how to stretch them to line up?
hi all, as you can see i’m trying to transfer the individual tracks off my cassette 4-track so that i can mix in n-track. i can only do 2 tracks at a time, and the tape deck doesn’t play back at the exact same speed every time, so the first 2 tracks and the second two drift apart. (i know that this has been discussed before but i wasn’t able to find it.)
i put blips at the beginning and end of the tracks (all in one pass, so they’re identical) and then played the tracks into n-track. i know that the next step is to time-stretch 2 of them to make them the right length, but i’m not sure how much to stretch them by. i seem to recall that it took some math to determine. anybody care to go over the process again?
thanks!
chuck
I have Cool Edit Pro, but I don’t know the math. I do think, though, that you’ll really get a feel for it if you just have a go at it. You’ll learn it after being up to your waist, wading around in the process. That’s how I did it.
A thought enters that if you want to keep using tape, you might get a machine (cheep on ebay) that ins and outs 4 at a time. But that’s not the point of your question! Sorry.
Anyway, jump in there, boy! Keep your nose up and paddle like a Hot’n’Tot in an English shipyard! You’ll get there allright.
(I’ve been watching Mary Poppins with the kids…) 
Another thing, with the wow and flutter, even time-stretch won’t make it what it originally was. It’s a compromise all around. You probably know that.
Well first you need to line up the blips at the beginning.
Then you need to see what the difference is between the end blips and work that difference out as a % of the track you want to NOT stretch.
eg. Track A is 100sec
Track B is 104 sec
We’ll say you want to keep Track A.
So divide Track A by Track B = 100/104 = 0.961538462
then strecth Track B by 0.961538462 and it should be the same length as Track A
HTH,
Rich
That’s the trick I couldn’t remember, Rich! Thanks!
And I just recently learned about the wow’n’flutter, Sloom, I’ll just have to see how it goes. Thanks for the encouragement.
chuck
Yeah, a simplified example would be if it played back at x inches/sec constantly the first pass, and the second time it went at x for the first half and y for the second half… the first half of your song is perfectly syncronized. Stretching it will make the first half a little worse in return for the second half being better. By the way, you don’t want to “time stretch” which typically refers to changing speed while leaving the original pitch. You do in fact want a standard pitch+speed change, because if the tape machine played back too fast then your digital version is in fact sharp… may as well correct that at the same time.
I know you already got your solution,
But just curious…?
Are those 2 stereo tracks your able to send at the same time?
If so,that means your soundard can handle the two stereo tracks…
Which would also mean you could take all four tracks and pan each one.
Take the first two, pan one left, the other right. That’s your track1.
Now take the second two and do the same. That’s your track2.
Once the two tracks are sent into the computer…
You split them into 4 mono tracks which later can be converted into four stereo tracks by another mixown of each track.
There ya go, 4 stereo tracks all lined up since they were transfered at the same time and speed.
Now are they real stereo tracks? Unfortunatly not, they will come out of both speakers, but unless you do something to make each side unique it’s just double mono.
keep shinin’
jerm
Thanks, Mike, I hadn’t thought of that. In the end, though, I can’t get it to work and just using the computer as a mixdown deck is working fine. It was recorded live with bleed, so the tracks are a pretty coherent mix anyway.
I’m not sure if I understand you right, Jeremy, but my sound card only has a single stereo line-in. (Actually, it also has a mic in, but I can’t use both at once.) So, I can record a single stereo track or a pair of mono tracks at once. What I’ve been doing is taking the stereo out from my four-track – the mix – and just recording it with the computer, then “mastering” in n-Track. That works well enough, so I’ll just stick with it (until I can afford a multi-channel soundcard 
). Thanks though!
chuck
Just to complete the picture, question 4d in the n-track faq (h e r e) describes this process pretty well and was written by our own Nils (who I’ve not seen around for a while).
Jerm, can’t say I’ve ever seen a soundcard with two stereo input pairs… That would be a 4 input card and would be described as such I expect. Otherwise your solution is sound.
Aikan, I know you’re not looking yet but I’ve found the Delta cards (44 or 66) that offer 4 inputs to be rock solid. I’m sure others will help with recomendations for other cards.
| Quote (Mark A @ Feb. 04 2006,03:14) |
| can’t say I’ve ever seen a soundcard with two stereo input pairs… That would be a 4 input card and would be described as such I expect. |
Actually, there is a consumer sound card that has 2 stereo analog-to-digital converters. It’s the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and I’ve had good luck buying used ones on Ebay very cheap. It has your standard Front Out, Rear Out, Mic In, and Line In, but there’s one additional jack they call a VersaJack. It’s software-selectable to be another output (headphones, or Center+Subwoofer configuration), a digital output (S/PDIF), or an analog input (second line-in). The beauty of this card is that you can actually set it to “Enable multiple wave devices” which means the inputs and outputs have their own device name (great for n-Track). You use the regular Windows recording volume control to select what gets patched to the regular recording device (mic, line, aux (VersaJack), cd, modem, stereo mix) and then switch over to change the volumes for the Second Analog Record device and pick from the same set of busses.
Also, when you calibrate the recording volume (attenuated enough that you can input the hottest signal the transistors will accept without clipping, yet still driving the digital VU meters to 0) there is a pretty respectable noise floor of -80dB. Not bad at all for a 16 bit card.
Thanks, Mark, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I knew I had seen that somewhere. And thanks for the card recommendation, a four-i/o is probably more realistic for me than eight.
Mike, I’ve heard of the Turtle Beach before, actually. I used to do tech support for Dell and I seem to remember that a lot of the problems with sound had to do with the Turtle Beach. Maybe not though. Anyway, sounds interesting, I’ll have to check it out.
chuck
Hey,
until you get the card…
i had sucess in years past with taking Tascam 4track and 8track tracks and mixing each track (in stereo down, to a regular high fedility tape) The taking each four tapes and playing them through arecently cleaned stereo tape deck.
they all seemed to be at the same speed. and the ones that were off were actually off, on the time tline, but not different in speed at all. They simply had different starting points. I learned to zoom in on the time line and line them up…It’s the magnifying glass icon. Didn’t know about that till i owned the program for a year…mad would that have saved re-tracking time!
keep shinin’
jerm 
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| Actually, there is a consumer sound card that has 2 stereo analog-to-digital converters. It’s the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz |
Mike, do you know the model name/number? That might be a cheap entry into 4 channel recording for some folks. Or is it just the straight Santa Cruz card? (I’m not familiar with the Turtle Beach range).
Mark
I think I found it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp…=172282
The Versa Jack description in the manual does exactly what Mike said. Do we know if both sets of analogue inputs can be used for recording at the same time?
| Quote (yeahforbes @ Feb. 04 2006,17:48) |
| . It’s software-selectable to be another output (headphones, or Center+Subwoofer configuration), a digital output (S/PDIF), or an analog input (second line-in). The beauty of this card is that you can actually set it to “Enable multiple wave devices” which means the inputs and outputs have their own device name (great for n-Track). You use the regular Windows recording volume control to select what gets patched to the regular recording device (mic, line, aux (VersaJack), cd, modem, stereo mix) and then switch over to change the volumes for the Second Analog Record device and pick from the same set of busses. |
…
So is that a yes?
YES.