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]

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...