technical question

[johnhk4]

not sure where i should have posted this

i have a bunch of stuff of my own that i taped to a casette recorder that looks like it saw the worst of the 80s. i was wondering if anyone has tried this -- you know those ipod adapeters for your car stereo where you use a cable and set the stereo to AUX? do you think i could use one of those from the 'phones' jack on the cassette recorder into my 'mic' jack on my computer? then hit play and get the audio with a voice recorder or audacity program...?

anyone?

-john

[Cleantone]

I'm confused why you want to use the adapter? Do you not have a decent cassette deck for playback? What are you trying to "get down to" for the computer? RCA to 1/8" would get you form most cassette decks to most audio inputs. What do you have at hand?

[etahn]

You probably can do just what you're talking about, though if your computer has a 'mic' in, your walkman's headphone out levels may be a little hot. Of course, you do have a volume control.....

We're not looking at real high quality stuff here anyway, right?

[johnhk4]

nah nothing too high quality, just a better storage form than a casette, and the possibilty of some iron+wine-esque mp3s. its mostly fuzzy sounding nylon string guitar and some whistling and vocals - a few ideas for songs ive had over the past few months.

thanks for the suggestions.. i suppose that little cable would work for a radio with a heapphones jack to record onto a computer too.

-johnny

[Phrazz]

Some computer cards also have a line in or let you change the impedance of the 1/8" jack from a mic in to a line in. Mics by themselves don't put out much voltage, so a line in to a mic level jack will get distorted. You have to drop the voltage if all you have is a mic in jack to your PC.

So if you go off the tape deck with the RCA (I'm guessing) outs to stereo 1/8" (cable at any Radio Shack), you're on golden pond. Or if you want better quality and to eventually ditch the cassette deck, you can pony up 80 bucks and get one of these:

http://www.minidisco.com/Sony-ECM-MS907?category=-102

Very convenient...will give much better sound quality than the tape deck mic.

It sounds like you already have a bunch of tapes made, so look at the ins on your sound card and there may be a mic input and a separate line input. Tell us what sound card or what these look like (send a picture?) and we can help further. The mic in should have a picture of a microphone, and the line ins are usually designated with some sound waves and an arrow pointing into the circle like this --> (((o))) .

"Phones" jacks on older equipment is 1/4" (stereo or mono) and newer stuff all use the smaller 1/8" adapters.

What kind of cassette recorder are you talking about? The outs from the RCAs are cleaner (Cleantone) than the phones out. The phones out has much more voltage because it's made to move speakers. So this is MUCH higher than line level (RCAs), which is also much higher than mic level (low impedance, very little voltage).

So for the best electrical connection, I think you want male dual RCAs (stereo) to male stereo mini 1/8" and put that into the LINE IN on your sound card. If you only have MIC IN, then you have to drop the gain with your volume tool until you hear little or no distortion. There are also impedance adapters which will drop this gain electronically in a much cleaner fashion.

I hope that's not too confusing. Just let us know what all the ins and outs look like and we'll give more specific advice. There are also very nice cards for the PC which give various kinds of inputs and convert to USB but these usually have volume/input gain control and software (also under $100). This is best for going direct from a guitar or pickup.

-Keep on rockin!

Phrazz

[magpie]

or,
if you could get one of these handy little iMics that connect to the computer via usb. they're designed for dumping audio from tape decks and turntables. i've used it with audacity, and works like a charm!

[johnhk4]

thanks so much... for all the suggestions on how to get that thing to work.

it was only 10$ so i got the cable and used it on the my line in and nothing happened, but on my mic jack i got it working. now my ADD, in conjunction with some recent music collaboration with freinds, has driven me to want a better home recording setup -
I'm using Acid Pro 4, and I want to be able to mic acoustic guitar, as well as mic my SWR strawberry blonde amp that has a strat and some effects pedals, and my voice which can project just enough that i probably don't need a mic that will boost the EQ for my voice to sound thicker.

here's what I'm thinking...

mic:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/custom ... lectronics

m-audio:
http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-US44010-A ... lectronics

http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Firewire- ... lectronics

which do you think is better? the firewire or the USB? I feel like firewire is going out of style, do most new computer still have it? (mine is about 6 yrs old, gonna get a new one soon)

any suggestions are welcome, you all seemed to know what was up with my other question, so i thought i'd throw this one out there too.
thanks so much, there's really no rush - my paycheck isn't coming till next week anyway haha.

-johnny