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The Most Common Audio Formats

After having converted your audio such as cassette to CD, or reel to reel to CD, you can also rip the audio back to your computer into a variety of different audio formats. Here are some of the most common audio formats, and a little bit of info about them:

MP3 – Today, when you hear “MP3″, the first thing that pops into your mind is probably music or songs. MP3 format has quickly risen to one of the most popular formats of audio, much in part to it’s compression. MP3 audio is what’s called a “lossy format”, which means that some quality is lost during the compression process. MP3s can be compressed into files that are a mere fraction of their original source, and to an untrained ear–the quality loss is minimal. Audiophiles typically like to steer clear of MP3 audio due to the fact that it is compressed, and won’t sound quite as good as a lossless format.

WAV – WAV is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard on PCs. WAV is typically regarded as a lossless audio format, although it can contain compressed audio. WAV is also the standard audio file format for CDs, containing two channels of 44,100 samples per second, 16 bits per sample. Since LPCM uses an uncompressed storage method which keeps all the samples of an audio track, professional users or audio experts may use the WAV format for maximum audio quality. WAV audio can also be edited and manipulated with relative ease using software. The WAV format is also only limited to files that are less than 4 GB, because of its use of a 32-bit unsigned integer to record the file size header (some programs will actually limit the file size to 2–4 GB).

AAC – AAC is a relatively newer, lossy audio format. It was developed to succeed the MP3 format, as it generally receives better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates. AAC is also the default or standard audio format for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DSi, iTunes, DivX Plus Web Player and PlayStation 3.

FLAC – FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost. Digital audio compressed by FLAC’s algorithm can typically be reduced to 50–60% of its original size, and decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data. This means that you can actually have the same quality of music, with the added bonus of freeing up a lot of your hard drive space. One of the main drawbacks is that FLAC playback support in portable audio devices and dedicated audio systems is limited compared to formats like MP3.

Apple Lossless – Apple Lossless, also known as ALAC or ALE is an audio encoder developed by Apple for lossless compression of digital music. Initially, Apple kept the encoder proprietary until 2011, when they released an open-source, royalty-free version. Apple Lossless audio is stored in an mp4 container with the extension of .m4a

How to Rip a CD to MP3 Files on Your Hard Drive With Windows Media Player

Transferring or ripping your collection of CDs to your computer has a couple advantages. First, you can consolidate your whole collection in one location, or even place it on a hard drive for safe keeping. Once it’s on the computer, organizing everything is a breeze. You can use a music organizing program such as iTunes, or just organize them yourself by placing them into folders that you create. In addition, you can also take your music with you on the go by placing the music files on your portable cell phone or music player.

If you’re looking for a quick way to transfer your CD collection to your computer, it might just be easier than you think, and can often be accomplished without puchasing any equipment! If your computer has windows media player installed, you shouldn’t have any problems creating your music files.

To get started, you need to make sure you have the latest version of Windows Media Player, a music CD, and a CD-ROM drive. For this example I am using Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 7. The Windows Media Player software typically comes bundled with Windows when it is installed on your computer. Once you have determined that Windows Media Player is installed, place the CD you’d like to be ripped into your CD-Rom drive. Depending on your settings, it might even start to play right off the bat, if not, go ahead and open windows media player and go to the options by clicking organize->options at the top toolbar. Once you open the options window, select the “Rip Music” tab at the top and you should then see the screen below.

Feel free to tweak with the options here, as there are a few things to play around with. You can adjust the directory to where the resulting audio files will be placed, you can select what format you’d like them in, and finally you can adjust the ouput quality of the files. Choosing higher bitrate will improve the quality at the expense of large file sizes. If compression is your goal, you will definitely want to adjust the quality slider to choose the appropriate size for your project.

Once everything is selected to your specifications, press apply, then hit OK. At the main window, all you need to now do is click the button that says “Rip CD”.

The audio files will be placed in the directory you specified in the options menu. That’s it! You can now use this method to conver your whole collection of CDs to your compter or music player. This process will work for all audio CDs including ones you receive from cassette to CD, or LP to CD transfers.

