Help Me Start, Please!, Need advice on what to buy. :-) Options

[ibnabouna]

Hello,

I have a question for all of the professional audio buffs that hang around here.

On my not-so-spare time, I build and run the web site at http://www.coptichymns.net/ , which is dedicated to the digitization and preservation of rare hymns of the ancient Coptic Orthodox Church (talk about niche market, huh).

Anyway, I currently encode all of my audio in RealAudio format via RealProducer Basic. I have a USB iMic connected to my DP G4, which, in turn, is connected to my stereo's headphone check. This is an extremely simple setup, I know.

I would like to begin doing more "hardcore" digitizing. My major concern at this point is that cable going from the stereo's headphone jack to the iMic. I think I would get better performance and quality from an RCA cable instead, right? Unfortunately, my stereo doesn't have that jack, so I guess I need to buy a completely new tape deck to play these ancient tapes and get the best possible quality for further optimization.

Now that you have my story, can anyone suggest a good quality tape deck that works well with Macs? Any other suggestions as to how I can make this endeavor more productive?

Thanks so much in advance.

[damann]

I would like to begin doing more "hardcore" digitizing. My major concern at this point is that cable going from the stereo's headphone jack to the iMic. I think I would get better performance and quality from an RCA cable instead, right? Unfortunately, my stereo doesn't have that jack, so I guess I need to buy a completely new tape deck to play these ancient tapes and get the best possible quality for further optimization.

you said it!
the headphone output of your amp will never provide the best results.
your whole approach is, to be honest, pretty lo-fi anyhow.
i can't imagine a hifi without rca outputs for the individual components (well, i guess i can!), a new amp at least, seems necassary here...
i hope you don't consider my reply to be cynical. anything i can do to help, feel free to ask.

[ibnabouna]

No, no, I don't think you're cynical at all. You're the pro, I'm the amateur, so I don't mind listening to criticism at all.

Here's what I have so far:

(1) Dual-processor G4 1GHz with 1.5 GB RAM and 120 GB hard drive.
(2) iMic connected to USB
(3) OS X 10.2; OS 9.2.2
(4) Toast Titanium 5.1.4
(5) CD Spin Doctor (supposedly can separate tracks for me)
(6) Audion X 3.02 (can record from the iMic and optimize)

Here's what I want to do:

(1) Insert an old tape (with all of those audio imperfections), play it, and record the best possible sound file to the computer.
(2) Digitize and optimize that file to create the best clarity.
(3) Using the optimized file, send it through RealProducer.

The question is:

What do I need? Just tell me whatever you think I should have, and trust me, I will buy it. I'm a law student that is pretty proficient when it comes to doing things in OS X, but when it comes to this hardcore stuff, I'm a total newbie.

I was hoping someone would have experience with certain tape decks, or even know of one that hooks up directly to USB and can be controlled from the computer.

Thanks for any help.

[damann]

o.k.
i think the imic is the weak link here. a good quality audio interface will give much better results.
the concept of a usb cassette deck is great, but will never happen!
the software, although good, won't give you results as good as, for instance, tc spark or bias peak with lots of good vst plugins.
you'll need to normalise, limit, eq, and remove noise from the recordings.
hey, a can of worms!
to summarize, i think you need:

a very good cassette deck (especially as far as output is concerned).
something to boost the signal sent to the mac, maybe.
a high quality a/d converter (i.e. a GOOD audio interface).
some serious software like logic, cubase, performer, protools, spark, peak, etc to manipulate the audio.
toast with jam, waveburner, or similar to burn the results.

that will definitely help in a large way already.
keep in touch...

[ibnabouna]

Hi,

Thanks again for your reply.

I'm working on getting a good quality tape deck (something that at least has an RCA output). So far, I've found a few "professional grade" Sony machines on eBay and hope to pick one of them up soon. That shouldn't be the problem.

As for the software, I'm going to buy Bias Peak LE for $99 to start with. That supports plug-ins, right? Do you think I need to spring for the full version?

