jai-dee Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Converting tapes to CD I'm trying to transfer some old audio tapes to my computer so that I can burn them to CDs. I've done some information digging on the net and it seems rather straightforward. Connect the stereo to the computer using a 2RCA-to-3.5mm plug cable, play the tape and use suitable software to record the sound. My laptop only has microphone input, so I tried that (I borrowed a PC with a proper line-in connection but the results were identical). For recording I tried both Audacity and Nero. But no matter what I do, I can only get one channel. My stereo is obviously stereo, the cable is stereo, the recording software is capable of producing stereo sound, and the computer has stereo output. What am I missing here? My sound card is Conexant AC-Link Audio and despite extensive searches I couldn't find any confirmation whether it is mono or stereo. If anyone out there has any experience with analog to digital conversion of audio I would appreciate any ideas to help me out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weird Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 Microphone inputs generally are mono. You'd need a card that is specifically designed for input from another device. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiery Jack Posted October 11, 2007 Report Share Posted October 11, 2007 I was wanting to do the same thing, mate, a few months back and, indeed, started this thread on here about it. Have a shufty, there's some generous advice. However... Don't want to put you off but, in the end, I just gave up. Let us know how you get on. jack PS. But, then again, I am a Mac user. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jai-dee Posted October 12, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 Thanks for the replies. All right, I'll accept that mic input is mono, but why doesn't it say so. I've searched far and wide and couldn't find any reference to any audio input being mono or stereo. Stereo has been a de facto standard in audio for at least 40 years and just about every component is capable of handling 2 channels. Why would a computer input not be stereo by default then? The sound card on a PC that I tried is Vinyl AC'97 Codec Combo Driver (WDM). Again, I can't find any specs, but it definitely had signal on one channel only. I came across some analog/USB converter somewhere on the web, when I inquired at the local electronics shop they told me they'd never heard of such a thing. Frustrating..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlton68 Posted October 12, 2007 Report Share Posted October 12, 2007 WEll, the reason why the computers mic input is only mono is clear. It's meant for simple microphones, headsets, to put speech into the machine. and these damn things are mono. Most computers have three (or more) audio jacks. Line out, line in and microphone. Line in is stereo and this is where you may plug devices like tape recorders. Too bad your laptop doesn't have line in. There are USB soundcards available. These should have the three inputs and should do the trick. And there are some devices out that may be called analog converters. Be careful, these most likely are special devices to handle signals from turntables. To get the vynil disks on computer. Can't be used for tape, cd players, radio etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jai-dee Posted October 23, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 Line in is stereo That's what I thought too, but my line-in on my PC produces only one audio channel. It seems that my only option will be an external gadget like this one . The postage for this is twice its price, but I can't find anything similar within Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlton68 Posted October 23, 2007 Report Share Posted October 23, 2007 Sorry, still not clear which computer you are actually using for recording. Your notebook doesn't have line-in, only mic in you said. Mic-in won't do stereo so forget about this. You still have a computer with line-in? Should definitely work. Have a look at these two 3.5mm plugs. Then have a look at the plug you're using. Is it stereo or mono? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jai-dee Posted October 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Hi Carlton, I tried recording with my laptop mic input as well as with a borrowed PC line-in (it's sound card listed in a previous post). Both produced same results - one channel only. The cable is definitely stereo, I even went and bought a new one just in case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Have you tried recording a music CD player and getting the same results? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jai-dee Posted October 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Not directly, but via the Hi-Fi output. Input was from CD, VCR, tape deck and FM radio, all stereo sources. Always only one channel shows in the recording program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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