Are CDs Becoming Obsolete? Fate of the Compact Disc

In the year 1982, Sony released the CDP-101, the first consumer Compact Disc audio CD player, was released at a price of about $1000. At the time of release, it was marketed as high-end home audio equipment aimed at audiophiles, as only a very small number of albums were available — only 16 to be exact. In just a few short years later, the compact disc had taken the world by storm, with nearly every major artist or act available on CD. Audiophiles loved the lack of background noise and deep bass that could be produced off of a CD, but weren’t as happy about the digital compression techniques used.

Several years after the first CD players were introduced, computers were starting to become equipped with CD players, which allowed people to now save their music collections onto their computers. This, then eventually, led to what we know and use today such as portable digital music players, online streaming music, and popular paid online digital music download stores like iTunes or Rhapsody. Could this sudden popularity with paid downloads spell the end of the CD?

Many sources are now reporting that record companies are secretly planning to abandon the CD format by the end of 2012, concentrating instead on online/streaming formats and release CDs as limited edition collector’s items only. This would only make sense, now that more and more people are getting their hands on computers, laptops, smart phones, and other portable devices capable of internet connections and digital music playback. This would also certainly raise the value of original CDs, considering they will no longer be produced.

However, CDs are still extremely versatile. When used as a CD-ROM, you can put not only music, but photos, video and other computer data. Don’t expect all CDs to vanish entirely, as they will still be used heavily in the next decade, especially with computers. In addition, many people like to have an actual physical copy of their media, especially if it’s important family media such as a CD from an audio cassette to CD transfer, or a reel to reel to CD transfer.

Fun Arts and Crafts From Recycled LP Vinyl Records

Last week we looked at some fun things to make out of video tapes including making a book end, school notebooks, and gift wrap . This week, I’ll show you guys another cool household item that can be made from recycled old media, this time old vinyl records.

As it turns out vinyl records are pretty flexible, and will easily mold to a variety of shapes with a little heat. With a little creativity you can actually create a wide array of different objects. Today, I will show you how to make a bowl out of a used vinyl record. You can actully create this using your household oven, or even on a really hot day!

1. The first step is to find a record that you no longer care about, as this process will destroy the sound on your record! If you do happen to like the songs or artist, I would suggest transferring the LP to CD, or transferring the vinyl to MP3 in order to preserve it’s contents before creating your bowl. Once you have the album you’d like to make a bowl out of, it’s time for step two.

2. For this step, you’ll need to pre-heat your oven to around 200 degrees.

3. Once the oven is heated, place a medium sized metal bowl onto a baking sheet and then put the record on top of the bowl. Place the baking sheet with the bowl and record into the oven to heat up.

4. Keep a close watch of the activity inside the oven, as the vinyl will start to flop over and bend after 4-8 minutes of heating.

5. Once you notice that the record is getting pliable, take the whole thing out of the oven (using oven mitts to protect your hands).

6. Once it is out of the oven, you can continue to shape the record either by hand, or use another bowl to help bend it into the desired shape. When you get it into the shape you want, let it sit and cool for 15-20 minutes.

7. Once it’s cooled off you can now use your new vinyl bowl to hold your various items! Awesome!

Technorati Tags: creative, lp to cd, lp to mp3

How to Fix Muffled Audio When Transferring Audio to CD

As time goes on, our old analog recordings continue to degrade day by day and little by little. What once was a audio track full of crystal clear sounds had been transformed into a muffled inaudible mess once you transfer the cassette to CD. This same thing happens all of the time to countless people’s priceless recordings. A large problem with the early VHS tapes was that they were all in mono sound. Even through the early 1990s many VCRs used mono sound as the recording standard, especially the low budget models. Mono sound, at least on VCR recordings, tends to have a much lower tonal depth. Much different than the Dolby Digital Surround sound we rely on today. These problems are also found on older homemade vinyl and cassette recordings.

The muffling effect is due to degradation in the form of losing the higher frequency sound data, which leaves the middle and lower frequencies much more pronounced. The easiest way to do this is to use an audio editing program to make the adjustments for you. For much older audio, it can be impossible to restore audio it back to it’s original state, but with a little bit of work, you can make it sound a whole lot better.