The one thing I still don't understand is this concept of a good quality converter. Okay, so the iMic stinks :-). What do you recommend? I don't even know who makes these things!

I appreciate all of your help.

[studiofile]

I would get a Digidesign Mbox which will kill about 3 birds with one stone!!

It will get you a decent audio interface with both analog and digital i/o

You get Protools 5.2LE software which even with the built in software will give you a chance to improve the sound

You can export Real Audio files direct from Protools. It produces much better quality files as well.

As budget allows you can add 3rd party plugins so strengthening you restoration options. Would look at Waves software starting with the Native Powerp Pack but also as funds allow the Restoration bundle.

Hope that helps

Mike Thornton
One Stop Digital (OSD) ltd
www.osd-uk.com

[formatj]

For your needs you probably would be fine with something like an Audiophle 24/96 made by M-Audio.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/m-audio/audiophile.php

it has an MSRP of $229.95 you should be able to get it for less than $160-170.

as damann said it would be good to have software that can remove noise etc. from recordings. Spark XL comes with some great software that can analyze an area of "silence" containing tape hiss, hum etc and remove this unwanted "noise" from the entire recording. It is however about $550-$600.

If you don't want to spend this much Peak LE would be a good program to start with.

[ibnabouna]

I started out with no clue, but now you guys have filled in the gaps with a lot of options.

I'll go research this stuff right away to determine what is best for my needs... will post back here when I've bled enough money on all this stuff.

[Presto]

Following on from what Damann has said (oops I wrote this before reading the other replies), I think its a good idea for me to propose one particular in/out (I/O) solution. There are other solutions but if you know nothing, its a good place to start. Damann and others will then add to, warn against, or propose other solutions. (Mine's an OS9 solution NOT classic and NOT X)

The Mbox ( www.digidesign.com ) should be quite satisfactory for your needs (usb connection) as Studiophile suggests. It has 2 good quality I/O connecters, a preamp and even 48V power for mics if ever you want to record hymns live - and you get the Protools LE editing/mixing app with it which is excellent for audio. I think it goes for around 500$ in the US. That way your computer becomes your digital tape deck.

You also get some plugins, a few of which are good quality, but you may have to invest in some more or better plugins as Studiophile has said. For example the reverb plugin free with PT LE can give you a church reverb sound to your hymns, but it is not considered the best. (There's one excellent plugin I'd like for correcting pitch, but which costs more than the Mbox.)

Also, are all your hymns originally on cassette tapes? (LPs would be better, even with scratches - they can be cleaned out). If you do get an Mbox (I have one) but have a tight budget, I should try comparing initial, unmodified recordings onto your mac using your present cassette deck and a borrowed better deck (make sure the heads are clean). Then you can decide if the improvement in quality is worth the extra investment.

Aha! You need a good pair of headphones in order to listen to the results - mine are Beyerdynamic DT 250 but you may get other suggestions. If you're going to spend long periods listening, remember headphones are tiring for the ears, so you'll need monitors (good amp + good speakers)

I tried recording from an unpowered mic onto my mac using an imic and the very low quality was mainly due to the low input signal. The imic may well be a good 24 bit A/D converter, but it only works at 16bits as it uses the 16bit sound manager in MacOS9 (this may be only a minor problem in your case - perhaps not a problem on OSX), and it does not amplify a low input signal (big problem). I bought the imic before I knew about MacMusic!!

If you want to get best quality all the way along the chain, each bit can be quite expensive (I'm looking at monitors normally costing 1600$). Still, to conclude, just an Mbox and nothing else would be an enormous improvement on your imic.

(I really think somebody should write an article for beginners - I could provide one point of view but it would be far from complete)

[ibnabouna]

Hi, Presto,

Thank you for your elaborate reply!

