Importing from audio cassette.

I guess I put the cart before the horse. I asked Apple Care if I could import from audio cassette to my iMac G5 from a boombox. They suggesting posting question in Apple Discussions under Soundtrack/Soundtrack Pro. I now have the information as to what application (Toast 7) I need to accomplish this, but I guess my 1st question should have been whether I can accomplish with the hardware I have. I have a little Sony boombox (plays audio cassettes, CDs, and radio) and only has an earphone jack. I have a connector that I hoped could be used to connect and transmit to my G5. It's a digital stereo mini hook-up extension cable. The package says it's a stereo plug to stereo plug, "The solution for high quality signal transfer". Will this work? If not what do I need? Thanks for any help.

Posted on Nov 10, 2005 6:57 PM

30 replies

ThomasG

Level 5

6,745 points

Nov 15, 2005 3:29 PM in response to ThomasG

I've done some tests using SoundSoap and CD SpinDoctor to remove noise from a rather crackly Stevie Wonder vinyl LP.

SoundSoap is easier and probably better for noise reduction. That's all it does. Unlike SpinDoctor, SoundSoap does not digitize analog audio and does not separate audio files into individual tracks.

SoundSoap's controls are easy to use. There is a combined click & crackle slider and an enhancer slider. There are a couple dials to turn to control the sensitivity and amount of noise reduction. These dials can be automatically set by SoundSoap using its Learn Noise command. Play a 2-second part of the file such as the silence between tracks and SoundSoap sets the noise reduction. There are some nice options such as being able to listen just to the noise that will be removed so you can hear if you need to make adjustments to keep desired audio content from being filtered out.

My hearing is not good enough to feel confident that I can attest that SoundSoap's noise filtering is sonically superior to SpinDoctor's. They both do a nice job of removing or reducing noise. SoundSoap has rumble and hum filters not present in SpinDoctor, while SpinDoctor 3 has an equalizer not present in SoundSoap.

I really like the learn noise feature because I otherwise spent a lot of time trying to tweak the filter settings in SpinDoctor.

If you're just an amateur layman like me who wants to remove or reduce noise from your home records and tapes, SpinDoctor is all you need. But if setting the noise filters is frustrating and you have some cash available, you'll be happy to use SoundSoap instead.

Nov 15, 2005 4:14 PM in response to ThomasG

Thanks, ThomasG! Very interesting. Could you tell if the actual audio was squashed or degraded by the filters?

ThomasG

Level 5

6,745 points

Nov 15, 2005 11:09 PM in response to Barbara Brundage

I was very pleased with how the filtered music sounded. I could still hear the fine ring of the cymbals and it was very open overall. There still was some noise from where the crackling was rather severe. I purposely chose a record that wasn't in good enough condition to make a clean recording but still was musically listenable. I played with the expander a little, but Stevie Wonder's records don't really need this kind of enhancement so I didn't use that on the final filtering.

One thing I didn't mention is you can undo the filtering after its been applied and not yet saved, and you can do multiple filtering before saving as a new file. Files open quickly because there is no waveform to create. The actual filtering proceeds quickly on a G5 iMac. I didn't time it but my guess is takes about a minute to filter 10 minutes of audio.

Nov 15, 2005 11:46 PM in response to ThomasG

Thanks again. That's very encouraging.

Nov 16, 2005 8:28 AM in response to ThomasG

Thomas G:

Thank you for taking the time to test and report back on SoundSoap. It sounds as though it would be the easiest for me to use, however, it doesn't appear to be an application that will allow me to import using the equipment I have. When I went to their website and checked into cleaning cassette recordings, they said not to use earphone jack only equipment, but it's all I have. Would I still need an application to import and also SoundSoap to clean it up?

Thanks for sharing.

ThomasG

Level 5

6,745 points

Nov 16, 2005 12:30 PM in response to Esther McGinty

Esther,
Your situation is what created such a big market for the Griffin iMic. It enables capturing audio via USB. I have one of these for my iBook and recommend it. Griffin also has a free application that works with the iMic for capturing audio. It is called Final Vinyl. You can capture with Final Vinyl and clean up the audio with Sound Soap.

Nov 18, 2005 8:29 AM in response to Esther McGinty

Okay, I received the iMic from Griffin, used connections I have: earphone jack out>mic-in port on iMic>USB directly to iMac (not through hub). Listened to preview in Final Vinyl and the sound is speeded up to almost half of FF>>. When I imported using SoundStudio demo, the speed was the same as cassette player. I also went to pref./sound and made changes as directed on iMic manual, but that only seems to ensure being able to hear on iMac.

What am I doing wrong now? Thanks in advance for continued support.

