off - lend a hand - off

[Paul Mather]

On Wed, 6 Jun 2001, Steve Moody wrote:

=> Probably the most commonly used software is Adobe Easy CD Creator and it is
=> usually included with the purchase of a cd writer, unfortunately it is the
=> minimal version which is quite limited unless you order the full - for about
=> $100. My favorite is Digital CD Recording Studio which has all the
=> capabilities of the full version of Adobe, is easier to use and only cost me
=> $10 (got it from a discount software bin at the local Fry's). A little

Sound Forge seems to be the most widely used digital audio editing
package, in my experience (based on the text files of shows I receive).
Alas, it is not free, but some CD writers come bundled with stripped
down versions.  CoolEdit is also widely favoured, mostly because you can
use it in demo version for free and still get work done if you plan your
tasks ahead.  (The version I used would only enable two feature sets in
any given session.)

=> more expensive than their IDE counterparts. SCSI cd writers are about $300,
=> drives have come down but still around $300 or so, a SCSI controler
=> (Adaptec) is about $200, a SCSI cd rom is about $100 ( I recommend Toshiba
=> cd roms and cd writers, they have the best specifications in the
=> industry).

I think these prices are way off now.  I bought my 8x SCSI Yamaha 8824
CD-RW brand new a year or so ago and it was less than $200.  Similarly,
a good bus-mastering PCI SCSI controller can be had for way less than
$200 (even Adaptec!), and can be picked up REALLY cheap if you buy from
eBay.

In my experience, the names Plextor and Yamaha are always mentioned when
recommending CD-ROM and CD-R{W} drives.  Almost everyone reckons that
Plextor make hands down the best SCSI CD-ROM drives, especially for
digital audio extraction.  Yamaha have a long history in CD-R{W}.

=> Also - PC sound cards. The benchmark of PC professional sound
=> cards has been the high end Turtle Beach series  at around $500+ but there
=> are now some that are their rivals, the top end Yamaha is rated highly and
=> the Layla has gained an incredible following among musicians, its 32 track
=> virtual mixer and especially its analog simulated sound is supossedly the
=> best of all, a good friend of mine is a lady drummer who also works at a
=> major music store chain  introduced me to it and it will be my next audio
=> card - and is only $300 (it still hurts!). I myself still have a ways to
=> go - have the SCSI audio/video drives and controller and a decent sound
=> card - Diamond Monster 3 but the remainder of my equipment is IDE. A small
=> consolation for all you out there is that the mass produced better sound
=> cards, Yamaha, Creative Labs, etc are better than the professional sound
=> cards of just 5 years ago. Hope it helps - Steve The Moonman

The inside of a PC is a terrible, noisy environment (especially now that
processor clock speeds are crossing the GHz boundary, and other bus
speeds are in the high tens of MHz: the FCC only stipulate what
interference is permitted to *leave* the computer case, not what can go
on inside it:).  For that reason, lots of people serious/anal about
transferring analogue to digital will utilise an outboard A/D converter
and then use a digital input on a soundcard to get the data into the
computer for editing.  Bonus points are to be had for using a soundcard
that *does not unecessarily resample* its digital input.  One such card
verified "clean" in this respect is the now-discontinued Zoltrix
Nightingale, which can be had for <$30 online!  Be aware, though, that
the Nightingale is only really good for doing digital in (e.g., from a
DAT deck or an outboard A/D converter): its analogue capabilities are
poor.  But, as a cheap solution for getting digital sounds onto your
hard drive, it can't be beaten for price performance.  Of course,
implicit in this approach is having a good A/D converter somewhere in
your audio chain that can feed digital out to the digital in of your
sound card...

DAT-Heads is probably a good place to look for information about sound
cards and doing transfers to digital.

If you're not particularly worried about sound quality, or the artifacts
of heavily processing the result, though, then probably any sound card
will do.

Cheers,

Paul.

PS: Some DDS DAT drives---notably those for SGI---have firmware support
for reading digital audio from tapes directly, making the DAT > HD route
fairly easy.  The real trick is to find an inexpensive drive that *has*
the firmware support. :-(

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa