65.19.76.104
This Post Has Been Edited by the Author
In Reply to: RE: Thanks, just dragged out the owner's manual. posted by Dave Pogue on March 26, 2012 at 11:21:25
If the cassette deck is playing a tape that is reading around 0 on the dec's VU meter then you will want the digital peak levels to be around -11 dBfs or even a bit lower if you are using metal tapes, as these can easily put out undistorted +10 analog signals.
Soundforge has a mode for it's "channel meters" that provides a variety of VU scales that average over a short period. The best one to use is the Nordic PPM. If it's reading above 0 VU it gives a warm feeling of "loud enough" while still retaining substantial head room. Other editors may have similar capabilities.
You can make up a calibration tape of band limited pink noise, that you can get from Bob Katz' web site. Record this on the tape at 0 VU and then adjust your recording gain so that you get the same levels on a copy you make of the cassette tape as you get when you play the original file you downloaded. I believe this will work for all but the very hottest cassette tapes, but I haven't tried it because I'm not set up to record on my deck at present, so let me know if this doesn't pan out.
I list various ways of approaching this problem not because it is necessary to use all of them, but to give a feel for what might be available. There is even a better system that Bob Katz advocates and that is to ignore all the meters completely after calibrating one's speakers to a fixed setting. Then when one makes a recording (e.g. does a transfer) one simply adjusts the volume on hears in one's speakers until it sounds "right". One needs his test file and a Rat Shack SPL meter to set up your system.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
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