Loading / Re-recording Wavs

[daznic]

Hi Guys,
I'm just getting to grips with my newly aquired CPC464 - my previous experiences are with C64, Spectrum, Atari 800XL - so really pleased to finally get an Amstrad ! (with a nice RGB Scart cable)
Anyway, the tape drive seems to work ok as I got a few games with it that load fine, but just dabbling into loading WAVS from my PC with a cassette adaptor. From my experience with the Spectrum I've found similiar results with the Amstrad - around 60% Success (I ended up eventually getting a DivIde for the Speccy) - I'm guessing some games are more fussy because of custom/protection loaders ??
I was thinking of maybe doing an Audio in mod, soldering a mono Jack to the Cassette heads circuit - would this give me more success ?
Another idea is to record Wavs back to cassette from my PC - I quite like the Retro feel of old cassettes, but would need to find a suitable old tape recorder with good recording level control.
Before I go any further, are many games just never going to work because of copy protection and custom loaders or any other reason ? - I notice it's only the disk version of games that are "cracked"
Thanks for any tips !

[Morri]

From memory cngsoft's website has "cracked" tape images in .cdt format. You could try these. I think I had a higher success rate with these. Not perfect but much better...

[chinnyhill10]

Hi Guys,
I'm just getting to grips with my newly aquired CPC464 - my previous experiences are with C64, Spectrum, Atari 800XL - so really pleased to finally get an Amstrad ! (with a nice RGB Scart cable)
Anyway, the tape drive seems to work ok as I got a few games with it that load fine, but just dabbling into loading WAVS from my PC with a cassette adaptor.

Cut a hole in the side of the adaptor and thread it through the gap between the tape drive and the case and then out through the back. Otherwise if you let the cable leave via the tape door it puts pressure on the mechanism and it doesn't sit right on the heads.


Also you can use a TZX player to play CDT files. I have 90% success unless the image is faulty which makes it on par with original tapes.

[daznic]

From memory cngsoft's website has "cracked" tape images in .cdt format. You could try these. I think I had a higher success rate with these. Not perfect but much better...

Thank you ! - I'm having much more success with these, every one I've tried so far is working ! 

[Token]

Hi Guys,
I'm just getting to grips with my newly aquired CPC464 - my previous experiences are with C64, Spectrum, Atari 800XL - so really pleased to finally get an Amstrad ! (with a nice RGB Scart cable)
Anyway, the tape drive seems to work ok as I got a few games with it that load fine, but just dabbling into loading WAVS from my PC with a cassette adaptor. From my experience with the Spectrum I've found similiar results with the Amstrad - around 60% Success (I ended up eventually getting a DivIde for the Speccy) - I'm guessing some games are more fussy because of custom/protection loaders ??
I was thinking of maybe doing an Audio in mod, soldering a mono Jack to the Cassette heads circuit - would this give me more success ?
Another idea is to record Wavs back to cassette from my PC - I quite like the Retro feel of old cassettes, but would need to find a suitable old tape recorder with good recording level control.
Before I go any further, are many games just never going to work because of copy protection and custom loaders or any other reason ? - I notice it's only the disk version of games that are "cracked"
Thanks for any tips !

I did the little mod on the PCB, it's magic and quite required with Otla fast loading format. I did similar mod on other computers. I must like tape, rasters and intro pic... The CPC is quite loading fast compared to what I loaded on my Atari 800 XL.

I just checked the CNG page with packed softwares and I expect some standalone files that should convert in one click in fast loading, that's pretty cool.