Topic: Old Skool live show cassette archiving questions...

[JumpingBean]

I have several cases full of old audio cassettes from just before DATs became popular/affordable.  Several of them are unique recordings of lives shows I attended and taped off the soundboard or mics, and I don't want to lose them due to tape degradation and/or damage, and am seeking some advice on the best process to use to archive them digitally to my computer.  At the end of the day I want to feel safe tossing all but the most important tapes and not worrying that I didn't get the best possible recording saved to my hard drive.

I have my tape player hooked up via aux-in on my sound card and can save recordings as WAV files.  I'll then plan to compress them using some lossless format like FLAC or SHN.  Some of my initial questions include:
* any decent audio recording proggies out there that are intelligent enough to let me start a tape playing, then hit the bed and stop recording automatically when the tape reaches the end (my player will autoreverse and play both tape sides w/o ejecting).
* are lossless compression techniques truly lossless?  Or should I plan to just archive them as giant WAVs? Any advantages of one codec over another?
*

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

It looks like your on the right track. You could make some improvements by adding a better Analog to Digital convertor (your soundcard probably doesn't have a great one, but it will work). Also, a higher end deck will obviously yield better results. I'm assuming that cost is an option.

FLAC is truely lossless. That's all I use for compressed storage. Back up your FLAC's to DVD! (at least one copy besides on your HD).

Someone else might want to chime in with more details.

[dorrcoq]

i'll transfer 'em for ya (nakamichi lx5>oade acm 671) and send you back 24/96 wav data discs.  pm sent.

Tim - that reminds me.  Did you ever do anything with the slowed down Robert Johnson discs?

[GDfan]

I just started doing this myself with my analog cassette recordings. I used to use a marantz pmd 430 and find patches from friendly tapers with mics =D. I am using a decent quality cassette deck(I have like 600 dead shows from trading back in the day) into my pmd660. I will upload some of the flacs when I have finished. It really brings back memories listening to the shows as I re record them. I have masters of dead, merle saunders, rusted root, dylan, hot tuna, allmans, and others.

I recorded some of these a few years ago using my line in on a PC and music match for recording the wavs, but I never really liked the results, probably due to a cheap soundcard, and/or motherboard hum. I find I am getting much better results going to my pmd 600 directly and then editing the wavs on my PC after.

[JumpingBean]

Many thanks for the feedback so far!  Cos is of course a factor.  I have a half decent deck (JVC TD-W709) that does autoreverse.  I have a SB Live Platinum card in the older system I've been using to do some trial runs, and an SB X-Fi Platinum in my newer computer I could use if the A to D convertor is any better in it.  I wasn't sure if the card used to capture the audio mattered much or not, so thanks for pointing that out.  For many of the tapes I'll go to ogg since they are just copies of shows, but definitely for the metal masters I'm interested in getting the best archive possible to digital.

raoulduke, I am having some trouble replying to your PM.  Could you send me a quick msg direct to email at plough @ gmail.com to discuss further?