Digitizing Cassette as one file but showing tunes separately?

[mikehende]

Hey guys, how you all doing? Bud of mine has a bunch of cassette tapes with seprates tunes on them. He wants to have his cassette tapes digitized with sides A and B each digitized 'as one file' each but showing the tunes individually in OTSAV DJ, is this possible, if yes, how please?

[milky]

The only way is to create the master copy as a WAV file and then use something like Goldwave to edit the master and cut it into separate tracks. You can then use Ots Studio to import the individual tracks and edit the names. If you want them in the same sequence as the original tape, make sure to add "01, 02, 03...etc" to the start of the track name so that Studio imports them the same way. Then you can strip the leading number off the name in Studio.

I do this with vinyl and it works very well, but, of course it has to be done in real-time so it can take hours to record, edit into separate files and then name each track.

[socialdancer]

That would be my preferred way to do this.

In theory you could import the complete side A file into Studio, then clone the item several times to create separate tracks.  Unlink the ACI chunk on each cloned copy and adjust the in and out points to play just the wanted track, then edit the title etc.

[mikehende]

The only way is to create the master copy as a WAV file and then use something like Goldwave to edit the master and cut it into separate tracks. You can then use Ots Studio to import the individual tracks and edit the names.

Thanks both you guys. Sorry only now seeing these posts, did not get the Notif.

What I am thinking is since he wants each side of the tapes 'as one file' then is there a way to have say Side A as one file in OTSAV then be able to expand that one file showing and playing if needed any of it's individual tracks? I am thinking that is what he is seeking.

[socialdancer]

Absolutely!  It's what Ots albums are all about.  Just like ripping a CD and importing all the tracks into an Ots file.
The principle is the same but it will require a bit more manual intervention as the cassette is purely analogue without any tags to hold title details etc and has to be recorded in real time.
Record as MP3s, or WAV files for better quality, then use Studio to import each set into an Ots file and edit information as usual.

[milky]

Thanks both you guys. Sorry only now seeing these posts, did not get the Notif.

What I am thinking is since he wants each side of the tapes 'as one file' then is there a way to have say Side A as one file in OTSAV then be able to expand that one file showing and playing if needed any of it's individual tracks? I am thinking that is what he is seeking.

If you import one file into Ots, you get ONE track, with all of the individual tape tracks stored consecutively in it. Similarly, if you record one side of a record album, you will have ONE single file containing all of the tracks. However, because there are no embedded tags, Ots has no way of knowing the names nor lengths of the individual tracks.

This is why you will have to open the recorded file in Goldwave, Audition etc where the waveform will look like a string of sausages (because of the quiet gap between tracks). You then cut each "sausage" and paste to a separate file, and then import the "sausage" files into Ots. If you name each of the individual files the same as the track name (together with a number at the start so Ots sorts them correctly), they will then appear in Studio with names and in the sequence they were on the tape. You can edit each name and drop the sequence number from the name if you wish.

I also "normalise" each track in Goldwave before saving, so that they are all at the same playing level.

[socialdancer]

I'm sure I used Goldwave to record cassettes and vinyl about 20 years ago and it automatically split the recording at each silent period.  I still have folders on an old drive with the extracted Track1, Track2 etc.

[milky]

Yes, it is true that the "Auto Cue" function in Goldwave can split the master recording into individual tracks *provided* that the "silence threshold" and other parameters are set correctly to detect the gap between tracks. If incorrectly set, it could either split the waveform at a pause or quiet section in a particular track, or not split some tracks if the gap between is particularly noisy.

I just prefer to do it "old school" and copy/paste each track into a separate window before applying other processes to them.

[mikehende]

I'm sure I used Goldwave to record cassettes and vinyl about 20 years ago and it automatically split the recording at each silent period.  I still have folders on an old drive with the extracted Track1, Track2 etc.

Hey guys. The bud had digitized each side of every tape 'as one file' and NOW he wants to extract each track of Sides A+B to have the separate files in OTSAV DJ.

I am seeing the instructions to do so and will tryi it out tomorrow. But asking first how do you handle any pause or silence within a track which Goldwave might see as a different track please?

[socialdancer]

AFAIK Goldwave's auto-split function only works while recording a new file, not when editing an existing one.
See Milky's Sausage analogy for the best way to split the large file.  Work on a copy to be extra safe then you can always go back and start again.  While you have the files in Goldwave/Audition you may want to de-noise and or normalise the tracks for best results before importing them into Studio.

[milky]

You can open the master track (with all tracks in it) in Goldwave, and then export each individual track as "Track01, Track02 etc"
Search the (very good) Help file for "Auto Cue". You will see that you can set a couple of parameters. 1) The noise level of the gap. If you set this to about -34 dB it should pick up only the quiet sections between the tracks. 2) the duration of the quiet section. If you set this to around two seconds, it should ignore any sudden quiet sections within the actual track. Once you have set these parameters, set the macro running and it should return a count of the number of tracks it can "see". If this corresponds with the number of tracks on that side of the tape, you can then export the separate tracks as CD quality WAV files.

Alternatively, load up the master file, highlight each "sausage" and copy to a new window. You can then manipulate each track to normalise etc and then Save As the correct name of the track. I still suggest adding a track number prefix so that they import into Studio in the same sequence as the tape. Once imported, you can edit the prefix from the track name.

[mikehende]

Ok guys, this being a holiday w/e, I will attempt this next week following the instructions given by Milky and will report back, thanks.

[milky]

Whatever you do, do NOT modify the master tape recording. Always produce "child" tracks from the master.

[mikehende]

Right, I'm ready to start and have imported a 'copy' of Tape 1 Wav file into GW. But even though there are gaps between the tracks I am not seeing any splits between the tracks as this screenshot of it is showing? What's best for me to do here please?

The start of Side B of the tape had been crossfaded over the end of Side A so that at around the 45 minute mark should be the only part which should not show a gap. The screenshot shows where the 1st track stops.

https://i.postimg.cc/YC5shRR2/goldwave-Tape-1.png

[milky]

Zoom right in on the waveform. Because of the size of the file, the total waveform is squeezed into the width of the window. If you use a wheel mouse, you can scroll the wheel to zoom. I think that I can see slight gaps around the 5 minute mark and about 12 minutes, but they will be much more obvious if you zoom in.