If you have a good quality audio preamps in your cam and can use it as a pass-thru AD converter, plug it in your cam and use Scenalyser to make audio only capture by
firewire.

Seems like too much. Why not go analog into the computer and just record using Vegas?

I'm not sure if you actually need to have timecode. If you do then dubbing to video tape may be required. I think we're not bothering with it anymore here because we're recording voiceover direct to CD and the file is the file regardless of timecode. I'd have to doublecheck that, though.

It's a judgment call, though. Direct into your computer may be noisier than recording to your camera, especially if you're just using integrated audio.

Rob Mack

There can be a lot of traps in transferring R2R. If you can find an audio post house that still has R2R decks I'd suggest getting them to dub to CD for you. If you are in Australia I could do it for you or better still give it back to you as a 16/48K file on a DVD. A large part of our income comes from dubbing R2R.
I'd strongly suggest proceeding with caution.
Old R2R decks can have magnetised heads which will not do the tape much good when you play it back. Plus a lot of old tape suffers from Sticky Shed Syndrome, this can cause you to end up with the tape glued to the guides and heads.

Bob.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Bob, unfortunately I'm on the other side of the world from you but thanks for the idea.

The Reel-2-Reel I have is about 45 years old. I have a Teak deck that surprisingly still works and, believe or not, still sounds pretty good.

I think I can use my cam as a passthrough as soon as I can find a firewire with a four pin connector (that's the kind of port Dell XPS laptops require).

Regards,

TomG

The deck will almost certainly be outputting line level (-10dB).

If you have a cam with XLR ins you'll be sweet, make certain you disable AGC in the audio part of the cam's menu.

If your cam doesn't have line level / XLRs in hm, at thhe very least you'll need an attenuator else you'll overload the mic pre. Also you may or may not be able to disable AGC.

And don't forget to clean the heads on the R2R deck and if you can demagnetize the heads.

If the tapes are that old then you are unlikely to strike the Sticky Shed problemo. Possibly they're acetate base as well. They don't stretch, just snap which is better in some ways.

Bob.

Make sure you have a razor blade & some scotch tape. If it breaks, it's a pain to go looking for these things (even better if you have the correct splicing tools). Don't worry about cutting off 1/4 inch of tape eigther. that's a handfull of samples & won't really affect audio (I did ~60 of these that dated between the early 30's & early 50's. It's easy once you get a rythem going). Don't forget stuff to clean the heads/wheels/etc too.

What's the advantage of feeding this through a camera or deck?

Rob Mack

I would guess timecode, plus maybe a better audio circuit than what one usually finds on a PC line-in.

Regarding tape: I recall hearing the graybeards telling me about the early days of 2" video tape (the Ampex system). They would paint the oxide side with this special liquid, which would make the magnetic tracks magically appear. Then some careful razor blade work, and viola!--no sync error on scene changes...

Then some careful razor blade work, and viola!--no sync error on scene changes...

Only sometimes though. I've spoken to engineers & editors who actually did this and it wasn't that accurate. The liquid showed you where the control track pulses were (60 per second!!). You used a magnifying glass to actually see the pulse and then "very carefully" tried to cut on the pulse edge. Easier said than done and, as I said, it still generally resulted in a roll at the edit point.
Kids these days don't know how easy they have it. How many of them even know what an assemble or an insert edit is :-(

Mike

"How many of them even know what an assemble or an insert edit is :-("

Or that you had to first lay down a continuous control track on a tape and then use insert edits to "assemble" the show.

Riredale,

IF you want to see it done, go to this link and click CUT EDIT.

Dave T2

http://vtoldboys.com/edit.htm#

To baysidebas & Dave:
I knew there were a few "old guys" around here :-)
Thanks for the link Dave. Interesting viewing.

Mike

I started right at the time of beep tone editing so I missed the cut/splice editing. ;)

Dave T2