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CDT-WAC-CPC Trouble Shooting

Started by Scoat48, 09:03, 07 September 21

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Scoat48

Hi all.
Struggling to find a solution to a very frustrating problem. No doubt this will turn out to be relatively simple.
I bought a refurbished CPC464 a few months back, got some games to relive my childhood and they all load and work fine. Except Myth. It crashes upon loading. Anyway. I thought if I could obtain the CDT file covert to wav and save to tape I could have a working version. Alas. Although the tape makes all the right noises it fails to load. I tried a cheap cassette recorder of Amazon and currently have a TEAC Hi-Fi cassette deck doing the recording side. I bought a 3.5mm to rca stereo cable to link my laptop to the cassette deck. The deck has Dolby but this is switched off. I've been using the Cdt2Wav utility and the CDT files work as I've tried them in an emulator. I've tried different volumes and cassettes albeit these are not new. So any suggestions to make me that less bit miserable? Thanks

Mark_wllms

You could try using a casette adaptor to go straight from the laptop headphone socket to the CPC464 tape deck. These look like a casette with a wire coming out. You might also need to clean the tape deck heads with a cleaning casette or cotton buds / solution.

pelrun

When recording to an actual tape, the pulses get squashed by the non-linear behaviour of the magnetic media. The CPC actually pre-compensates for this by stretching the pulses an equivalent amount when recording, so the playback is correct. But CDT's are generally fed directly into an emulated or real CPC (via an adapter on the 464 or a direct cable on the later models), so that compensation step is left out. If you try to record it to a tape and play it back, you get a slightly munged version of the signal, which might be enough to make a marginal loader fail.

Scoat48

Thanks for the responses. Much appreciated.
So how does the CDT to Wav work? I've seen a video on YouTube where the conversion and recording to tape appears  to work on the 464 cassette player.
Or am I being naive for believing in the simplicity of this process?
With regards to the cassette adaptor, any recommendations on a stable peripheral to use that works without failure?

dlfrsilver

Quote from: Scoat48 on 16:03, 07 September 21
Thanks for the responses. Much appreciated.
So how does the CDT to Wav work? I've seen a video on YouTube where the conversion and recording to tape appears  to work on the 464 cassette player.
Or am I being naive for believing in the simplicity of this process?
With regards to the cassette adaptor, any recommendations on a stable peripheral to use that works without failure?


Use CSW2CDT for the CDT reversal. Next, you need a good hi fi to make the recording (you need knowledge for that). I have a friend, musician, who knows exactly how to proceed, he uses Goldwave for the wav stream sending to his HiFi system.


For instance, he has restored his batman caped crusader tape with a new band (you need to know how to change an original tape damaged band with a new one) from the CDT i made that is available on CPCpower website.


He has also restored my original Dinamic's satan tape from the UK CDT present on CPC power. This game uses a sensible tape protection, it passed with no problem.


The real question is what kind of recording hardware you use, and your knowledge.


To be honest, as much as i know the tape protections, i'm at loss about recording a tape from Hi-Fi.....  :picard:

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