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Spectaculator - recommended recording levels when loading from cassette tape?

theDarknesstheDarkness
edited March 2011 in Emulators
Hi, I have connected a physical cassette recorder to Spectaculator in order to load my saved programs/games from yesteryear-mainly to see if it would work, on a quiet sat night :) My cassette is connected to the line-in on the vista laptop. The built in microphone on the laptop is disabled to prevent noise, line-in is enabled and chosen as default. In order to get spectaculator to start picking up sound, I have to turn the cassette recorders own volume to maximum, but on the computer, set the line-in recording level to around 15 (out of 100). My problem is that tapes will usually load around halfway, then Spectaculator will either give standard sinclair error messages/reset, or just not be able to keep up with the incoming audio/loading process. I have tried changing the line-in level to 13 and 17, but I still have the same issue, or its worse (will not even get halfway through the loading process, or not be able to pick it up). I have a dual-core 1.5Ghz with 2Gb ram - is it possible that my laptop is simply not fast enough in order to keep up? I have tried switching off video filters etc but it doesnt make a difference. Thanks for any help, as I really would like to be able to get Spectaculator running with a real cassette tape. The audio played from tape sounds ok with no noise when played, I can hear it clearly through the laptops own speakers.

Once the trial runs out and I can find a way to fix this problem I would definately like to support the project. If not available already, I would like to be able to see the top and bottom borders fully (without losing aspect ratio) in full screen mode, as I think the current full screen mode loses some top+bottom border. I usually run the emulator in full screen, with rounded borders on, on this widescreen laptop. I would also like to be able to slow the emulator down slightly overall, as I thought the emulator in general ran slightly faster than my real sinclair (although this last last one is probably just me, or my old spectrum is just about ready to kick the bucket)!

Thanks for any help :)
Post edited by theDarkness on

Comments

  • ZnorXmanZnorXman
    edited March 2011
    theDarkness wrote: »
    Hi, I have connected a physical cassette recorder to Spectaculator in order to load my saved programs/games from yesteryear...

    Don't forget to share!
  • theDarknesstheDarkness
    edited March 2011
    ZnorXman wrote: »
    Don't forget to share!

    Im still having trouble with the cassette recording, so I doubt that'll ever happen until I can get some help on finding the correct settings :( lol - for anyone thats uploaded their own cassettes, I need advice :)
  • The StargliderThe Starglider
    edited March 2011
    Why not turn down the cassette recorders volume to about half way and then increase the Line in volume of the computer higher? You might be getting distortion from the cassette decks output.
  • richlrichl
    edited March 2011
    Whilst it might be nice to hook up an actual tape recorder to Spectaculator, if you just want to be able to load your old saved programs then why not just sample the tapes and convert to TZX? You can run filters and loads of things to get them to convert. That way they'll always load every time.

    ...unless you're really trying to emulate the whole loading off tape experience whereby you could never guarantee that it'd load? ;)
  • fogfog
    edited March 2011
    remember your line in is a stereo jack and NOT a mono like the speccy

    also, pc volume levels can have an effect as well as anything that messes with the sound.

    my advice.. get it to load stuff on a real speccy then adjust the pc volume accordingly.. assuming you have the right sort of connector.. by default I "think" it uses the mic input . Jon the guy who makes it posts here, but have a look in their forum also

    I think it was well worth the money , I bought it a few years back.
  • theDarknesstheDarkness
    edited March 2011
    what to use to sample tapes, is audacity acceptable to record together with a wav conversion program to tzx/tap or other compatible formats? yes, turning down the volume on the actual cassette player and increasing the line-in to half way worked! :) thanks. I assumed that I would need the cassette player volume up all the way, as over 80% to full is the only way I can hear the tape loading noise.

    I was going for the whole retro experience, so Im slightly disappointed that in order to load cassettes from tape in spectaculator, Im not able to hear the noise of a loading speccy :( lol. I didnt think there would be noise at 100%, as it sounded fine through the laptops own speakers. Perhaps its just a vista issue with the line-in with the emulator, is anyone else able to both hear the loading audio and load tapes successfully? I wasnt able to hear anything at all through the line-in at first (not even with the cassette volume at 100%), as I found out it was because stereo-mix is not available to the user when most laptops have built in audio. The bizarre fix was.. making sure the default recording device was set to line-in in windows, not muted, and then to start VLC Player, click on VLC file>open capture device, and set its video device option to "none", and audio device to "line-in". It worked perfectly after that, with all line-in audio now coming out of the laptops speakers. I do have a fair few old(ish) programs I could upload, of course mainly games from yesteryear, I didnt get my system until I was around 10 yrs of age (1989/1990). I take it if anything may be deemed unacceptable, with certain developers/publishers still running strong, ie codemasters, that such files simply wont be put up. I have plenty of YS tapes still working 100% as Ive just found out, but then most of these have been untouched for at least 15 years :)
  • rich_chandlerrich_chandler
    edited March 2011
    For a proper emulated experience try using Spud, that doesn't work properly either...
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • fogfog
    edited March 2011
    theDarkness wrote: »
    I was going for the whole retro experience, so Im slightly disappointed that in order to load cassettes from tape in spectaculator, Im not able to hear the noise of a loading speccy :( lol. I didnt think there would be noise at 100%, as it sounded fine through the laptops own speakers.

    yer you can hear it, errm you just turn it up in windows play back.. errm setting up is the tricky bit .. but once it's done you shouldn't need to change it

    you should really use the "mic" input BUT without gain on it
  • SpiranthoSpirantho
    edited March 2011
    I think you can enable loading noises in Spectaculator if you disable the various speed loading options. Or you can record your cassette and convert to a .csw file and load that (my forthcoming program UberCassette does both formats but it's not reliable yet).
  • fogfog
    edited March 2011
    in windows you just turn up mic / line in playback = you will hear it :)
  • Jon NeedleJon Needle
    edited March 2011
    theDarkness wrote: »
    ...so Im slightly disappointed that in order to load cassettes from tape in spectaculator, Im not able to hear the noise of a loading speccy :(

    This is an option in Windows - you have to enable it on some machines (my old Dell XPS laptop was one) although I've forgotten how to ;-)

    FWIW, when testing I always found that I had to increase bass and reduce treble (which was the opposite to using a real Spectrum - at least in my experience)

    Line-in works best. If you have both line-in and a mic socket, set line-in to be the default recording device in Windows and Spectaculator will use that.

    Jon.
  • na_th_anna_th_an
    edited March 2011
    Exactly, you have to enter in the sound devices section in control pannel, recording devices, line in, and inside you must tick an option to enable it to feed automaticly to the windows mixer, so you can hear what you record. It's disabled by default so you can connect a microphone and avoid feedback.
  • ArdaArda
    edited March 2011
    and don't forget to try input balance controls to full Left or Right.

    I guess some sound drivers optimized for voice recording/audio chat and put delayed feedback to the other channel, causing reverb/echo on channels even if you turn off sound effects. This is not always the case, but I find some of my experiences this is the case and solved by balancing output to a single channel.
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