I am converting my cassettes to cds/Good sound from computer when playing but playback after recording is bad.

Question

I have been troubleshooting this for days. I have connected my tape deck directly to my soundcard correctly. I purchased a good audio editing software (roxio). The sound that comes from my computer when playing the tape sounds great, but after recording, the playback quality is poor. Sounds low and more like mono than stereo. I have adjusted everything I can think of on my volume controls. Could it be my soundcard? I have a new HP pavillion a1640n desktop. I would think the soundcard could handle this analog to digital process fine.
I have been doing a lot of research about this. It sems many people are converting their CDs and LPs with no problem as long as you have the software to do it. I don't know why it's not working for me. I have used my DAZZLE device to record audio through my video editing software and it actually sounds great! But I can't convert to MP3 nor seperate the tracks with the video software. Why does my soundcard work fine doing it that way? Please help! thanks!

Answer 1

A few possiblities here:
1. Software, Roxio isn't very good really.. but it should do
2. Your soundcard is not very good quality
3. Your other inputs are not muted. Make sure your microphone input is muted especially.
4. Are you recording in 44.1 KHz stereo? Make sure you are. I suspect it could be on 22kHz. THere is no reason to record at a sample rate below 44.1KHz. Nothing is wrong with higher, but for the most part pointless, especially if your putting it on CD.... If putting it on CD, make sure it "IS" 44.1 KHz
Make sure your recording colume is sufficiently high. You want your sound to peak close to 0dB. Don't get too worried about this up to about -3dB should be fine but if the sound is at -30 dB or something, then it simply will not have the range needed. However, if the sound is going OVER 0dB it is simply going to make it sound worse. At no time should the recorded sound be over 0dB.

Try making sure the sound on your tape player output is high and then adjust the sound card volume as needed, if it is too low coming in it will limit the quality.

Answer 2

First of all, Roxio doesn't make any good software whatsoever. If they did, it wouldn't be their audio software. And secondly, were you aware that no recording can EVER sound better than the original source?

That means that no matter how much money you spend on software and computer hardware, the absolute best you'll get is a CD that sounds like a cassette tape. Cassette tapes were replaced because they didn't have very good sound quality, not just because people didn't like waiting for them to rewind/fast forward.

Answer 3

you could desire to circulate into administration panel and circulate to 'upload Hardware' then enable homestead windows seek for the sound card! make beneficial your audio equipment are plugged in - specific as quickly as mine have been unplugged yet l did not comprehend for a while and purely concept the audio equipment have been broken! lt sounds like a motive force record has have been given corrupted or lost someplace purely oftentimes of homestead windows! equipment fix does paintings from time to time yet no continuously! have you ever appeared on your 'equipment coaching' and then inspect your 'historic previous' and you will see each and all of the ameliorations that have exceeded off! desktops are a discomfort, my first ever computing gadget working homestead windows 95 with 32mb replace into extra stable than a the terrific option notch computing gadget working homestead windows xp expert service p.c.. 2 oh yeah l did a motive force replace by microsoft replace and somewhat of updating the soundcard it uninstalled the drivers!

Answer 4

Try following this guide to see if you have done anything wrong:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/diy
free downloadable version at: http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/downloads.php
includes free software download - hope this helps