Thanks for the link Josh
unfortunately I already have a program which does that sort of thing just dandy. What I need is a way to apply the Dolby filter to the final result of the noise reduction so that the treble isn't so horrendously crashy without over-doing it and making it muffled, or upsetting the EQ by filtering out frequencies that shouldnt be touched. I think I'm getting a bit of a handle on what it is now anyway (looking carefully at the frequency curve and identifying sustained patterns of raised response at the high end, taking the one track i have on both tape and CD and comparing the two, etc) ... the only text source i've found so far says "all frequencies above 1khz are compressed, and amplified 10db", which sure aint the case. Hmm.
Anyway. Ebay. Whoa........ i am SO there. Could do with all those features, even though when it comes to recordings im almost completely a digital boy now.
(still when it comes to hearing something that's going to start in about a minutes time i really would like to keep, the operation is still - grab one from the slowly disappearing stack of unused tapes, tear the wrapper off, slam in deck. lot easier than setting recorder up on PC... capturing Live8 on it was a complete disaster)
In fact, i do need to get a whole new stereo setup. The deck in my once-trusty Amstrad Micro-1000 is well on the way to joining the CD player (i.e. being damn near unusable), and it'll only be a matter of time before the tuner conks out, followed by the aux inputs and amp... (mostly now i use it for those two functions anyway... radio, and playing stuff from the computer). A shame really, but I HAVE had the thing since I was in primary school!
Dunno why I didn't think of ebay for it before, I've always looked at argos or dixons for some stupid reason. Cheap-ass separates system here I come! (extra stupid, because my brother's size-of-a-house surround sound amp/decoder/tuner only cost him about £80 from the bay)
Amp .. well no, got one already sitting unused! .. Tuner, CD player (or just use my DVD player), tape decks, turntables.... sorted!
I'm reckoning it should be fairly easy to get one of those early-type minidisc decks, that you can use for fakey-ing TOCs from one disc to another? (best use for em!)
Reason: I've got a couple live recordings that were both "lost" by hardware faults (read: the thing getting knocked onto the floor and the battery falling out - MD recording procedure is SO flakey and susceptible to losing stuff in accidents) ... the data's on the disc, but there's no way of getting at it as the TOC was simply never updated to reflect that. A real pisser as i'd love to get at this stuff (material by a very creative, funny musician guy at uni doing pub gigs which we all attended and sung along to)... there's a tip for anyone using MD to record - prepare your discs in advance, record the entire thing with silence in the mode you wish to use the night before.. then your fall-back is a TOC with one track of 75 / 81 minutes, rather than "EMPTY DISC!"
PS Josh you'd better lock those tapes away or i may come nab them ... all i've got are a couple really awful quality jobs a guy at bangor lent me (n-joi and reactivate, i think.. unlabeled of course), but they're still pretty good to listen to ... so quality stuff like that? *steals*
In the meantime, the three large carry-case boxes, four car cases and wall-mountable rack full of the things will have to do.
