Vinyl to CD - again

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The little word discontinued is a drawback in this instance, but I agree that it's an excellent method that I've been using for years, useful for transferring from a variety of audio media.

[OldTechie]

A well known and reputable hi-fi shop in London recommended that I get the UCA202 by Behringer.

At the price of this, it must be worth a try. It won't do the 24/192 that Gordon wanted, but it will go straight to 16/44.1 I think I'll buy one as a toy to play with! They even do one with built-in pickup equalisation, but as they seem to be a bit short of any way of controlling the level that may be a bad idea. All the revues seem to be positive, except for those that complain that it does not do things it was not designed to do.

[gurnemanz]

The little word discontinued is a drawback in this instance, but I agree that it's an excellent method that I've been using for years, useful for transferring from a variety of audio media.

A gadget like that discontinued one certainly appears neater than using a CD recorder. Other similar equipment must surely be available.

[David-G]

John,

I have contacted the people at AoS. They did have a problem a while back, but they think they've cleared it now. The previous problem seemed to particularly affect users who were using Chrome as a browser, and after the AoS people cleared the problem they recommended clearing the browser cache. I hope it's not a recurring problem. The previous problems may have arisen for two reasons (at least?). Firstly, hotlinking to images on some sites which appear not to be so reputable. The advice given was to link to sites such as Photo Bucket or Image Shack, which they believe are more reliable. Secondly, the site was "upgraded" to make it usable by Tapatalk, and that seems to have introduced some bad scripts at one stage. The faults that introduced then were corrected.

I did ask around that time what Tapatalk is, and what benefits it provides. Apparently it's a tool which makes forum access more powerful on some mobile devices. I personally haven't felt the need to install it on any of my mobile devices, and possibly it's more trouble than it's worth. Some forums (not only AoS) seem to think it's a good thing to have. Perhaps there's a lesson for us on this forum, which otherwise appears to use very similar software as a base.

I'll post a link to Tapatalk here - http://www.tapatalk.com/ and others can decide whether it's useful and whether this site should be enabled for it, or not.

Whenever I access the "Art of Sound" forum, my Kaspersky antivirus software flags up a "malicious object". It does not seem wise to me to look at this forum until they have fixed the problem.

[Dave2002]

I haven't had a problem, but I have sent a message to the AoS people mentioning the issues. This artlicle may explain something - http://www.heavy.com/tech/2013/03/sv...s-cyberattack/

Pity if that site is unusable - I thought there was some good stuff there.

[MrGongGong]

I have had a similar requirement, to transfer recordings from reel-to-reel tape, audio cassette and VCR cassette to my computer. It seems to me that the main requirement here is an analogue to digital converter. A well known and reputable hi-fi shop in London recommended that I get the UCA202 by Behringer (see here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Behringer-UC.../dp/B000KW2YEI). They told me that this is extremely good, and as good as anything if one does not want to spend mega-money. I do plan to get one of these.

I would be more than a little wary of Behringer equipment
they "specialise" in making very near "copies" (not copies if anyone litigious is reading) of more expensive manufactures equipment and the build quality is significantly lower in my experience. Having said that , some of their stuff is OK if you get it to work well and don't plan to do gigs with it......... It's a bit noisy for my ears though........

USB audio can be great but if you have firewire then this is a much better solution

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Echo-Audiofire-Firewire-Recording-Interface/dp/B001AHZOJE

[PJPJ]

The little word discontinued is a drawback in this instance, but I agree that it's an excellent method that I've been using for years, useful for transferring from a variety of audio media.

The Yamaha HD1500 seems easily available second-hand, though I don't know the situation over remaining new stock if indeed there is any.

My own unit will end up being sold on my behalf at a dealer when or if I can get round to it.

[David-G]

I would be more than a little wary of Behringer equipment
they "specialise" in making very near "copies" (not copies if anyone litigious is reading) of more expensive manufactures equipment and the build quality is significantly lower in my experience. Having said that , some of their stuff is OK if you get it to work well and don't plan to do gigs with it......... It's a bit noisy for my ears though........

USB audio can be great but if you have firewire then this is a much better solution

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Echo-Audiofi.../dp/B001AHZOJE

McGG, could you outline why this is a better solution? Have you used this unit yourself? Also, given that I have a Windows 8 pc which has USB but not firewire, does that mean that this is useless for me? Or is there some way of inputting firewire to the pc? Thanks.

[OldTechie]

There are plenty of USB solutions that will be better then the Behringer options. One of the major drawbacks with the cheap Behringer kit is there if no way to set the level into the ADC, which means you have to do it yourself with an external control. You then have to measure the digital level yourself. Most other solutions have a gain control and some primitive way of measuring the level. I think there is a limit of 24/96 on USB without a driver, but higher rates are possible (especially with USB3.)

