Cassette Tape Alchemy--Turning Base Music Quality Into Audio Gold

[Inyo]

I rather recently discovered a method to exponentially improve the audio quality of solo acoustic instrumental guitar recordings I made with a 1977 Teac stereo cassette tape machine several years ago. I'd already digitized the original Teac cassette material of course (a few years ago), but I'd long been disappointed with the results. Seems that the right channel in virtually every digitized file had a noticeably annoying buzz/hum, and the recordings in general suffered from insufficient audio depth, a dearth of tonal complexity, lacking a substantial bass component that the instruments I'd originally used most definitely possessed.

Finally, I grew weary of pathetic procrastinating. I could rationalize no additional excuses to delay the necessary audio editing activity. I decided to get down to business and try to improve the audio quality of those older recordings.

Here's the method I formulated:

1) One at a time, I re-recorded through my audio editor every digitized track in 24 bit wav format (aside: copying and pasting each file into the audio editor produced no audio quality improvement).

2) Delete the offending right channel, keeping only the clean left channel.

3) Convert that file to a mono 24 bit wav file.

4) Convert again to a stereo 24 bit wav file.

5) Adjust the volume (usually a single click on the Match function option produced an ideal volume level).

6) Save that file as a stereo 16 bit wav file (aside: Even when converted to 192kbps mp3 format, the audio quality did not diminish noticeably).

After this process, my solo acoustic guitar instrumentals, originally recorded on that 1977 Teac stereo cassette tape machine, truly came alive through a miraculous tonal transmutation. I am well pleased with the results. The re-digitized selections now sound as vital and vibrant as the very day I originally recorded them. This is a mysterious musical alchemy, indeed.