I wish I read your post earlier this morning, when I ordered the following components from JandR:

1) Sony TCW-E475 Cassette Player/Recorder (a simple component cassette deck that has Dolby B, C, and HX noise reduction)
2) Audiophile 2496 sound card

After reading all of the helpful suggestions in this post and doing my research, I forged ahead with the Audiophile card, because the other alternatives have almost non-existent OS X support. I should have mentioned that I am a recent Mac "switcher," and as such, know how to do things pretty much in OS X only. OS 9 and Classic are almost alien to me; it took me a whole day just to figure out line-in playthough from the iMic. The reviews of the Audiophile were pretty strong all-around. Plus, it's a PCI card, which means I don't have to waste my system resources on the USB connection. Finally, not only did the MBox seem to be unsupported in OS X, but the included--Protools 5.2 LE--doesn't run on OS X. That would have made my audio solution almost entirely OS 9, which, for reasons stated above, didn't seem ideal to me.

So, with all of this in mind, do you think I made a mistake? I know the Mbox has a built-in preamp or something; should I get a separate one to go from the cassette deck to the Audiophile card to ensure enough power?

To answer your question. almost all of my tapes are vintage, being recorded in the 40s-60s and mass duplicated throughout the years. This has undoubtedly added to the distorion in the tapes. My goal is to attain the best possible digital recording of these tapes so I can encode them in RealAudio format and eventually use the master files to make CDs (once the copyright stuff is worked out with the holder in Egypt).

I'm just worried I made the wrong choice now. Please let me know if I should cancel my order and still go with an Mbox over the Audiophile 2496 card and whether I need a preamp.

Thanks again for the help.

[formatj]

Hi ibnabouna,

I don't think you made a mistake with the Audiophile card. It has very similar specs to the Mbox in terms of dynamic range. It also supports 96kHz, the Mbox only supports 44.1/48kHz.
With the Mbox you are paying for microphone preamps which you don't currently need.
If you do want a mic preamp one day you can buy one separately with digital out and use the digital in of the Audiophile.

The audiophile card was shipping with a copy of Logic delta for a while, don't know if it still is. This will have some similar functionality to protools LE.

You can also go to the digidesign website and download a copy of protools free.

Put the money you saved towards some good software plugins.

[ibnabouna]

Thanks, formatj.

You really reassured me there.

I look forward to trying out this new setup.

[Presto]

You don't waste time do you. I should imagine if you had done very thorough research into what equipment would be best for you, you may have found that the time could have been better spent on getting the work done on more hastily acquired equipment (which may turn out to be the best anyway). Anyway, if you buy mail order or on the web, you probably have the right to send the stuff back within 7 days if you don't like it (depending on what country you live in).

I was a beginner only a few months ago. I'm quite satisfied with the Mbox for my needs but it's true your needs are different and you don't need the 48V mic power (yet). If formatj says you don't need a preamp either then he's probably right (I have no idea). PTLE is quite simple to use so PT Free must be too, and I suppose so are the OSX audio apps. I have no means of comparison, and only know the Mbox/PTLE solution for my songwriting and mic recording needs.

Still, I really don't think 96KHz is a good idea. Also, if you're going to put your results on CD you'll need a good plugin to get back down to 16bits and 44.1KHz.

Formatj. I imagine a pianissimo with hiss, then suddenly silence with no hiss, then suddenly more pp with hiss. Does the hiss eating function in SparkX analyse the hiss found in the 'silence' areas, then get rid of (or attenuate) the same hiss throughout the recording (without getting rid of too much useful sound)?

Yes! Good plugins are probably going to be very useful. Be careful to get the ones that will work with the app you use, or even the app that works with the plugs you want. There may well be an appropriate plugin thread somewhere on here. I've noticed there's a thread on cleaning up vinyls. Use the MacMusic 'search' button.

Also, don't be surprised if your topic gets moved to another place. You put it in the OS9 forum, you prefer OSX, and you asked about Audio Hardware choices ;-) If you'd put it in OSX you may have got more OSX solutions. I think its always better to choose first the most appropriate software tools for the job, and only then the hardware that they need.

Good luck! I'll be interested to see how you get on with the restoration. Have you done a search for restoration articles on the web?

