Playback sounds bad

[Al Marcus]

I recorded a tape on my tape machine through line in on computer, using Polderbits software, and it sounds clear and clean while recording. OK. The on playback using Polderbits playback, it still sounds clear and clean. I save it to Desktop.
Then have to play it with either Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center, I dont like Media Center, not enough control. It must be built in with the HP Computer so I cant trash it.And it sounds awful, echoe's background noises, etc. What Happened??? Anybody go any ideas.? I notice at time whan I recorded , I got a screen,two mixers were on there. I don't know what they mean. I am not using a mixer. I did quite a few songs and at times it said only one side was coming through. I have on my output of the tape recorder two lines L and R going into one line going into the computer Line In. Now what, any ideas will be appreciated. Otherwise I might just trash the whole thing.
The Polderbits recording software seems to be doing ,it's own thing very well, I like it. it is easy to use. I had it on a 14 day free trial, and bought it.
Well, hee is a good one for you recording Pros, How about it?..al.

[John Daugherty]

I have on my output of the tape recorder two lines L and R going into one line going into the computer Line In.

Al, I can't answer the questions about Media Center.
If I understand you correctly, you have connected the left and right channels together to form a mono connection. The correct connection should be stereo, if you want stereo.
To make the stereo connection, use a stereo plug at the computer "line in" connection. Connect one channel to the tip and one channel to the ring of the plug. The shield wires connect to the barrel.
I use an adapter cable which has an 1/8" stereo plug on one end and 2 rca jacks on the other end.
If you can't find that adapter, I'll send you one in the mail.

[Mike Bowles]

I use pb sometimes the little plug in the back of my pc does not fit exactly right i have to pull it out just a little bit also make sure you are recording on stereo instead of mono

[Jerry Gleason]

I don't know about any of the software or hardware, specifically, but if you are hearing echos and background noises when you bring up the play window, check to see that there isn't also a live microphone feeding into it. Maybe there's one built into the computer.

It's also possible that the playback audio is being fed back into a record channel that is also being monitored, creating a loop.

[Al Marcus]

John-Thanks for your input. I do have a double ring 1/8 plug going into the Line in and two RCA out of the tape recorder. So that is ok as you suggested.

Mike - You are right about the plug, I tried that and sometimes it makes a loud noise when I plug it in. There were times when If I pulled the plug back a little it worked better.

Still have the problem, It sounds like WMP and WMCenter have reverb on or big echoes which I don't want. I like pure steel flat sound just the amp and steel. I have a RV3, and never used it.

Jerry-I don't think I have a computer Mike. But how would I know if there is another sound recording leaking through? How would I check that ?Thanks guys, we'll get it solve somehow. I know the tape is good and sound good when I record it, then after that it sunds like echoes, noises, other notes, amazing. It didn't do that last year. I thought maybe I have a bad sound card, but it sounds good coming over the speakers when recording.So???..al

[Robby Springfield]

Sounds like one of the problems you are having might be a phase issue as well.

[Al Marcus]

Robbie-Thanks for your post. What would a Phase issue mean? when the playback on Wmp, it does sound like it is out of phase, whatever that is..sounds a little like two tapes are playing, almost...al

[Robby Springfield]

You mentioned something about sounding like it had effects on it. An out of phase signal will make it sound distant and reverb'ee...kind of like you added effects.

[Al Marcus]

Robby-It does sound like that, but I never added any effects. Thanks...al

[Al Marcus]

I get a notice when I record that I have 2 mixers running? The only thing I see is out of line a while a go, is on control listing besides the usual printer, drives, etc. I see MTP ichan. It dont know what it is and it wasn't there a few weeks ago. I try to get rid of it, and it says can't do, That's weird, mabe it is a phantom mixer of some kind??Wiz, where are you, this is a computer problem..How do I transfer this post to Computers? Help b0b....al

[Michael Winslow]

I notice at time whan I recorded , I got a screen,two mixers were on there. I don't know what they mean. I am not using a mixer.

There were probably mixers already installed when you bought the computer. Look to the right at the bottom of your screen where the time is....click on the white arrow in the blue circle. It should open up a bunch of icons. Highlight each of them and see if you find a mixer. If you do click on it and it will open. You said there were two mixers, so keep hightlighting to see if you find both of them.


I have on my output of the tape recorder two lines L and R going into one line going into the computer Line In.

Even though you have L&R runnig OUT of your tape recorder, you only have ONE line going into the computer. Both the L&R are probably being sent to one channel of your mixer. So it's basically MONO. Sometimes when this happens you'll hear audio out of one speaker and not the other...for example sound comes out of your left speaker and not your right speaker.

To record and hear things in stereo you might need to have two inputs - one for L and one for R - otherwise your audio is probably getting routed to one channel and not both.

I'm no expert but I thought I'd take a stab at it. I'm learning about this myself.

[Al Marcus]

Michael-Thanks, Your ideas make a lot of sense.
About the line in , I think I only Have one line in on the back of the computer, so couldn't put left-Right for stero. I thought it would be automatic , I got the latest HP Window Media Edition, etc. and if it is Media , it should be set up for recording and playing, I would think.
I did find out one theng, the Realtek Player that came with the computer, builtin, not reachable software had a lot of options for auditorium, barn , etc, big echoes, I hit club , and thought that would be nice, well, I found "NONE" on one of the options and cliked on that and it workds a lot better , I dont have any echoes, and big reverbs, etc and it is sounding more natural.
I checked my tape recorder line out and there is juice going out on both of them, but it is much louder on the red on than the white one. Then this line goes into one Stero RCa 1'8 to plug into the line in. Seem sot ok there....al:):).

[Earnest Bovine]

About the line in , I think I only Have one line in on the back of the computer, so couldn't put left-Right for stereo.

