Using USB Audio CODEC for transcribing old tapes to digital

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Tom D
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:55 am

Using USB Audio CODEC for transcribing old tapes to digital

Post by Tom D »

I have two brief questions:

1. I have audio cassette tapes with human voice dictations on them and am playing them in real time to make digital files using Amadeus on my Mac. I have had ALOT of trouble avoiding clipping when setting the input from the tape deck manually as the voices vary wildly and the tapes are old and in rather poor shape. I have started to use a facility on my Mac called 'USB Audio CODEC' on input preferences and since then the 'traces' seem unclipped and fine (I turn the input down on the tape deck which is an ION TAPE TO PC and the USB Audio CODEC seems to set the volume fine).
Since I am unsure what this 'USB Audio CODEC' actually does I am asking the forum if there are any 'downsides' to using this facility rather than setting the sound manually (though the latter, as I say, is very tricky to do if clipping is to be avoided).

2. Also I have plugged my USB lead from the tape deck into a splitter extension which is, in turn, plugged into my computer rather than directly plugging my USB lead from the tape deck into the computer's USB directly (I have fairly reasonable reason for this but won't bore you with it here). Does this matter? Can it effect anything as regards making the digital recording. I might add I am making WAVE files for archive (and then an mp3 from this for ease of use for transcribers).

Thank you in advance.

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