I was transferring some railroad recordings I made in the '70's and 80's from cassette to CD using a Sony CD recorder (not computer based). Generally the process works pretty well, BUT twice the CD recorder indicated the process was completed successfully yet the CD would be blank if played back on any CD player in the house, computer or otherwise. Worse, one CD was OK for several tracks, then it would pop, click, stutter and crap out altogether. This lack of performance was also consistent on all resident CD players. More fun was encountered with a CD that would not play on my desktop, but would work on any other player in the house. Of course, any of these problems meant redoing the entire 60-75 minutes worth of work for each faulty recording. Fortunately my own tapes have led a sheltered life, and will still play on demand without getting grumpy. Oddly enough, the 27 year old tape deck has worked flawlessly throughout, in contrast to the new stuff.

Which leads me to the question...

Is there a better, more reliable way to go from tape to CD, or am I missing something in the CD recorder/recording process?

In a broader sense, if archival groups are faced with a collection of deteriorated tapes, ready to shed their oxide coating at the slightest provocation, they would be stuck with one pass through, all or nothing, and the above process is just not good enough. I've asked local elex stores about computer based systems, but I usually get blank stares, or worse, when I describe what I'm trying to do (like, what's a phono plug....).

Any thoughts or advice from experience would be greatly appreciated.

Without more information it's hard to say.

Is your computer up to the task, from processor to motherboard to sound card?

What software are you using?

What encoding bit rate?

What type of CDs?

It almost sounds like you are going direct from tape to CD without putting the files on your hard drive. If so, that may be part (or all) of the problem.

JAC

John -

My computer is 1999 vintage, very likely incapable of handling large audio files. It has a CD read capability but not a CD burner. It struggles with bitmap files above 5-10meg. It also has a fairly large key on the back as a power source! That's why I was making inquiries about a new computer which would be capable of handling audio and photo files. Software - not using any. The Sony RCD-W10 is self-contained. I don't see any specs for the last item, unless it has something to do with the sampling frequency which is 44.1kHz, according to the manual.

ahh.

When you said "not computer based" you really meant it - I thought you meant a USB CD writer or something similar.

You might search for a help forum for your particular hardware.

JAC

Funny thing about recording media. Nothing will last very long, the first recorded CD's that came out years ago are becoming obsolete to the point that they are not playable. Many of the reel to reel tapes made during the Vietnam era war are garbbled, losing the magnetic base they once had. Even worse the equipment that they play on either does not exsist or there are no parts to repair them. What my point?

I am in a similar situation, in that my editing stuff(AVID) is 1997-98 just before the digital Firewire, etc. However, it does a fine job editing.
Several years ago, I had a bunch of reels of audio...Reel-to-Reel stuff from the late 50's, that needed to be converted for editing as many had matching 16mm scenes I was editing. I shipped them off to a local production place where I knew the audio guy. They did some tweaking with the settings to take out some hiss, etc, and ran them all off to about 40 DAT's. So with my DAT player I can input them into my AVID system for editing, etc.
My suggestion is to find a place to do the work for you. Assuming its nowhere near the job I was doing, it could be done direct to CD by someone with a burner. Try a local PBS station, or even a local radio station. Some may do it for a reasonable rate, or if nothing else might steer you in the right direction. At least thats some options for you.

I have one similar....I may be in need of transfering a vinyl record to DAT or something else for editing. How can that be done??? In the old days I used to have an old 8-track that I could do this with, and made many a recording of my albums to 8-track for rockin in the old Pontiac! That thing is long gone now though! :)

Good luck

Greg Scholl

Just a note that a CD isn't forever. The "nominal" life of a typical CD is considered to be 10 years. With careful storage, I have some getting on to twenty years old that appear to be in good shape. But even the recording industry understands that CD isn't a good archival format. The plastic used in the CD is a compromise between the requirements of burning and being inexpensive at the expense of long term chemical stablity.

Ed

Having done what you did before CD burners in Computers were a throw away item.

Your problems are varied and could be

Not all cd players ( especially erlier ones) can play cd-r or cd-rw cd+r OR "CD-r for music only" media. On the pioneer units you had to "finalize" the CD befor any other device would recognize it. what that finalize is Idunno i guess writing the track locators ?

tips:

Wipe of the blank cd media before burning and don't scratch it afterwards.

buy high quality cd blanks ( imation blank cds are the absolute worst and always have a high failure rate in the burner )

DON'T try and fill up every last second of a CD. With an average run by being 2 minutes you can easily have 28- 35 cd tracks when you record it up to the limit the machine is not expecting to write 30+ file locator markers (unlike a typical audio album of 10 to 15) and runs out of space so the plaer can't locate the tracks that were not logged the same applies if the machine adds blank space between the tracks.

don't try and have one track for a thirty minute tape break them up into shorter segments.

I have no experience with Sony units , but I go straight from the reel to reel into the cd burner and from the record player direct into the burner. I have a Pioneer model ###? .

Now, I have an RCA-usb adapter and pull it in with Roxio software as an AAIF file, edit take out the click and pops and burn it to cd.

S.A.

OK, what I'm getting from this is that the digitizing process from tape/vinyl is pretty reliable if one goes direct to computer-based storage. That would solve the once-though goal in working with the original source.

At that point, things get shaky because the next storage medium is beset with manufacturing problems, etc., which causes unreliability. However, a CD/DVD can be burned quickly and inexpensively as many times as required from the computer file. This gets around the problems of the direct-from-tape-to-CD method that I'm currently using. Looks like shopping for a new computer will continue.

BTW, for those who asked, my computer has one external input for a single mike, not good for stereo.

Thanks for all the info, both on and off the forum. I know this would be a good place for ideas.

Dave

I use a Yamaha CDR D-651 to copy from old LP and 45 (and even 78) RPM records. I found that TDK CD-RW discs work best. I tried Memorex and maybe another brand and had the some-tracks-OK/others-terrible problem. So--you may have to experiment with different brands. The incompatibility problem manifested itself when I tried to play a CD-RW in the car stereo: no-go. I had to copy from the CD-RW to a CD-R. The older a CD player is, the less likely it is to play CD-R format. I chose a stand-alone unit because my recorded music media & players, turntables, etc. are in one room, and the computer in another. As far as preserving sounds from tapes that are falling apart, it may be best to record them onto another tape (testing the setup first) and then worry about what format to use for the next step.