Line in mini jacks are probably stereo.


So to get stereo signal from your cassette player into the PC, you could use a cable like this:


or, a regular stereo pair of RCA cables plus a connector like this:

[Al Marcus]

Earnest-Thanks for you post and excellent diagram. I do have the wires and hooked up as you show, the sound on the red left wire is lots louder than the sound through the white wire.Maybe the sound is so weak that the software is telling me I don't have full stereo. ..But it is working, but surely not 100%.Thanks anyway....al.:)

[Don Blood]

Al,
If when you pull the line plug out a little and it gets louder, it's almost a sure bet that it's either a mono male jack going into a stereo female jack, or the stereo male jack going into a mono female jack.

Like in the photo Earnest posted above, showing the male jack with 3 segments, one is common, one is left, and one is right, if it goes into the mono jack, there are not 3 segments lined up, but rather 2 segments lining trying to line up with 3. It just doesn't work right.

Good Luck,
Don Blood

[Ray Minich]

run "sndvol32.exe" from the "run" dialog box and check your sliders for both recording and playback. There are two windows to this puppy, navigated to by the "options" menu entry and "properties" drop-down line item. Pick the "recording" or "playback" radio button to check the individual channel settings.

If i've got input and output selected at the same time my system screams like a scramjet (feedback). Allow only one at a time (input/recording or output/playback) to be active.

[Al Marcus]

Ray-Thanks, I checked that out, and when I hit "recording" it grays the playback button and when I hit "Playback" it greys out the 'Recording " button. so it would seem that I cant have both on at the same time.
However , when I record, then playback it dows so, maybe automatically, using Realtek that came with the computer.
Sometimes , not all the time, I record and get a screen that says for stereo, only one line is hooked up and then again, I do some recording and don't get that screen and both are working. Weird. And on top of that sometimes I am told there is 2 mixers and then again, sometimes no message. Weird again...oh well, we'll get it eventually.Thanks guys...al

[Rick Sharp]

Hey Al,
The background noise might be a onboard mic on your computer, my lap top has a mic in the screen frame...
The 1/8th jack can give a lot of trouble even with the correct connections...after years of fighting the weight of the adapter breaking the jack in the sound card, I went to USB. Here's an alesis mixer that works great. You still only have 1 stereo input L&R. Anyway check it out

http://www.alesis.com/products/multimix8usb/

Rick

[Al Marcus]

Hi Rick-Thanks for your post. I will check it out the next time I try to record. I have had a lot of good tips on this Forum, and will check it out. What makes it hard to figure is soemtimes I don't get that message for 2 mixers installed(which do you want) and sometimes I dont get the message that only have one line in use. So sometimes it seems to be working ok. Weired.....al.

[Ben Jones]

Al, the description of your problem sounds to me like "playback latency echo". Maybe someone smarter than myself can explain what that is and suggest a possible solution?

I'll take a stab at it but am not very knowledgable so feel free to correct me or say "no that cant be the problem", I wont be offended

Latency is the time it takes for your computer, software or device, to process audio info and send it to your speakers for playback. It is usually a short time, milliseconds but can produce noticeable delays...all computer audio devices have latency, its juts that most latency times are short enought o not produce noticeable effects. If by some chance you have two devices attempting to process the audio information and one devices latency is greater than the other, you will hear both of the audio outputs but you will be hearing one several milliseconds later than the other, thus producing a short echo-like effect.

anyone?

[Randy Reeves]

Ben , I think you nailed it. Al, you and I are running into the same things at the same time I think.
what you are describing is latency. I have it too.
it can be corrected or diminished by changing the buffers.
how to do that I have not begun yet.
I contacted the device maker and the recording software people and they said the same thing. they gave me a link....I have not checked it out yet..too busy with another project.
you should read your manuals re: latency and see if there are corrections for your system.

[Ben Jones]

In the case of playback latency causing an echo-effect, its not so much that we need to decrease the latency...its that we need to have our audio signal processed by only one device rather than two. This is usually done by going into the "settings" section of whatever software you are using and selecting a single output device, or even disabling the competing output device.

For example: I was using a Line6 toneport as a recording interface to record into Tracktion 2 which is a multi-track recording software. The toneport is a hardware device that contains its own soundcard and drivers. At first when i listened to playback of what i had recorded, I got the short echo-like effect Al was describing. The audio output was being sent to both my computers soundcard and the soundcard in the toneport and both were outputting the audio at slightly different times due to the difference in the latency between the two devices. I fixed this by going into the settings of Tracktion and selecting the toneport as the output device and selecting the ASIO drivers to run it. I dont know much about computers, but Tracktion made this easy for me to do.

Perhaps what is happeneing in Al's case is that the output is being sent to two different media players simultaneously? or whatever software he was using is attempting to process the audio output at the same time as his computers soundcard or something? I would Imagine this would be corrected by going into the settings section of his software?

again Im not too great with this stuff, I hope someone more knowledgable than myself will chime in.

[Randy Reeves]

Ben I think you are really good at this!
I use an audio interface (Lexicon) it has a USB connection. when plugged in I think my soundcard is disabled. I think. but that may not mean it continues to infer itself. it does sound like I am running two things.
I will get on this this week and post what I find.
thanks.

[Al Marcus]

Ben-Your explanation sound logical and good. I tried looking for the competing device. But I dont have "trackton" to help me. I have Windows XP, Hp Media Center, Realtek installed by HP.

Using Polderbits software, (they have a 14 day free trial) which I found to be very easy to transfer my Cassettes to the computer hard drive. My old tape machine on some tapes , the drives wearing out and noisy, I wonder if there is a program to get that sound out. That is a problem of another kind. I appreciate your thoughts on this post. Thanks again...al.:)