One audio program I like to use, is Audacity. It’s free and is actually a very powerful little audio editor that can help fix muffled audio. The first step to fixing up the audio is to open up the audio file and open up your equalizer. From here, it’s really a matter of playing around with the equalizer to achieve the best results. For starters, try raising the upper frequency sounds slightly, and decrease the low end. This will hopefully create more of a balanced sound in the recording. If your audio has varying levels of volume, there is a neat tool called normalize, which will create a constant volume throughout the recording.

Check out our services below for expert local technicians:

Audio Restoration Los Angeles – Our Culver City / Los Angeles store
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Technorati Tags: audio restoration, audio transfer, cassette to cd, muffled sound

How to Prevent Skipping on Your Vinyl Record LP

Vinyl records certainly were not the most durable forms of media we’ve ever had, but they sure do sound great when in good condition. Records can suffer from all sorts of deterioration, much of it causing unwanted skipping or audio distortion. Some of these problems can be remedied, while others, are permanent. One of the main problems of older records are that they skip, or have lots of crackling and popping when playing. This is a common problem when attempting to convert records to CD or MP3 files.

To combat the issue of skipping, you first must figure out the cause of the skip. The cause of record skipping usually boils down to two different types of problems. The first is when the grooves of the record are damaged or collapsed, which will cause the needle jump forward as soon as it hits the damaged area. The other problem is when a foreign object gets lodged in between the grooves, which will also prevent the needle from passing through smoothly, resulting in a loud pop and skipping.

If you found a foreign object blocking the path of the grooves, it must be removed the the record to play properly. To do this, try using something soft, such as a cotton swab to gently lodge it free. If this doesn’t work, try moving on to something with more rigidity. Compressed air will also help to dislodge any dirt or dust that may inhabit the grooves.

If you’ve come to the conclusion that the grooves have been damaged in some way, it can be very tricky to fix. One method is to gently create, or recreate the groove by lightly applying pressure to the needle as it passes over the damaged area. If done properly, this will create a new groove for which the needle to pass through, which should not pop or skip any longer. DJs often use the trick of placing small objects such as coins, nuts or bolts on their headshell, which helps prevent skipping during heavy scratching.

These techniques are especially useful forLP to CD or digitizing vinyl records, especially for rare releases that you can no longer find. Although not all records are in the same shape, these two techniques should help reduce the amount of skipping, cracking and popping that may be present in your records.

Technorati Tags: lp, record, skipping record, vinyl, vinyl to cd

A List of Video Tape Formats, Types of Video Tapes

As technology progresses, we’re constantly switching out the old for the new. Well, as everyone already knows, this also applies to your family media such as video and audio tapes. There’s been so many different tape formats and shifts of technology over the years, it’s hard for anyone to keep track of the model names or equipment needed to play their old video tapes. Hopefully this guide will help you figure out exactly what kind of tape you have, so you can give yourself a better idea of how to proceed.

The chart below lists the various formats of audio we can transfer to CD or hard drive. While not as complicated as the multiple types of video tapes, it can still often be confusing as to what exactly you’re looking at.

Microcassette	-Introduced by Olympus in 1969 -Smaller than a standard audio cassette -Typically used for voice recordings and home answering machines
Audio Cassette	-Format developed by Phillips and released in 1963-1964 -Most popular audio recording medium for consumers until the development of CDs
Reel to Reel	-Developed in the 1940s -Can be recorded and played at various speeds.
LP/Vinyl Record	-One of the earlier recording mediums as it was developed in the late 1800s -Could be played at various speeds, still popular to this day.

List of supported video tape formats.

