If you have anything really rare (like the cassette masters of live recordings that occasionally come my way), the process should be something like: Use the best tape deck you can get hold of. I use a Nak deck, with azimuth control. The azimuth aligns the head to get the best sound (you adjust while playing back with headphones). Record in real time with dolby off to a old recorder (I use a Nomad JB3 at 44.1 kHz) Import to pc. Open Audacity, cut out silence at beginning and end of the recording, fade in and out. Boost tracks individually to balance them. Export in .wav format Import into CD Wave, track the recording Save to .wav files Burn to CD, or archive to FLAC That's about it, though I sometimes use Soundforge instead of Audacity if the recording needs more than a touch of EQ.
First the good news: The bike fired up after its winter layoff, so I warmed it up for 10 mins. Then I went to check when it had its last service: in June and a paltry 2'000 kms covered since then (I've been too poor to go anywhere much). The tyres are newish, the chain is new, so no need to take it for a crippling service for months! So I figured that I'd be even nicer to it and celebrate by taking it to the gym for a shake down run. No rain forecast, weather quite pleasant - 12°. Then the bad: in the time it took to ride 15 miles to the gym and spend an hour there, by the time I was leaving Lausanne, it was raining. My bike has a magnetic attraction to rain. If I so much as look at it, it rains. It hasn't rained for ages. Why in the 2 hours I have the bike out of the garage does it have to start? Just enough to cover it in crud necessitating cleaning. Unlike most of the people on here, I loathe cleaning my bike (but I hate it being dirty). Dammit!
we had some small, stinging hail and bitter icy wind today here in south nottingham...bleedin shoitehole...
