Audio electronics / cable question

[Alex Franke]

Here's another random question I hope you all can help with.

I have an old "portable" reel-to-reel machine (1960's) with some tapes I'd like to record into the computer. There's a "radio/phono" socket that appears to be a 5-pin DIN. There's also a round 2-pin jack for "earphone/speaker" but I don't have a connector that looks like that one.

I can sacrifice an old MIDI cable and a mini audio jack to make a cable, but I wouldn't know what to do after I cut them.

Any ideas?

Ooo -- 19 more posts and I hit 2k! (That is, of course, if the admins don't get to me first like at my last milestone!) Expect frequent, pithy replies.

[Alex Franke]

Expect frequent, pithy replies.

Like this one. That's 18.

[crokett]

Ooo -- 19 more posts and I hit 2k! (That is, of course, if the admins don't get to me first like at my last milestone!) Expect frequent, pithy replies.

Methinks I will have Sam or Mark set your count permanently to 1999 when you get there. Muhwahahahah!

[gerti]

Midi cable will not work. What you have is described here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIN_connector

Scroll down to "Analog audio".

A midi cable uses 2,4,5, so you would only get one channel:

http://www.midi.org/techspecs/electrispec.php

Hope that helps!

Gerd

[Alex Franke]

Methinks I will have Sam or Mark set your count permanently to 1999 when you get there. Muhwahahahah!

Nooooooooooo!!

Midi cable will not work. What you have is described here:

Thanks -- I do have 5-wire MIDI cables. (They used to wire all five back in the day -- I probably should have just called it a 5-pin DIN cable!)

In any case, I can't imagine the output for this thing would use more than 2-3 of them... just don't know which ones or what the level is...

[cabinetman]

A while back I got the urge to convert old music to digital and somehow save it to my computer or make CD's. I also have a reel to reel (deck), turntable, and cassette deck. I have quite a few LP's, lotsa tapes and cassettes.

I downloaded a free program called Audacity. Not knowing what to do or studying the tutorials, I found out the sound from a deck (any kind) has to be amplified. I used the "mic" input on the computer, and an adapter to that jack that accepts the "L" & "R" RCA jacks from the "output" from the deck.

I didn't have much success, but I did get positive results on signal being read. If I had used the output from my receiver, It may have worked. I lost interest, but may give it another try.
.

[BobSch]

Here's a site with pinouts for DIN connectors http://www.hardwarebook.info/DIN_Audio

It should work if you plug it to the "line in" jack (usually the blue one) on your PC.

Here's a shot of the PC plug (The top one in the picture.)



1. Sleeve: usually ground
2. Ring: Right-hand channel for stereo signals
3. Tip: Left-hand channel for stereo signals
4. Insulating rings

Good luck

[Mr__Bill]

There is a good possibility that what is on the tapes will be garbage. Sitting that long if the tape was not perfectly layed down on the reel, as in no loose edges, then the middle is stretched more than the edges and the stretch point will be right in the middle of each track making it sound dirty. Then the simple physics of one magnetic strip atop another and the magnetism starts to transfer turning the sound into mud.

I would, if possible, listen to some of the tape prior to putting too much time into making the cable.

Sorry to be the bearer of potentially bad news.

Bill

[pelligrini]

Even if the tapes are good you may have some problems encoding them if you want to compress them into a MP3 format. I had a lot of problems when I was making some MP3s off of some reel tapes and casette tapes several years ago. The WAV files sounded fine, but most of the encoded files were terrible. Lot's of warbeling and hissing.

I'm not very familiar with FLAC encoding. I usually just download bootleg shows someone else has done. It might do a good job.

[Alex Franke]

I would, if possible, listen to some of the tape prior to putting too much time into making the cable.

Sorry to be the bearer of potentially bad news.

That's good advice. The tapes sound great -- actually better than I expected. These must have been better made (and thicker) than those cassette tapes in the 80's!

[germdoc]

Here's wiki on Audacity:

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.p...computer_or_CD

As noted, use 1/8" "Y" connectors to connect to line-in on computer. If you use a Mac be sure to set the input to "external device", otherwise you'll be recording from microphone.

I use it to transfer songs from record albums--save as MP3 format, then it can be imported into iTunes without any problems. Nice program, but it can take some time to export files if you have a slower computer.

[Mr__Bill]

I'm happy to hear that the sound is still there.

The advice about Audacity is good, a nice program, I use it to break tapes and LP's into individual tracks and to convert to MP3 and sometimes to delete the snaps and pops from LP's. As stated, some analog recordings just don't sound good when compressed, I think there are anomalies in the sound that gets amplified during the compression. Such as rumble from a turntable, tape hiss and the like. Often though it's not at all perceptible. Play with the Dolby settings if available.

For recording I use a program called Wave Repair it has the ability to set the duration of recording and then stop recording. Thus if you have a 45 min tape and you set the time to 50 min. and come back several hours later you have only a 50 min file and not one with several hours of blank noise at the end, and a hard drive that is full.

Wave Repair is shareware but after it expires it still works to record. Audacity is freeware and has a nice feature where you can expand the time line to where a second stretches across the screen and you can see in the wave a single click and erase just a millisecond to get rid of the click.

When you connect the tape deck to your computer make sure you use shielded line level cables. The ones for headphones often are not shielded. The shielding keeps out a lot of noise and crosstalk. On you computer turn off all the audio inputs except for your line in, or whatever it's called on you sound card. You don't want stray sounds in the recording from wave files or the mic or CD player.

If you are making your cable, it may be easier to put two RCA connectors on the cut end of the DIN cable and then a Y adapter to a mini stereo plug the male RCA connectors are easier to solder the connections on to if your not highly skilled with a soldering iron. Alternatively, take a stereo mini cable and put a din connector on the end. RadioShack at one time had the adapters available but today you may be lucky if you find the components.

Before you tell anyone about doing this, decide just what you will charge for dubbing from tape to a CD. You may find you have a second non paying job if you don't.

Bill, slowly working through 9' of LP's and finding lots of music I never want to hear again.

[gerti]

IIRC the output on the DIN connectors is similar to what todays components have on the stock RCA jacks. Pin2 on the DIN connector (that's the one up in the middle) goes to ground of both RCA connectors, and the two signals go to the center lead of the RCAs, Should work just fine.

Good luck!

[Alex Franke]

Thanks, everyone. I got it figured out. With the center pin (ground) at the top, the signal was on the left-most pin. I'm using Audacity to record them.

I appreciate the help! Problem solved!

[gerti]

If it is stereo there should be two pins with a signal. 1960's could be either I guess.