MiniDVD	-DVD disc having 8 cm (3 in.) in diameter. -Recordable 8 cm discs are commonly used in DVD-based camcorders. Depending on variant, these discs can offer up to 5.2 GB of storage space.
MicroMV	-MicroMV was a proprietary videotape format introduced in 2001 by Sony. -Physically the smallest of all video tape formats, 70% smaller than a MiniDV cassette
MiniDV	-Released in 1998 as part of joint efforts of leading producers of video camera recorders. -Recorded in digital (DV) same as Digital8 -Tapes could hold 1hr SP, 90min EP
Video8, Hi8, Digital8	-Developed through the 80s and 90s -Most popular consumer camcorder tapes through the 90s due to small form factor and higher quality than that of the VHS.
VHS-C	-Released by JVC in 1982 as a compact VHS. -The format is based on the same videotape as is used in VHS, and can be played back in a standard VHS VCR with an adapter.
VHS	-Developed by JVC and introduced in 1976. -During the late part of the 1970s and the early 1980s, the home video industry was involved in the VHS vs. Betamax war, which VHS would eventually win.
Betamax	-Developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. -Although generally considered the superior quality tape, Betamax lost the format war to VHS in the 80s.
3/4″ U-Matic	-Developed by Sony, released in 1971 as a professional broadcasting quality tape. -It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opposed to the various open-reel formats of the time.
Betacam	-Developed by Sony in 1982. -The format supplanted the three-quarter inch U-Matic format, which Sony had introduced in 1971

Technorati Tags: audio tapes, camcorder tapes, types of audio, types of video tape, video formats, video tape, video to dvd

Change Speed Of Your Audio – Remove Chipmunk Effect

Do you have recordings of people sounding like chipmunks? This is typically a problem of differentiating tape playback speed. When a tape is played back at a speed that is faster than what it was recorded on, you will get the chipmunk effect. If the opposite happens, then you’re recording will sound slooooooooow with lower tone. When transferring your own media, you may soon discover that not all devices include an option for changing playback speed.

Sometimes just transferring to your computer is only the first step to restoring your precious old recordings. Thankfully there exists some great free tools that can help us out when recordings decide to be difficult. One tool, which I’ve mentioned in the past that we use quite often in our facilities, is Audacity. Audacity is a free open-source audio editor. Although a light program, it’s packed with great features you’d normally have to pay an arm and a leg for, and it does them pretty well. In order to change the speed of a recording it first must be transferred to your computer via cassette to cd transfer or reel to reel to cd. Once you have the audio file, open it up with Audacity.

Once it’s loaded onto the timeline, you can now begin to edit the audio. To change the speed of the recording we first must select where we’d like it to take effect. If the file you’re working with is of a consistant speed throughout, you can simply press Ctrl+A to select the whole recording. If there are scattered breaks of different speeds, you’ll need to select only the parts of the audio that need a speed change.

Once you have determined where to place your speed change, you’ll need to click on the effect->change speed menu item at the top of the program.

You will now be presented with a box that you can input values of how much you’d like to change the speed by percent. Putting 50 in the box will increase the speed of your recording by 50%. By inputting -25, you will slow your recording down by 25%. Below that is a convenient vinyl record conversion box which will take care of correcting your vinyl record speeds. Once you determine the correct percentage, click preview to test it out, and then OK to apply the change. Once you are finished with all of your speed changes, you can easily save a new audio file by clicking on File->Export and then selecting your audio type.

We offer audio transfer services such as cassette to CD, Vinyl to CD, and reel to reel to CD in San Diego and Irvine.

Technorati Tags: audio, audio fix, audio restoration, cassette to cd, chipmunk effect, reel to reel, restore audio, speed change

How to Fix an Audio Cassette, Audio Cassette Repair Guide

Dealing with an audio tape repair is similar to the “How to Fix a Video Tape” guide I posted earlier. To make things easier, the tools I used were splicing tape, a small flathead screwdriver, and a new blank cassette tape.

The first step is to inspect what type of damage your cassette has, the most common types of problems are either a break in the tape, the tape creased and flipped somewhere. This guide will detail how to fix a cassette tape that has been pulled off one of the reels. This is a pretty common example of a damaged audio cassette, so in most cases the steps are the same.

