Subject:Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Posted by: Khalidsattar

Date:12/28/2002 12:36:53 PM

I have some cassettes that I want to record from using Sound Forge so I can make CDs out of them. I was wondering what sampling rate I should use? i have limited hard drive space and did not want to use an unnecessarily high sampling and bit rate.

thanks
khalid

Subject:RE: Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:12/28/2002 1:29:10 PM

Most CD audio burning programs only work correctly at 44Khz, 16-bit stereo, so that is what I would use for recording.

Subject:RE: Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Reply by: Khalidsattar

Date:12/30/2002 12:40:52 PM

Thanks for the reply. I know I would have to convert them to 'cd quality' eventually, but right now I just want to record them to the computer and burn them on cds (as data files) for later use - at which time I can convert to 44,100 16-bit and burn them as audio files. So if I can initially record at a lower sampling and bit rate without sacrificing much quality, that would be ideal.

Subject:RE: Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:12/30/2002 1:52:41 PM

I see what you're getting at. You can save some space without sacrificing much quality at 22Khz, 16-bit Mono and upsample them later if you are burning audio CDs. I personally can't stand the sound of 8-bit recordings, and 11Khz would only be tolerable for speech-only material.

*An afterthought: You can save a little more space by saving to .pca, which is Sonic Foundry's lossless codec. Or, if you can live with some high-end sacrifice, save to .mp3 which will save a lot more space. Most CD burning programs can work with mp3's.

Subject:RE: Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Reply by: MJhig

Date:12/30/2002 3:34:35 PM

If this is music on the cassettes I wouldn't record them at less than 16/44 stereo and if your soundcard supports it 24/44 stereo may be a good choice as you will have the extra bits for processing such as Noise Reduction since you will have tape hiss. You can then use Bit Converter to prepare for audio CD. If you want to save the originals to data CD, you may want to save them raw/unedited as *.pca, then as you become more experienced with processing you will have the original recorded data to process again.

MJ

Subject:RE: Sampling Rate for Recording from Audio Cassettes

Reply by: Khalidsattar

Date:12/31/2002 9:54:44 AM

Thanks to you both. They are just lectures, and the recordings are not that great to begin with, so I will try using 16/22 and .pca format.