For instance the Focusrite unit (http://uk.focusrite.com/usb-audio-in...s/scarlett-2i2) can be bought for around £120. I have no experience of it, but I'm pretty sure it will be better than the Behringer. Its facilities are certainly better. It does do 24/96, and this allows more leeway for incorrect gain settings than the 16 bit Behringer unit.

[johnb]

McGG, could you outline why this is a better solution? Have you used this unit yourself? Also, given that I have a Windows 8 pc which has USB but not firewire, does that mean that this is useless for me? Or is there some way of inputting firewire to the pc? Thanks.

You can get a Firewire card for around £20 and they are easy to install. I fitted one when I bought my last new PC.

[David-G]

Thanks OldTechie and Johnb. You will have to bear with me as I am new to this game.

Presumably too high a gain into the ADC may clip, and too low a gain will lose quality. (Just like recording on tape.) Hence the need to set the level at input to the ADC. But why the need to worry about the digital level? I thought digital is just a succession of 1s and 0s, where does a level come into it?

Second question – just wondering what you think of PJPJ’s suggestion above of using some sort of CD recorder such as the Yamaha HD1500? (I mean for my requirement of digitising my collection of tapes/cassettes.) How do you think that something like this would compare with the Focusrite that you mentioned, in terms of (a) sound quality, (b) ease of use by a relative novice at these matters such as me?

[MrGongGong]

McGG, could you outline why this is a better solution? Have you used this unit yourself? Also, given that I have a Windows 8 pc which has USB but not firewire, does that mean that this is useless for me? Or is there some way of inputting firewire to the pc? Thanks.

In my experience I have found USB audio to be a bit unstable , though this is much less so these days and is probably fine for most uses.

I often use the four channel version of this echo audio card for recording and performance and have found it to be well built and robust and of sufficiently high quality
I used to use one of their PCMCIA cards (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr0...echoindigo.htm) on a Sony laptop which was also excellent
Focusrite gear is also highly rated (for preamps) in the same price range
This is also supposed to be good (but I haven't used it myself) http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/microbook

Most electroacoustic studios I have been to in the last few years are now using RME audio interfaces which are tremendous, but expensive and far too complicated for this kind of thing.

[OldTechie]

Presumably too high a gain into the ADC may clip, and too low a gain will lose quality. (Just like recording on tape.) Hence the need to set the level at input to the ADC. But why the need to worry about the digital level? I thought digital is just a succession of 1s and 0s, where does a level come into it?

You are right that the digital signal is just 1s and 0s - there is nothing to adjust there. But the audio level into the ADC is critical - it's even worse than on tape because once overloaded it will clip completely, whereas analogue tape degrades more gradually. Of course you can use the digital signal to measure the analogue signal into the ADC by simply converting it back into a number and indicating the peak value.

The really cheap Behringer kit has nothing whatsoever to help you get the level right. The Focusrite device has gain controls, and a very simple built-in indicator for level. Maybe the software they provide will allow a better indication of level. The Echo and Motu devices MrGG has mentioned are a bit more sophisticated and have software control of the input level.

Second question – just wondering what you think of PJPJ’s suggestion above of using some sort of CD recorder such as the Yamaha HD1500? (I mean for my requirement of digitising my collection of tapes/cassettes.) How do you think that something like this would compare with the Focusrite that you mentioned, in terms of (a) sound quality, (b) ease of use by a relative novice at these matters such as me?

If all you want to do is create CDs, these devices seem to be a good solution. The only problem seems to be availability - I can't see a current product that offers the features. I would expect the final sound quality to be much the same, and they might be easier to set up and use. Starting from a cassette tape I would expect any of the devices to produce a result that was indistinguishable from the original.

If you do find one, watch out for its level control. Cheaper domestic kit sometimes sets the level automatically with no way to set it manually. Everything comes out the same - great if you are a Radio 1 fan, but a bit of a disaster with anything else. I'm sure anything from Yamaha or Pioneer would be fine.

[johnb]

If you do find one, watch out for its level control. Cheaper domestic kit sometimes sets the level automatically with no way to set it manually. Everything comes out the same - great if you are a Radio 1 fan, but a bit of a disaster with anything else. I'm sure anything from Yamaha or Pioneer would be fine.

The Yamaha does have input level controls together with level meters. The editing (trimming the start, end and splitting into tracks) is quite tedious but it works. Also, it records in uncompressed 44.1/16 PCM.

I have the previous model (the CDR-HD1300) which I very rarely use these days. One useful feature was that you could replace/exchange the HDD via a hinged flap on the back of the unit. The HDD doesn't use Windows compatible formatting but might well use EXT3, so it might be readable on a linux computer. (I seem to remember there is also a utility to enable windows PCs to read EXT3 formatted hard drives.)

[MrGongGong]

Also, it records in uncompressed 44.2/16 PCM.

I think you mean 44.1 ?

(sorry for the pedantry....................)