You get that with older tapes which are signs of wear and tear. Also, I noticed the NLS machines have somewhat gone down in quality. I don't mean to denigrate our fine program, it's great, and all, but I also notice there is loud enough tape hiss on some of the books, and I wrote NLS about it once, and they blamed ME and my equipment. No, I know it was not, and was a little hurt. I've been handling tapes for a long time, and I know. I noticed some NLS books are distorted on some sides, like they had the master turned up a bit loud. I have heard sometimes, some noise in the background, like a fridge going or the hiss of what sounds to me like central heating and air conditioning. Other times, I notice they took pains to reduce the noise and clean up the audio. So not every single book is sloppy. As tapes age, though and many hands have handled them, I noticed they lose their highs and develop wrinkles which you can hear as the wrinkled spots pass over the head. Someone else told me the more they put on a tape at the slowest possible speed, the more the quality deteriorates. I don't know if this is the case in every case. I can hear a bad tape easily. I used to copy from tape to tape. Now, since I learned to use an encoding program, I bypass that step and encode books right onto my hard drive to transfer onto a CD. I have an ongoing series of talking book CD's, all mp3's. Eventually, NLS will have to switch to digital format, as cassettes are already on the way out. I can even see it myself, having watched cassettes give way to blank CD's and miniddisc, and digital blanks. I don't even see cassettes cases being sold anymore at Wal-mart. It's clear enough to me. Well, another thing I forgot to say is I never went for the cheapest tapes. I stayed with Maxell over the years, or TDK. No Nemerex. I avoid that brand in blank CD's. (I might be misspelling that one.) Good luck. TDK is a good brand. It may be the library tape. It's old and a bit worn.
Mimi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terri Stimmel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 2:37 PM Subject: question about recording books > Hello everyone, > I'm trying to copy an NLS book. I'm recording it, using my tape deck. You > know, with the library tape in one side, and a blank tape in the other. > Well, I've recorded one tape so far, and I've noticed something that I > really don't like, but I don't know if there's anything I can do about it. > When I played the tape in my NLS machine, I had to turn the volume up half > way, so that I could really hear it well. And I noticed that I could hear > noise, I believe from the other track. It wasn't coming threw real loud, > but it was noticeable. > What do you all think? Is it something with my tape recorder, or is this > sort of thing normal? > I'm using TDK tapes, and I've always thought that was a good brand. > Any thoughts on this will be much appreciated. > Terri > > > _______________________________________________ > PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... > http://www.pc-audio.org > > To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ PC-Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
