The Steel Guitar Forum

A cousin of mine just came across an old Revere reel to reel tape recorder that belonged to my deceased uncle. There's also a cache of old tapes recorded 35 to 40 years ago, many of them containing conversations with now deceased relatives (including my parents). Amazingly, everything still works.

Obviously, I'd like to record these to wav files and burn them to cd as soon as possible. There's no line out jack on the recorder, but it does have an external speaker jack. I'm thinking that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go from the external speaker jack directly to the line in of a recording device such as a sound card.

Anyone have any ideas on how I might beable to use the external speaker jack to make a direct recording? I have a Peavey EDI direct box. Also a small 4 track mixer. Any thoughts on how I could use either of these to make it work?

Thanks in advance for any help.

George

George, since no one else has volunteered, I'll take a shot at this one. You could try running a good mike into your sound card, and sitting it close to the recorder's speaker (that's the easiest way). An alternative would be use the "speaker out" jack. The "line input" on your card should safely handle about a volt of audio. If you keep the old recorder's volume control very low, you might get a decent transfer using just that method. (The impedance match is horrible, but I don't think that will cause any problem.) You could also take the old Revere to a tech, and have him install a "line out" jack, but that might cost you $50 or so. Last resort would be a professional audio house or studio, where this type of stuff is their business. But be warned, if you have reels and reels of tape (like I do), it could get very expensive.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 29 May 2002 at 04:41 PM.]</p></FONT>

All you need is what is called an "L" pad. You buy them at electronics stores. Radio shack no longer stocks them. It is an impedence matching device. Straight out from the speaker out jack with the volume low will prove out very unsatisfactory. The L pad will let you play it as loud as you like
It is a dummy load for the speaker output, and an adjustable volume control for the sound card, or whatever you want to play the tapes through.
Jim Florence

You should be able to plug into the EDI from the speaker out jack on the recorder. I use an EDI with a Peavey amp, it is designed for a speaker input and gives you a mic level, low impedance output. You can also get some equalization if necessary with the timbre control on the EDI. It should work fine.

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Darvin Willhoite
Riva Ridge Recording

George,Have you thought about borrowing
another tape machine that has the proper line out connections.A machine as old as that
Revere probably had full track heads and the
tapes could be played on a more modern 1/4
track stereo machine.If your tapes were
recorded at 3and3/4 fps you could play them
on another machine at 71/2 fps and cut the time in half after you've recorded it in your
computer and therefore save time and memory.

Thanks for the ideas everyone. I've been too busy the last several days to mess with it, but maybe this weekend I'll get some time to play with it.

George