The Tapedrop Chronicles- Simple Software Is Where It's At
Welcome to the third installment of this thing we call "The Tapedrop Chronicles": one man's journey into converting old cassettes into CDs and digital files for your mp3 player.
Today's topic is the software used for this project. I use a slightly older program from Syntrillium called Cool Edit 2000. I have used Cool Edit 2000 since the FFR days, for those who remember. The Sonic Spot has a nice description of Cool Edit as I know it; the developer was purchased some time ago by Adobe. Rechristened Adobe Audition in 2003, this sound editor lives on today as Syntrillium's sole survivor; Adobe orphaned Syntrillium's other offerings.
I am not familiar with Adobe Audition, but I am sure there have been changes and/or improvements made to Cool Edit. If you are like me and work on a shoestring budget, you probably don't want to fork over $350 for Audition. That's OK, because there is an open-source program that is similar and may work for you. Audacity is an audio editor similar to both products listed above with one exception: it's free. If you don't have access to a legacy version of Cool Edit, Audacity is your program. I have fiddled around with it and it does the trick, but I happen to find the interface cluttered and confusing. Maybe I am a crusty old man, but I am sticking With Cool Edit.
Above is a typical visual rendering of sound. Notice the peaks and valleys. Those peaks and valleys denote the dynamic range of a recording. This concept is especially important to many folks out there who care about the sound of music. If you are listening to music on an mp3 player or as background music at work to drown out the crappy music everyone else at work enjoys, it may not be important. Below is an example of not-so-dynamic recording. For those keeping record, the above sample was The Eagles' "Desperado".
The example below is Metallica's "The Day That Never Comes" found online. It pretty much looks like a a green brick all the way across, with little difference between the quiet parts and the loud parts.
Personally, my project was started to archive my personal music collection before the tapes are rendered useless via hardware and/or software breakdown. That is, I care more about sound quality than I do the amount of music I can put on an mp3 player. It is a trade-off which will be addressed another time. That concept will resurface again. Get used to it; a fork in the road is placed at pretty much every step in this journey.
Getting back to the point, there are bad recordings and there are good recordings. This stuff is all subjective, so I don't know what you want, need or like. I want recordings that will sound good on everything I play music on: home stereo (CDs, mp3 files), computer (CDs, mp3 files), car stereo (CDs) and my mp3 player (mp3 files). That said, it makes sense for me to create CDs (using wav files which are converted into CD audio). Wave files are uncompressed (aka lossless) digital represetations of sound. After I make my CDs, I will take those uncompressed files and convert them into mp3 files. These files are compressed (lossy). Mp3 files are smaller in size compared to wav files because some audio information is lost. This can translate as a lower-quality recording (the trade-off). I am not going to discuss the science behind it, but know that you can adjust the amount of compression of a file. there are thresholds beyond which you might not find the amount of compression acceptable. Tweak and find the right balance of size and quality for you. This will be handled in depth in a future blog.
If you have the cassette (but don't have the time to convert thes songs into mp3's, please enjoy Cema Special Markets' The Greatest Hits Of The 80's. This first batch of tapedrops are various artists compilations. That means each song in a given compilation was culled from other albums. Each individual album was most likely recorded and mastered at different volumes relative to the other tracks on the compilation. If a compilation is mastered properly, the relative volumes are adjusted to give the new collection of songs a cohesive feel. That's one step I did not have to worry about. This is one of Teresa's tapes, so I did not mess with the sound at all. I found it just a little bright sounding, but she wants to hear it as she remembers it. She's the boss on this one.
 | The Greatest Hits Of The 80's Track Listing (running times are approximate):
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Until next time,
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