to record what is playing on the tape onto my PC, it doesn't work.
This is because the audio system that's on my mainboard is disabled, but if I enable it, (it's only a matter of taking a cap off a pin and putting it on another one) what kind of sound quality can I expect?
When I record in the same way, but plugging the cassette player into the audio jack of my sound card's PCI slot, it records O.K. but the quality of the recordings is terrible.
I know that the sound card will automatically become disabled if I do this but I just want to know if the mainboard audio system is better.
Has anyone tried the same thing or does anyone know what I am talking about?

SantaHoe

Yeah, I've done this before too...
I think the main problem is the quality of the audio cassette and the device you're playing it through.
There's an ungodly amount of noise I find.

You could try using a high quality tape deck from a hi-fi system just to see if the noise reduction features (if any) will give you a cleaner playback.
Otherwise - the key to a good TapeDeck-to-PC recording is finding the right combination of playback volume from the cassette and the right recording volume on the PC... experiment... if the playback is too loud, your recording will be ultra-distorted... if it's not loud enough, the recording will be very faint and 'hissey'.

There are also a number of Audio programs out there that'll let you strip ambient noise from audio files and enhance the sygnal a little.
(I can't think of any names, but have a look around)

_CreeD_

As Santa says Line levels are very important. Also what are the 2 soundcards, you've pretty much asked how long is this piece of string, and which is the nicest end.
Also make sure you have the sampling rate/bit depth set properly. Your recording app should let you set it to 16bit/44.1Khz (std cd settings). If you're using Windows Recorder then from multimedia settings set the quality to CD. Also make sure you use LINE-IN and not MIC.

A great piece of software to use is CoolEdit Pro. There is a downloadable plugin for noise reduction (Will cost ya though).

lukin

The sound card in the PCI slot is made by Creative & is from 1998. (That's all I know about it)
There doesn't seem to be any sound card from the jack that is connected to the motherboard, it just connects straight in.
I don't use Windows Media Recorder, I use MUSICMatch Jukebox to record instead but I only have the free version and the "line-in" facility doesn't work on that unless you buy the upgrade for $20 (which I probably will).
The record setting is set on 128 kbps and the maximum bandwith available to me is 22 Khz.
I'll probably download one of those programs on downloads.com or shareware.com & see if they improve matters or else buy a better sound card.
Thanks, anyway.

_CreeD_

There's your problem straight away. 128kbs implies it's recording as a WMA or MP3 or summat compressed, and 22khz is awful regardless.

If its a creative card then you should have the Creative Utils somewhere (or could download them). They have a decent and free Wave editor called Creative Wavestudio. Set this up to record in 16bit/44.1 Khz and then use the line in and it should be fine.
If you want to encode afterwards to MP3 there's a pretty good thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41631.

FYI The jack on the motherboard is connected to a soundcard, it's just built into the mbd, most likely a Crystal Audio or summat similar, the creative card would be a lot better.

SantaHoe

I honestly don't think a new soundcard is going to help much... even my cráppy old ISA soundcard can record at 48,000KHz 16bit!
It would help to know exactly what's wrong with the recordings... (ie. what makes it such a bad quality recording) ... does it sound distorted? hissy? faint? muffled? 'bitty & gritty'? garbled?

As creed said. if you're using the sound-cards mic jack, you'll get a crappy recording because it's not expecting the source to be amplified... use the 'line in' jack at all costs.
Also use windows 'Sound Recorder' (sndrec32.exe), that'll let you record from the 'line in' source... make sure to check your volume controls... make sure line-in isn't muted or anything.
The only problem there is, sndrec32 will probably record it to the default PCM .wav format... so if you're recording an entire casette in one go, you could end up with a file spanning hundreds of megs.... but you should be able to use MusicMatch Jukebox to convert that wav to a tidy little mp3.

It's a tricky job

Gerry

also remember to mute all the sources that you aren't recording from, since you are recording from line-in, mute the mic, midi, cd etc. On some sound cards leaving any sources unmuted causes terrible interference. Make sure you have the full list of sources by going to volume control -> options -> properties -> show these volume controls. As for volume levels, well hopefully for a start you are using a tape recorder with line out.