Setting up the adapter and how to use

[Remzi]

Download Audiotap and WAV-PRG HERE.
Download Audacity HERE.
Download FinalTAP HERE.
Debian/Ubuntu users CLICK HERE

IMPORTANT !!! Use USB 2.0 port on your computer.This adapter is not fully compatible with USB 3.0 or USB Type C.

For the first time you plug the adapter to your PC,you will need to setup the settings below,

1.Press Windows Key and R to open RUN window and type mmsys.cpl



Or right click on the speaker icon and select recording devices.



2.Set the USB microphone as default and go to properties.Change the device name to "READ".
3.Custom tab,untick the AGC.
4.Set the recording level to 0 (We will adjust this setting later on.)
5.Advanced tab choose the 48000 Hz



Right click on the speaker icon and goto Playback devices.Find USB Speakers and click on the properties.



1.Change device name to "WRITE"
2.Set the volume level between 75 - 80.
3.Enhancements tab,tick the box says "Disable all enhancements"
4.Go to advanced and choose 48000 Hz
5.Spatial sound tab - set it to OFF and click on the OK below.

Adjusting the READ volume and backing up a cassette tape to PC:

Insert a good condition,original copy cassette game to the datasette and press play.

Start Audacity and click the RECORD button.

Find the microphone volume setting and slide it to the right untill it fills the screen.





After recording that side of tape save it as WAV.



You pressed the Play on the datasette,you clicked on that big red record button but you don't see any action on the Audacity?
Try singing to your computer.Built in microphone might be selected.Change it to USB.

Start Audiotap,click on "Create a tap file",tick "from an audio file",tick "Inverted waveform"

Click OK,choose the WAV file,OK,give the tap file a name.



Drag and drop the TAP file to Finaltap



If you get Recognized 99% you have done a perfect backup.Click on Repair & Optimize to clean it up.



After the cleanup.it should show all green and Recognized 100%



Click on the save as (disk icon) to save the clean tap.

Keep in mind,you don't get these results with all TAP files.It depends on the loader.You might try Tapclean program aswell.

Drag and drop the cleaned TAP to winvice emulator and check if it works.






Recording software to blank cassette tape:

TAP Files:



Start AudioTap.
Select "convert from a Tap file" and "to a sound" click OK and choose the TAP file you want to record.
Press Record and Play on the datasette.

There are very few games with super fast loader like The Evil Dead.
If you come across one of these games,you have to max out everything to be able to record to cassette tapes.
Increase the speaker volume to max.Increase frequency to 96000Hz as shown below.



Turbo LOAD T64,PRG,P00 Images

Browse through this website and download T64,PRG,P00 Images.
Unzip those files to a folder on your desktop.

Start WAV-PRG and choose "Convert a PRG,P00 or T64 file to a sound"



You don't need to change any settings.

Click on "Sound Card" and higlight the files,drag and drop it to WAV-PRG.



Press RECORD and PLAY on your datasette.

This is it.

Good luck.
 

[Remzi]

If you want your turbo load games to load twice quicker,you can reduce the avarage bit duration and increase the frequency.



You might need to carry on some maintenance work on your tape deck like cleaning the heads/pinch roller also change the drive belt.
If you have a new old stock tape deck and cassette,try avarage bit duration 117,that is the lowest I could manage.

[Remzi]

Head Alignment Without the Real C64

Download this RAR file and open it on your desktop.


www.load64.com/up/auto.rar


Put the tape in the datasette and press play.


Find and run the file headalign.bat in that folder.


After the azimuth alignment loads up
go to datasette control and fast forward and
go to datasette control and start


You will see the lines.At this point ALT+W for 1 or 2 seconds to catch up with the real datasette.


Use the screw driver to align the head.Try to make the lines thin and straight as much as possible.


This is not easy,you will have to try a few times.

[Remzi]

Datasette Health Check:

You can test your tape deck by recording a 3Khz tone,play it back monitoring with a Wow and flutter program.

It should fluctuate between 2990 and 3010hz.If it fails this test,you might need to change the drive belt.





https://onlinetonegenerator.com/

http://www.ant-audio.co.uk/index.php?cat=post&qry=library

[Remzi]

Recording MSX Games to Tapes:

Download castools and unzip it to your desktop.

http://home.kabelfoon.nl/~vincentd/download/castools-1.3.zip

Run the program MSXcastoolsUI.exe
Drag and drop the CAS file to it and convert it to WAV.
Play the WAV file with your audio player.Make sure volume is at maximum.Record it to tape.

Recording Spectrum Games to Tapes:

You can do the same with TZX files using WinTZX

https://worldofspectrum.net/pub/sinclair/tools/pc/winTZX0.9a.exe