Quote by tiki223My parent has
some old cassette tapes in which they bought during their youthful years and would like to listen to it on their MP3
players.
So I've took the cassettes, recorded them to my system via wav, then encoded them to MP3, and there were no
artifacts.
Since you're a producer, I assume you must have some fancy sound equipment and most important a dedicated sound
card?
If not, then consider getting a dedicated sound card.
No, I don't use any fancy equipment. I release albums as a hobby, not for profit, so I mainly compose, mix, and
master through different pairs of headphones, earbuds, stereos, laptop speakers, and desktop speakers (in order to
replicate different home systems) driven by my headphone jack. Cheap? For sure. High quality? Not exactly. It works,
though, and none of my listeners have really complained, so... As long as the music sounds good through different
sources, I'm happy.
Now, I've considered a dedicated card, but at this point, I couldn't justify the cost. I make music for myself
to fill voids in my collection, really. (Other people happen to like my music, so I started releasing.) Mainly, however,
I am my own top listener; I don't mind the quality I get from a standard pair of headphones. That's enough for
me. If I ever get to a point where I'm selling, then I will definitely get a dedicated card. There's no way
that I'm letting occasional glitches into an album for profit, unless it's glitch-based music. And I
haven't written glitch in a while. (While I'm at it, decent monitors and a sub will be another purchase around
that time of purchasing a dedicated unit.)
I have looked over a few cards, but I haven't went shopping. I compose on a laptop, so it'd hopefully be a
PCMCIA/PC Card, likely with 2x2 IO for whenever I get around to mixing. But such a model is a bit much/nonexistent at
the moment, so I'm waiting a little longer. Failing that, I've considered a USB-based system, but haven't
looked much further due to insufficient funds, and a lack of need.
By the way, what software did you use to encode those cassettes from WAV to MP3? Like I mentioned, I'm using LAME
at the moment, and if there's a better solution, I'd like to know, you know?