Recording & transfer
Getting music off reel-to-reel, cassette, DAT and MiniDisc, keeping the files safe, and making simple stereo recordings of your own.
- Digitising a home music archive: formats, files, metadata and backups
A plan for turning a box of tapes, discs and records into a lasting digital archive: sorting what you have, which formats need attention first, preservation and listening files, naming, metadata and a backup routine.
- Getting audio off DAT tapes: drives, errors, sample rates and digital capture
How to transfer Digital Audio Tape (DAT) recordings bit for bit: choosing and checking a deck, head clogs and error correction, 48, 44.1 and 32 kHz, long-play mode, SCMS, S/PDIF and AES3 capture, and verifying the result.
- MiniDisc to digital: NetMD, Hi-MD, ATRAC and optical capture
How to get recordings off MiniDisc: what ATRAC, SP and MDLP modes mean, why NetMD uploads were restricted, which Hi-MD recorder uploads standard discs, and how to capture in real time from an optical output.
- Point-source stereo recording: XY, ORTF, spaced pair and Blumlein
How to record a choir, an ensemble or a room with just two microphones: how coincident, near-coincident and spaced pairs create a stereo image, the standard angles and spacings, placement, mono compatibility and simple monitoring.
- Transferring reel-to-reel and cassette tapes to digital: a careful method
How to get reel-to-reel and cassette recordings into clean digital files: checking the tape, sticky-shed and baking, track formats and speeds, head cleaning, azimuth, Dolby and dbx decoding, levels and file formats.
