Topic: CD Wave vs. Audacity

[eddie20850]

I was transfering DATs to CD Wave but the had speed problems, playing back slow.  So I'm gonna try Audacity.  Audacity seems to offer a choice of 44.1/16 bit.  Is this the way to get a proper speed.  I wanna put these tapes on CD too, so I know I need 44.1/16bit for that, right?  Thanks for any reply.  Peace

[SmokinJoe]

I'm not familiar with CD Wave, but I've recorded with Audacity before and it works fine.

You didn't say if they are via analog or digital transfers.  If you are doing digital transfers of 48K Dats, I'm guessing you want to set the project speed at 48K in audacity, record, then change the project speed to 44.1, save it, and it will downsample.  There are better tools for the 48K > 44.1K conversion, but this will do it.  The first step is to get it into the computer correctly.

For files you have currently messed up, there are ways to fix the "wave file header".  Look in the sticky notes at the top of the Computer Recording Help forum.

[jamroom]

I had problems with Audacity (likely just me causing the problems), but I used R8brain for changing the sampling rate or dithering, with ease.

See this thread - http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,101034.0.html

[Brian Skalinder]

I was transfering DATs to CD Wave but the had speed problems, playing back slow.

Either CD-Wave or Audacity should work fine for DAT transfers.

The reason your transfers sound "slow" is because either your soundcard and / or CD-Wave is configured for a different sample rate than the original DAT.  For example, the DAT may have been recorded at 48k, but the soundcard and / or CD-Wave is expecting a 44.1k.  CD-Wave captures the 48k transfer without error, but sets a flag on the file (WAV) that says "play me at 44.1k".  When you play back the transferred file, your playback software / device reads the "play me at 44.1k" flag and thinks it should play at 44.1k - so it does - even though the data in the file is actually 48k.

The solution:  check your soundcard and CD-Wave settings to ensure they're both set to the same sample rate as the original DAT master.  And you should perform the same verification if you decide to use Audacity (else you may have the same problem).

[eddie20850]

OK, so I set my M-AUDIO soundcard and Audacity to record my 48 DAT at 48K and 24 bit.  Now Audacity playback has clicks and pops.  WTF?  What is downsampling and dithering?  When do I do this?  Is this what I need to do to put tapes on CD?  Guess I thought I could go from DAT>M-Audio 24/96>Audacity>CD.  Am I missing a step?  or two?  Thanks.

[Brian Skalinder]

Clicking and popping - check the soundcard configuration and set the latency higher.  Often a too-low latency setting will cause clicking and popping.

Transfer

Since the DAT is 16-bit / 48k, set:

• the soundcard to 16-bit / 48k
• the soundcard's clock source to S/PDIF
• CD-Wave / Audacity to 16-bit / 48k

Assuming the above works, when you finish transferring you'll have within CD-Wave or Audacity a 16-bit / 48k file you'll save as a WAV.  This is a direct copy of your DAT.  Keep it in a safe place (actually, recommend multiple safe places for backup) and don't do anything else to it.

Sample Rate Conversion (Resampling, Downsampling)

Since CD format is 16-bit / 44.1k, you'll need to convert a copy of the 16-bit / 48k WAV to a 16-bit / 44.1k WAV.  Different people use different names for this process:  downsampling, resampling, sample rate conversion.  Audacity will do this for you.  (CD-Wave might as well, but probably with lower quality.)  There's an Audacity tutorial pinned to the top of this forum that discusses configuring and using Audacity.

Tracking & Burning

Track as you wish and burn to CD.

Alternate

Alternatively, you could have your soundcard resample during the transfer - in which case you don't have a direct copy of your 16-bit / 48k DAT, but rather only a 16-bit / 44.1k WAV.  It's been a while since I've done it, but I believe you'd set:

• the soundcard to 44.1k
• the clock source to "internal" (or some such)
• CD-Wave / Audacity to 16-bit / 44.1k

Then continue as noted above.

[jamroom]

I would like to point out that I have set my 24/96 latency higher, but to no improvment in the clicking dept. This noise is not transferred to the recording though, only during playback on the pc.