Re: [Harp-L] Re: Music Software & Hardware Advice Sought

[Joel Fritz <williemctell@xxxxxxxxx>]

Audacity is a reasonable choice for recording and editing.

To transfer cassettes the easiest thing, assuming you have a cassette 
deck is to run it directly into your sound card and record using 
Audacity.  There are also inexpensive USB sound interfaces for well 
under $100.  Behringer makes one that's adequate for somewhere in the 
$30 range.  The USB device will probably give you better results than a 
motherboard sound interface.  You can also buy pretty decent sound cards 
for around $30.  If you aren't used to installing add on cards the USB 
solution would be easier.

DC8 (http://www.diamondcut.com/store/index.php) is very nice prosumer 
software for sound editing and noise reduction.  It's $159 and offers 
more features than Audacity as well as some better noise reduction 
tools.  It may be more than you want.     I've used several generations 
of it for digitizing CDs and cleaning up reissues of pre-WWII blues records.

On 11/7/2013 6:49 AM, Scott Hicks wrote:
> Audacity is a very good choice for this as well. You can slow songs down while retaining the pitch, and easily chop songs up to include only the parts you want to work on. Also, and this is pretty cool, you can adjust the pitch of the song without changing the speed. My band wanted to do a song that was originally recorded in A#, but lower it to A for our version. I shifted the pitch in Audacity and the quality was excellent, more than good enough for me to learn with.
>
> Scott
>
> > Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:02:57 +0100
> > Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Re: Music Software & Hardware Advice Sought
> > From: fmajor7@xxxxxxxxx
> > To: shuffling@xxxxxxxxx
> > CC: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > Hello David,
> >
> > I have been using Adobe Audition for the last ten years as the software to
> > record/edit/clean and do many other things.
> > However, Audacity (a free software) also does all that.
> > With Adobe Audion I can slow down a song (keeping the same pitch) or change
> > pitch (by half tones).
> > I have transferred hundreds of songs from cassettes to my PC/Laptop just by
> > playing the cassette in a portable cassette player or a cassette deck and
> > attaching its "line out" to the "line in" of my computer using a cable. You
> > then open your software, select the record source and record - thats it !
> > You can also record your harmonica, if you want - even create your own
> > multi-track recordings.
> > After recording a song you can remove the tape hiss or any noise using the
> > software.
> >
> > If you have any questions just send me an email.
> >
> > Gautam
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:06 AM, Shuffling <shuffling@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > I'd be grateful for any advice about software and/or hardware I'm looking
> > > for. Ideally, I'd appreciate recommendations for what to get and where to
> > > find it.
> > >
> > > (1) Software (or hardware for that matter) that will slow down recorded
> > > music without changing the pitch, making it easier to decipher when trying
> > > to transcribe it or learn it by ear.
> > >
> > > (2) A piece of equipment and any related software by which I can
> > > transfer music from cassette tape to a computer or directly to CD.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > David
>