ThomasG

Level 5

6,745 points

Nov 18, 2005 10:02 AM in response to Esther McGinty

I'm at a loss as to how the Final Vinyl playback could sound speeded up. The only settings you must be concerned with is that you have the switch on the iMic set to line input and not mic input, and that you do not turn on the turntable equalization in Final Vinyl. The playback is fine on my iMac.

Have you read through the Final Vinyl manual? It is nicely done and short.

Nov 18, 2005 2:45 PM in response to ThomasG

I tried moving the switch to the mic icon and to the speaker icon back and forth in preview mode and the only difference was in the volume. I was careful not turn on the turntable equalization (double-checked myself).

I read through the manual but didn't see anything with reference to speed of the cassette (or other types) of recording. I emailed a Q to Griffin and they responded that they would research and give me an answer hopefully in 2 bz dys or so depending on difficulty of finding answer. Thus, I put the Q to the discussion board because I have gotten really useful info quickly this way.

I found a discussion blog online for Griffin iMic and put the same question out there. The responder said that it's pretty impossible for the iMic unit itself to speed up import and blamed the FV app.

If Griffin responds with useful info. I'll post in case anyone else can use the info.

Nov 23, 2005 8:30 AM in response to Esther McGinty

Yesterday, I recieved a reply from Griffin iMic. This morning I was able to apply suggestions and try another import. The tech support's reply fixed my problem. I also want to include that I ignored the sound distortion and imported using Toast 7 CD Spin Doctor (arrived Monday). The tracks were not distorted...only the sound using the "Play Input through Speakers".

Here is the advice from Griffin tech support. "Please run Audio MIDI Setup (Applications-->Utilities). Make sure the "Properties For" or "Settings For" are set to the iMic USB Audio System. Then set both the input and the output to 16bit 2 channel 44100Hz. Also, make sure that the format for the Built-In audio is set to 16bit 2 channel 44100Hz as well. Hopefully this will fix the problem you are having."

I hope this is helpful to anyone else having the same problem I was.

To all to replied to my question, a HUGE THANK YOU. You are all wonderful to share your knowledge and experience. I've learned so much from you and learned meanings of acronyms which led me to doing some further research on my own. This has been a great experience.

ThomasG, I noted that you responded to my Q in the Sound Track discussion board and then were willing to further support my question under iMac. Thank you, thank you. I wish there were a way to rate levels of help because I would definitely cast me appreciative votes. I also wish I could find the icons and how to show that my Q was answered successfully. People like you and others who helped deserve the ratings. =) = )

Regarding using the filters in Spin Dr., it crashes all the time. Does anyone know if there is a fix for this? My son visited and watched the demo on SoundSoap and talked me into buying it, particularly with my experience with CDSD's crashing. Do I need both? I would like to fix the constant crashing if possible.

ThomasG

Level 5

6,745 points

Nov 23, 2005 2:48 PM in response to Esther McGinty

Esther,
I'm glad you've found our advice helpful.

As for SpinDoctor crashing when trying to use the filters: the only time I've had SpinDoctor crash is when there are .vst plugins in one of these folders: root-level Library>Audio>Plug-ins>VST or user Library>Audio>Plug-ins>VST. Dragging the .vst file out of the VST folder solved the problem. In my case it is the Bias SoundSoap.vst plugin that makes SpinDoctor crash.

pfhannan

Level 1

8 points

Feb 14, 2006 3:34 PM in response to MartinR

And there's another nice program called SoundStudio.
Apple used to bundle this with the eMacs prior to
the release of Tiger. You can download SoundStudio
2.2.4 from
http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/download.
html One of the nice things about SoundStudio is a
feature called
i Split By Markers
- you place markers on the audio timeline and it can
save each segment as a separate file on your HD.
This is a great way to break a live concert or an
entire audio cassette into separate tracks for
iTunes or burning an audio CD.

The latest version (v3) can save directly to AAC
format but it costs $79.95.

I took your suggestion and bought SoundStudio, $39 bucks. My problem now is trying to figure out how to hook up the stero to feed into my iBook, can you help?

pfhannan

Level 1

8 points

Feb 16, 2006 8:13 PM in response to Barbara Brundage

Please explain a preamp and and a line-in/line-out setup.

Feb 16, 2006 11:13 PM in response to pfhannan

A preamp is a device to boost the signal. Your stereo tuner unit, for instance, or you can buy a dedicated preamp only. If the signal is strong enough you can use the audio in port on your computer, rather than a USB interface like the imic.

Duane

Level 10

124,293 points

Feb 17, 2006 8:04 AM in response to pfhannan

You can use a USB audio input device like the iMic.

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Importing from audio cassette.