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Recording with line in directly onto timeline
This is the first time I have ever tried to record directly onto the timeline but this is the only way I can record from a very old cassette.
I have one 3.5mm jack at both ends going from the cassette player directly to the line in of the PC.
I can here the audio quite well but the volume that appears on the screen by way of the red line is very very small & this & looks nothing like what my own video clips look like.
I can turn up the cassette played but have been told that if it’s too high I might damage my PC’s audio card. Yet at the same time if I were to normalize the track The waves get much higher. And I turned off Dolby of the player & told it to play back without any override of the players equalizer.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance
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8 Replies
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I should have added that the wave line suggests that highest it gets to is about -12DB.
Incidentally the player is interesting. Its a Sony that has 2 cassette reorder/players inbuilt both of which can play or record onto both sides. This means that you could capture 4 sides into one file.
Thanks in advance
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[Paul Gregory] “I have one 3.5mm jack at both ends going from the cassette player directly to the line in of the PC.”
That only tells us what cable you used. The more important part is what output port did you use on the cassette (headphone?, line-out?) and what input port did you use on your PC (microphone?, line-in?). You probably need a preamp to go between them but since you are using the chip on your motherboard your options are limited.
I would connect the line-out of the cassette to the line-in on your PC. If it’s a cassette deck that is used with a stereo system, the line outs are probably two RCA jacks (Left (white) and Right (red)).
[Paul Gregory] “I can turn up the cassette played but have been told that if it’s too high I might damage my PC’s audio card. “
As long as you’re going from line-level to line-level and not mismatching mic-level and line-level, You can crank up the volume and get a good signal. You want it to be as loud as possible without clipping.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
First, peaking at -12 dBm is pretty close to what you want. However, your cassette player probably can’t pump out enough watts of power to burn out your PC sound card inputs. A 70-Volt PA amplifier, on the other hand, could.
If you’re going to do a lot of these, you might find this to be more appropriate.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
Was Dolby used when the tape was recorded? If it was, then it should be on when the tape is played back. That should not change the volume level, but it will reduce the noise level in the audio.
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The cord is plugged into the headphone jack because I didn’t have a cord that was suitable for the speakers which appear to use some European system that requires you to put a red or white cord under a clip.
It seems that a preamp is unnecessary & that I can get the wave display to go as high as I want if I turn the players volume up.
I suppose that once I have captured what audio I want its just a case of saving portions of the file in any audio format.
Thanks for the help. And if you have any additional ideas as for using the Vegas audio FX please suggest them.
Thanks in advance
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If you are recording from the headphone jack of the cassette player then you are correct, you don’t need a pre-amp. The headphone output is pre-amplified already. Save you recordings to PCM WAV format. This is uncompressed and lossless.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
It’s recording quite well. I do notice that one channel is consistently louder than the other. I have been using the audio pan on the track before rendering file. I noticed that the audio pan doesn’t appear to work as you record. Is this normal?
Thanks in advance
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[Paul Gregory] “I noticed that the audio pan doesn’t appear to work as you record. Is this normal?”
Yes, the Volume and Pan are for playback only. You must control recording from your recording device. If you are using the built-in motherboard audio then perhaps it can be controlled from the Windows audio application. I don’t know, I use outboard audio devices with ASIO drivers like the M-Audio Firewire 410 that come with their own application for controlling the device.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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