After you have discovered the source of the problem, you're going to need to open up the cassette. Your cassette tape will either be glued, or held together with screws in each corner. If you are attempting to repair a tape that has been glued together, you literally have to break the casing in half in order to attempt any sort of repair. You can easily accomplish this by sticking a flathead screwdriver into one of the small openings at the bottom of the cassette, and prying it open that way
.

Be careful not to lose the parts inside as you break the casing apart, as sometimes they can go flying onto the ground.Once the cassette shell has been opened up, you can now get to work. For many cassettes, especially older ones, the tape will have pulled itself off one of the reels.

When the tape is pulled off the reel, it can be difficult to thread it back through the reel, and even if you do manage to do it, chances are that it will not last for long. The recommended fix for this problem is to purchase a blank cassette at your local electronics store that we can use for parts. *Make sure the new cassette you buy has screws and not glued together.

We're going to open up the new cassette just like we did with our damaged tape.

Take the reel from the new cassette and cut the tape about 1-2 inches from the end of the leader tape. This will give you a brand new reel, and a nice piece of tape to splice the broken tape onto.

Remove the old reel from your cassette, and replace it with the reel you just cut from the new cassette. You now have enough room to easily splice the two ends together with a piece of splicing tape. You want the ends to meet as flush as possible, with no overlap of tape. This is possible without a splicing block, just keep in mind you're going to be working with pretty thin tape, so it may take some patience and steady hands.

After your tape is spliced together, we need to set it back in the casing the way we found it. You can look at the picture below to see the correct layout. It's easier to thread the tape through the notches with a small screwdriver or tweezers.

Screw the casing back together again, and use a pencil or something similar to make sure the reels turn correctly and don't get stuck. After these steps, your audio cassette should be ready for a cassette to cd transfer or just plain listening again!

Technorati Tags: audio, audio fix, audio restoration, cassette repair, restore audio, tape repair

How to Convert Audio Cassettes to CD or Mp3 Files – A Quick Guide

One of the types of requests we see a lot of is people asking to get their audio cassette transferred to CD or MP3s. What many people fail to realize, is that it’s much easier than you think to perform this same type of audio conversion from your own home!

The first step of the process is to get your hands on an audio cassette player. Any audio cassette player/recorder is fine as long as it has either a 3.5mm headphone jack, or those white and red RCA plugs. If the transfer quality is critical to any of your particular tapes, I’d recommend getting a newer name-brand standalone deck such as Panasonic, Sony. The next step is that you’re going to need access to a computer, which can be Mac or PC. If you already have access to an audio cassette player, and a home computer, you’ll have nearly all the equipment you’ll need for the tape transfer process.

Once you have obtained, or dusted off the old audio cassette player, you’ll want to inspect it in order to find out which type of audio output it is supporting. This is very easy to tell, as it will either be red/white outlets, or a headphone jack, or both. If you have the RCA red/white outputs, you’ll need a converter to combine the two lines into one with what is called an RCA to 3.5mm converter, which you can see an example of here. If you’re using a Walkman or other similar portable cassette player, chances are that you’re only going to have a 3.5mm headphone jack as your audio output. In this case, all you’d need is a 3.5mm audio cable similar to what you’d hook an ipod up to your car stereo with. So then you’d simply connect the 3.5mm jack to the cassette player, and the other end to the back of your computer in the Line-in slot, usually colored blue (see picture below).

The next step is to get the software necessary to record the audio. There is awesome free open-source audio editing software called Audacity which you can download and install on either PC or a Mac. Once the program is installed, ensure that the audio settings are correct (verify the line-in is set, and not the microphone or other, consult Audacity help files on this if you’re having problems), and then press play on your recorder, and immediately press “record” on Audacity, and your recording should be underway. Once the recording is finished, all you’ll need to do is hit stop, and then save the .wav file to whatever you choose. I hope this guide will help to steer you in the right direction!

Dont forget, if you don’t have the resources or time to perform these transfers yourself, take your precious tapes down to your local DVD Your Memories in San Diego or Irvine, and have our team of expert technicians transfer your tapes to CD with the highest quality and utmost care.

Technorati Tags: audio conversion, cassette to mp3, convert cassette tapes, mp3 conversion

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