Hi

Can anyone help please? I am sorting through my tape cassette recordings of therapy sessions, looking for suitable ones to present at the Oral Examination for my psychotherapy finals. It's a two hour exam in front of a panel where I get asked about my practice, and during which three recordings of approx 10 mins duration are presented as representative of my work. The problem is that although I have tapes I'm happy to use, the amount of hiss on them is so loud it's barely possible to hear myself and my client.

I'm recording one tape at the mo onto mini-disk so as to preserve the original, because I then need to go through the painstaking process of producing a transcript from it, and I don't want to risk it breaking or whatever because it's such a good session for exam purposes. But I'm wondering if there is any way of making a recording of it that would take out the hiss and make it usable for the exam?

I know this isn't a music-related question, but I just don't know who else to ask, and I know there are some very technically minded/knowledgeable people here. Without three good audible tapes I cannot sit my exam.

Any advice would be most gratefully received.

Many thanks

Amber
x

It really depends on what software, experience you have etc.

I think the first thing to do is make a digital copy of the audio tapes. (If you're unsure the best way to do this, download a free program like WaveLab and get a lead from your HiFi [or wherever you currently listen to your tapes] into the microphone jack on your PC and record the signal)

Once it's on the computer, try to find a decent demo of Cubasis, Audacity or something and look at the hiss reduction options.

A lot of it will be trial and error but once a copy is on the computer you can do what you like without worrying about damaging the original.

If the exam is close, and is really important to you, you could consider paying someone for to do it for you?

I've pasted a couple of links you might find helpful.

http://www.wavecor.co.uk/tutorials/tapetocd.pdf

http://www.polderbits.com/lp-to-cd.html?ref=adword1

Steinberg do a great plug in for Wavelab (or other compatible programs) which reduces hiss extremely well.