Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes Posted by: jroger Date:10/25/2012 1:10:44 PM I need suggestions on how to digitize 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes when my playback unit only has 15 and 7.5 IPS playback capabilities. How can I control the frequency response due to different playback equalization characteristics? What happens if I double the bit rate and word length during the digitizing and half it during playback? Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes Reply by: musicvid10 Date:10/25/2012 3:08:54 PM Borrow a 1-7/8 ips deck. The other options are not as good and have too many gotchas. Message last edited on10/25/2012 3:09:45 PM bymusicvid10.
Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes Reply by: Chienworks Date:10/25/2012 3:39:54 PM I've done some digitizing of 1 7/8 on a 7.5ips deck. The results were acceptable, especially considering the poor quality of a 1 7/8 recording to begin with. It's probably not as good as native playback speed, but i got what i needed and then some. EQ can be adjusted, certainly after recording, but often while recording with the deck's own EQ control if available. Not sure that doubling the word length would help, or in fact even have any effect at all. It would only give you a greater signal to noise ratio on the conversion, but it won't improve the audio coming off the tape. It would basically allow you to capture the noise floor with more fidelity. Also, "bit rate" isn't the term you're after. You would want to double the "sample rate". Bit rate is a completely other concept with no relation. The thing i found though was that the recordings i had only had a frequency range up to about 4 or 5KHz anyway when recorded at such a slow speed so quadrupling it didn't push much of the material up above what the A/D converter could handle even at 44.1KHz
Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes Reply by: jroger Date:10/26/2012 9:36:47 AM Thank you for replying so quickly. Can anyone walk me through the workflow to record at a higher sample rate and reducing the sample rate for proper play back at 44.1/16? I appreciate the help.
Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes Reply by: Chienworks Date:10/26/2012 11:24:24 AM It mostly depends on what your recording hardware can handle. Some devices won't do anything above 44.1/48K, some are locked to only one sample rate no matter what you attempt to set them for. Please let us know what you are using. Assuming your device is capable, when you click the Record button in Sound Forge you can then click [New...] and in that dialog box set a sample rate. Let's assume you are able to choose 176.4K, which is four times 44.1K. After recording find the sample rate displayed below the waveform display, which will say 176,000 Hz, double-click it, and type in 44,100 instead. That's all it takes to reduce the recording back to the correct speed. After that you'll be able to apply EQ and any other cleaning you wish to do. If your recording hardware doesn't allow you to pick that sample rate then there are some methods which may or may not produce acceptable results. For example, if the highest you can pick is 96K, you can then reset it to 24K afterward, but you won't get any frequencies above about 10K, which might not really be a problem considering your source.

Subject:Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes

Posted by: jroger

Date:10/25/2012 1:10:44 PM

I need suggestions on how to digitize 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes when my playback unit only has 15 and 7.5 IPS playback capabilities. How can I control the frequency response due to different playback equalization characteristics? What happens if I double the bit rate and word length during the digitizing and half it during playback? Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:10/25/2012 3:08:54 PM

Borrow a 1-7/8 ips deck.
The other options are not as good and have too many gotchas.

Message last edited on10/25/2012 3:09:45 PM bymusicvid10.

Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:10/25/2012 3:39:54 PM

I've done some digitizing of 1 7/8 on a 7.5ips deck. The results were acceptable, especially considering the poor quality of a 1 7/8 recording to begin with. It's probably not as good as native playback speed, but i got what i needed and then some. EQ can be adjusted, certainly after recording, but often while recording with the deck's own EQ control if available.

Not sure that doubling the word length would help, or in fact even have any effect at all. It would only give you a greater signal to noise ratio on the conversion, but it won't improve the audio coming off the tape. It would basically allow you to capture the noise floor with more fidelity. Also, "bit rate" isn't the term you're after. You would want to double the "sample rate". Bit rate is a completely other concept with no relation. The thing i found though was that the recordings i had only had a frequency range up to about 4 or 5KHz anyway when recorded at such a slow speed so quadrupling it didn't push much of the material up above what the A/D converter could handle even at 44.1KHz

Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes

Reply by: jroger

Date:10/26/2012 9:36:47 AM

Thank you for replying so quickly. Can anyone walk me through the workflow to record at a higher sample rate and reducing the sample rate for proper play back at 44.1/16? I appreciate the help.

Subject:RE: Digitizing 1 7/8 IPS Reel to Reel Tapes

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:10/26/2012 11:24:24 AM

It mostly depends on what your recording hardware can handle. Some devices won't do anything above 44.1/48K, some are locked to only one sample rate no matter what you attempt to set them for. Please let us know what you are using.

Assuming your device is capable, when you click the Record button in Sound Forge you can then click [New...] and in that dialog box set a sample rate. Let's assume you are able to choose 176.4K, which is four times 44.1K. After recording find the sample rate displayed below the waveform display, which will say 176,000 Hz, double-click it, and type in 44,100 instead. That's all it takes to reduce the recording back to the correct speed. After that you'll be able to apply EQ and any other cleaning you wish to do.

If your recording hardware doesn't allow you to pick that sample rate then there are some methods which may or may not produce acceptable results. For example, if the highest you can pick is 96K, you can then reset it to 24K afterward, but you won't get any frequencies above about 10K, which might not really be a problem considering your source.