Passengers on the Wind 2 Cassette Found

[dcdrac]

I have found the English version of Passengers of the Wind 2 on cassette how can I save this the tape is 26 years old and intact typically the week after my old 464 died completely.
Ideas welcome I have audacity on my PC will saving that as an audio file then recording it back work or is it more complicated?
I have computer compatible casssete player on the way for the 6128s I have and a copy of Bonzo Super Meddler.
Any ideas welcome.

Happy to lend out to someone too

I do not currently own a tape recorder I do have an old working Walkman
And I found a disc copy Of Mercenary, Navy Moves and Quadualcanal, Quadalcanal does not seem to work but it always was a fussy loader.

The Old datacorder ahs arrived so will see if I can find a din plug for it and connect it to the 6128

[robcfg]

Would you be so kind of recording it in your pc (using your walkman I guess) and upload the wav files anywhere so we can take a look at them and try to generate nice .cdt files?

If we cannot do anything from these first dumps, you'll have to find a better casette player to record it again or send the tape to one of us for proper processing.

Good luck,

[dcdrac]

will do

[dcdrac]

Also found Runestone Empire and the Comet Game by Firebird Shadowfire by Beyond, Livingstone by Alligata

[dcdrac]

:: Login

Please pm me for the user name and password

[Gryzor]

Oh my, this will be a treat!!!

[dcdrac]

Both sound wave files are now uploaded please pm me for passwords and username.
Hopefully they can be converted if not just won an ebay auction for an Amstrad computer tape cable set so can try and Bonzo Supper Meddler it.

If this works I will try Empire, Runestone and the Comet Game next all Firebird games I have not seen images for as yet.

[Devilmarkus]

I sPaMmed you

[dcdrac]

is there an image for Incredible Shrinking Sphere by Electric dreams if there is not I can try that too.

[dcdrac]

Runestone, Dragontorc, The Comet Game, Empire and Libvingstone aliigata version ready to upload

[Gryzor]

Listened to the wav files, they don't sound good at all I'm afraid And I also realised I haven't done this in absolute ages, noise removal/clipping/amp. Surprisingly I can find of no good guide for the process, imagine that. I'll try to reinvent the wheel, unless someone else beats me to it


T


PS JavaCPC fails to load wav's? I insert the file, press play, key, and I only hear a hiss, not the actual wav...

[dcdrac]

on Javacpc I can hear the files just I am not sure what its meant to do after that it runs through and nothing seems to happen.

[arnoldemu]

on Javacpc I can hear the files just I am not sure what its meant to do after that it runs through and nothing seems to happen.

When recording you need to turn the volume up on the walkman/tape player, but not too high or it'll distort the sound, about 80% is normally good. You can tell if you look at it in audacity or a similar editor, the peaks should go about 80% of the range.

In addition turn off any noise reduction or equalizer. Use the line in on the computer and turn off other input sources. (mic is not always good because it may reduce noise).

You may need to re-record it.

In JavaCPC you should be able to play the wav sound, provided it's 16-bit uncompressed mono or similar (no encoding or special compression), 22khz is generally best too 

44Khz is probably overkill, the tape baud rate is about 3000, so you only really need twice that to get an accurate recording, so about 11Khz is probably ok.

Put the tape in: |TAPE:RUN"
Press play on the emulated tape player and after a bit you should both hear the sound and see it loading, at least the initial loader should appear.

If it's running through and nothing happens I would say the recording is not great and needs to be done again.

When you look at it in audacity, zoom in, the waves should be almost triangle like. It'll not be square wave as it should because of the way the tape hardware works, it tends to smooth it into a sine wave or triangular wave, or a square wave with additional peaks and troughs.

[dcdrac]

Had a go got the old read error B message using JavaCPC

[Devilmarkus]

The best recording would be with 8bit, mono, 44khz.

Did you enable Dolby or another noise filter in your walkman?

The pulses sound a bit too low in frequency.

If you own a CPC 464, you could solder a 3,5" microphone cable to your tape drive and connect it to your PC's AUX input.

I once did the same and so I was able to record tapes.

Sorry, I don't remember the contacts now, but I'm 100% sure, other people here know where and how to connect it.

When connected, don't RUN" the tape but CAT it.

[dcdrac]

I am happy to send the tape to someone better equipped than me to do something with I do not know much if anything avout audio dynamics I am afraid.

[Devilmarkus]

I told to dlfrsilver to connect with you.

He already dumped hundreds of tapes for cpc-power.com

[dlfrsilver]

I am happy to send the tape to someone better equipped than me to do something with I do not know much if anything avout audio dynamics I am afraid.

i have send you my address, in order to chat with you and given you the good advice

Denis

[Gryzor]

Let's hope we hear from him, it'll be amazing to finally have this...[edit] ah, dlfrsilver, thanks so much for doing this


Also, arnoldemu, thanks for the tips, but my problem was that JavaCPC does not output any of the file's sound. Not sure why, I'll have a go again later.

[Devilmarkus]

If you run JavaCPC via the .jar file, it's possible that it doesnt load so large files.

Run it with JavaCPC.exe or from command line:
java -jar JavaCPC.jar -Xms512m

Without this parameter, Java is only allowed to use up to 32mb ram.

[Gryzor]

Cheers, will try this out. I'll even trying downsampling the wav.


Under WinAPE, btw, sound comes on ok, but nothing appears when loading, so I assume it can't really read any of that. The recording sounds bad enough, with distortion and noise, hope something comes out of it!

[dcdrac]

Redoing the recordings now at different levels been palying with audacity a bit I do not have a microphone for Skype sorry.

Happy to send the cassette to anyone who wants a bash as well

[dlfrsilver]

Had a go got the old read error B message using JavaCPC

about what to use and tools to get, use goldwave, set the sound on your tape recorder to 50% (not more), and only play with the volume setting in goldwave (between 8-9 to 11-15 depending on the tape).

now the tape signal should be excellent with a perfect shape. save it as WAV 44Khz and use samp2cdt on it.

use CPCE first of all, it's the best for tape reading/playing. test the CDT you have generated.

But, at first, it could be good if you can dump the game as wav, and upload it somewhere, and send me the link.

i'll then check it if you prefer

[dcdrac]

up loading a goldwaved version to its both sides in one don't know if that's doable but can do a split one if needed.

:: Login

CPCE dones not like 64 bit versions of windows lol
Update both sides of the cassette have now been run through Goldwave and are available for downloading

[McKlain]

up loading a goldwaved version to its both sides in one don't know if that's doable but can do a split one if needed.

:: Login

CPCE dones not like 64 bit versions of windows lol
Update both sides of the cassette have now been run through Goldwave and are available for downloading

I use cpce on 3 different computers with windows 7 64bits, and no problems