My freind has asked me to copy tapes onto cd's for him, as his tapes are wearing out. At the monent I'm using musicmatch jukebox -line in - mono - recording: (mp3 at 128kps) Tape runs continuiously with a break for each time the tape changes side, however the sound is very quiet. I'm using NERO to then transfer the mp3's onto a disc readable by a hi-fi. But the quality is just not there. I need the songs to be recorded louder without to much speaker distortion. The tapes are being played on my hi-fi with a cable coming from the 'speaker out' to the 'line in' on my SB PCI. Just basically want to know if there is a better way of doing it, or a better way to use nero to enhance the sound. Forcing stereo is not working and degrades the sound as well. At the moment there is to much distortion when the hi-fi is hardly even turned up. Finally, is there some kind of external device that I could buy for recording tapes through my pc which might give better quality? Thank you.

Your overloading the sound card. I do this type of recording all the time. I just have a spare RCA Tape Deck with it's line output that normally goes to stero amplifier input, and put into my sound cards "line" input. I use ECDC 5 Platunum with "disk doctor" but Nero should do the same thing. I make wav files first with "balance" stero tracks enabled, and "tape" noise filter engaged. I then convert to MP3's @160Kps.

alternatively as he has the tapes he has legitemate licence to download the listed tracks as ready made MP3s made from cd. if the tapes have been used that much its the only way to get the quality back. if you have broadband it shouldnt take long but with a modem your probably looking at about 16 minutes per track.

Thanks for the advice guys, will copy as a wav first. Can't download the mp3's from the net as it's copied tapes with random songs on them and no artist list. A shame really cause I has the very same idea. Thumbs up!

Why are you using mono instead of stereo? Listen to AM radio and see what I mean. Of course the quality's not going to be there.

using the speaker out from a hifi is your problem. you need to have a tape deck with a line output and use that. The voltage from a speaker or headphone connector is too high for a line input and so it distorts. this should work ok, but if it's too quiet you'll need a small mixer to boost the level. and like Ger says you really need stereo. Good luck

I was just reading the help files for the MusicMatch recorder. You need to adjust the Windows sound level for line in recording first. Double click the sound icon in the task bar if you have one, or double click sounds in the control panel and click the advanced tab to adjust the volume.