[ibnabouna]

Hi again, Presto,

I don't have much time to post here, but for now, I will make a brief comment on this post's location in the OS 9 forum. If you look over on the Audio Hardware forum, you might still see my original topic with a "moved" designation on it; I originally posted it in the Audio Hardware forum.

For whatever reason (still unbeknownst to me), the mods moved it here, even though I clearly expressed a preference against OS 9 in my particular situation.

Go figure, huh?

[formatj]

Presto,

Here is info from TCWorks website for "Denoiser" from Spark XL

"The Denoiser is optimised for broadband noise and utilizes a fingerprint method, so it is easy to control the behaviour. Only 3 parameters are required to finetune the denoising process – and the audition function ensures that only noise is removed, not your material!"

So yes, it does remove hiss from all sections of music including pianissimo ones.

I own Spark, not Spark XL, however I have seen/heard it in action and was amazed by the results. I will definitely upgrade to XL at some stage.

The Waves restoration bundle has similar types of plugins. They are available in VST version. Ibnabouna, you may want to download a demo to see what they can do when you have your system set up.

I also don't think 96kHz is necessary for ibnabouna now however just like phantom power + preamps from the Mbox it is an extra feature not required now but is there for the future.
He can add a preamp + phantom power later to the audiophile system if required.

I think M-box is a good solution for certain requirements, especially a portable system with a laptop for recordings with a microphone. It's probably just not necessary for transferring material from casette tapes.

[ibnabouna]

Hi, guys,

I wonder if I can bother you with one more question.

Much has been said about this program called SparkXL, but some have also mentioned lesser versions. I came across this Spark LE Plus program ($49.95) today. It says you get 4 plug-in slots; does that mean you can add 4 plug-ins on top of the included ones, or are the included ones all you get period? The good thing about this is that it runs in OS X.

You know that I need something to (1) record and (2) clean up the hymns via some plug-in I undoubtedly have to buy. Will this work or should I go for the full SparkXL?

Thanks a lot!

[formatj]

You can add VST plugins which you can buy separately.
If you want to operate it under OS X there aren't many OS X third party high end plugins yet; no waves etc.
In the future Spark will probably also support Audio units (similar to VST plugins).

Spark XL is the only version that comes with noise restoration software.

See if you can get a demo of Spark and other software products mentioned in a music store (take a cassette tape with you) or otherwise download the demo versions.

You can also download the free version Spark ME and try out some of the basic features. www.tcworks.de

[ibnabouna]

Thanks, formatj.

What I hear you saying is that I should either go with the full-blown Spark XL or go the other extreme and just get Spark ME and some other noise reduction software. Am I to understand that there is no point in getting Spark LE or Spark LE Plus?

Also, what do you think of a noise reduction program called Ray Gun? It's currently OS 9 only, but an OS X program appears to be forthcoming. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

Spark XL is $750. Spark LE Plus + Ray Gun would be $149.

Any thoughts? I just want to make sure I will use this stuff before I dedicate the money to it.

[aladinsane]

after experiencing it for a few weeks I can say that
ray gun is very nice. good for humming and hiss removal. although you can never realy reduce noise without chopping off a bit of the rest.

[Presto]

Have a look at this:

http://www.waves.com/htmls/prods/restoration.htm

It won't work on OSX (even though they do say 8.6 and higher), but it will give you an idea of what you need.(It will work with PT LE so I suppose it will work with PT Free)

When (if) you find a cheaper equivalent in OSX then you can decide which app to plug it into.

To tell you the truth, I think you should really consider using OS9. Have a look at the Oxymoron topic.

The OS interface you use is not a real problem. I can even use Windows, but once I'm in an app it doesn't really bother me.

Actually, it may be a good idea to start a topic "Restoration". If you put it in the OS9 forum you will get responses from people who've done it. I'm not sure you'll find many (if any) who've specialised in restoration on OSX.Still, OS9 users do have a look at OSX from time to time.