sound recording

Not sure if this is a software or hardware problem, but here goes.
What I'm trying to do is to transfer music from cassette tapes to burn to a CD. So I have plugged the cassette deck into the line-in connector on the sound card. Then I am following the 'line-in recording' process in MusicMatch. It works although it is slow (limited to real-time speed here). However the sound quality of the resulting tracks is not good. As in I can hear the difference between playing the tape thru the soundcard versus playing back the recorded file. I was originally doing the analog-to-MP3 in one pass. I have tried recording to WAV instead which did not help. I would call the sound quality to be about like an AM radio, it gets muddy when the music got busy and seemed to have a static or buzzy effect. The sound card is a Turtle Beach. Model is a 'Montego' I think.

Anyone have experience on this? Is the D-to-A converter not too good. Or is the software the problem. Like to get it up to the quality of the cassette tape, which is not that great.

 

Could just be the qulity of the cable and connectors and jacks on both ends. I haven't tried this kind of recording yet but I would be interested in the outcome. One more thought...is the output from the tape deck amplified? You might want to run it through an EQ and amplifier before it hits the sound card.

 

The output level of the tape deck is adequate. In fact I had to adjust the slider on the input channel downward when the early tries sounded distorted. And it helped some.

My other PC has an SB-Live soundcard in it. I may try it on that machine when I get some time to fool around with it.

 

An update for any who were looking at this.

Found some help on CNET. Downloaded Goldwav at their recommendation. This allows recording to WAV files with a lot of controls including a good level meter. Turned out the input volume from the tape deck was too high. Even though it sounded OK thru the speakers, it was too much for the recording process. Turned the volume down more and it recorded very clean.

Looks like I'm back in business on this.

 

Hi Pat
I am in the process of transferring cassette to Cd also. Have completed several dozen, so far. I was using Waveflow for my editor and it has excellent filtering capabilities, but that is the only good thing about it. I was getting an ocasional system lockup with it and it was very slow to edit with. I downloaded GoldWave a couple weeks ago and have not had any trouble with it at all. GW does not have the filtering capabilities WF had (or I haven't found them yet) but it is 10 times faster when it comes to editing. Glad to hear you solved your volume problem.

 

Actually I had one more problem. Started monitoring the recording using headphones, and realized as I was listening to it that it was in mono, not stereo.
After reviewing documentation for the soundboard (on a website), determined that I plugged into the mic-in connection. And that what I really wanted was the line-in. Moved it over, checked the sound, yes it was stereo. Re-checked the record level, which was different. And it sounded beautifil.
So now I'm ready to go.
But it sure makes doing CD to mp3 or CD to computer to CD look easy!!