converting Tape to CD sound card question

Hi All,

My father and a friend of his get together and from time to time jam and occasionally he records it. Recently, he's expressed an interest in converting his tapes to CD. I was talking on the phone with him yesterday and he want into details of what all is recorded. On a basic level its a sound card with a line-in jack (most have that) but for better quality he mentioned a special jack (which I neglected to write down). I think it might be RCA Audio or something w/phonics in. Today it occurred to me that it might be a great Christmas for him. I did about 2 hours of research and I could not find any sound cards references other then to ensure that you have line-in on the card. My father informed me that the card would be in the $80 range. I would apperciate any thoughts you can offer on this.

I realize that it is off topic (so I put it in General Chit Chat). I will am also providing a list of links I found useful in case any of you want to embark a similar trek.

http://pages.prodigy.net/jdjd/audio/vinyl.htm
http://www.optonline.net/Call_For_He...784438,00.html
http://www.cdrfaq.org/
http://pub58.ezboard.com/fokayyourtu...icID=853.topic
http://www.simtel.net/pub/winnt/sndcapt/
http://www.zittware.com/support/cdm3...#linetoAudioCD

Cheers,
-D

What sort of tape deck.. Quality of recording.. Most domestic Tape decks have RCA sockets for audio..

Some Pro Sound cards use 1/4 inch Phono inputs, as well as having RCA's .. for most of what he would want a good standard card and a RCA to stereo Phono (3.5mm or 1/8 inch) cable should do.. but then I am not an Audiophile...

Please note some cards use digital optical inputs .. SPDIF/TOSLINK..

Cheers

Just a suggestion,

I know people who also enjoy doing the similar (jam & record) and found that converting from tape to 'puter is best done with the Creative Audigy Panel and Card Click Here

It is also practical to record the audio on a CD quality cassette (for later on)

If you are not wanting a super high dollar card I would look at something like the audigy series of cards from soundblaster. It was probably the audigy mp3 that he was referring to as it is in the price range mentioned.

The audigy platinum is the high end of that series of cards, but if you are going to spend 200$ on a sound card I would recommend going with one of the midiman or turtle beach cards as they are mored geared towards home studio use instead of gaming use.

As for the cables needed. You will just need an rca-->1/8" stereo jack.. The 1/8" jack is the type of cable used on the audigy cards. I would not worry about getting a card that has optical inputs unless he has equipment with digital outs that wants to record. Get a good cable!!! A lot of times people go and get their cables from radio shack and then it ends up not being stereo, or it just sucks. I used to get my cables at Mars music, but they have since gone out of business. Any good music equipment store should carry good quality conversion cables. It'll probably cost about 5-8$, just make sure it is stereo.

Then you need some software to record from tape to pc with. The audigy cards come with an audio recorder but it is pretty bare bones. But just to convert the tapes over to wav it should do the trick.

For future jams sessions they should really record directly into the computer. I'm not sure if they are just playing and letting a mic record the sounds(which would sound pretty muddled), or if they are running all of their equipment through a mixer and then recording the output of the mixer. If they are recording the output from the mixer they can use the same cable used in the pc to tapedeck situation to record directly into the pc.

I would recommend getting something along the lines of WaveLab by Steinberg to do really good recordings. You can get the lite version for about 150$. This software is designed to record sounds and create samples to be used in music production. However, if you father is recording him and his friends jamming onto a tape deck they might find recording into wavelab directly to be a lot nicer. They can then apply effects, filters, compressors, etc... to do just about anything with the sound.. You can do the same with the tape deck, but tape decks have really high wow and flutter, and the tape adds a lot of noise