Hi, David,

I don't know if GE made mini-cassette AND micro-cassette recorders.

However, all of the MICRO-cassette recorders I have seen were capstan 
drive. I think the MINI-cassette (along with Stuzzi Memocord and others) 
were indeed rim drive.

So we need to be certain if the OP has a micro cassette or a mini cassette.

In any event, I am a proponent of transferring the tapes in the Dragon 
and dealing with the artifacts of that in software. I have used both 
Samplitude and iZotope RX, sometimes together, as some operations are 
easier in one than the other, but I think you can do all you need to do 
in RX.

You will need to change the sampling frequency. If you record at 192 
kHz, then change it to 96 for the "fast" speed (15/16 in/s) and to 48 
kHz for the "slow" speed (15/32 in/s).

You can get by with starting at 96 kHz, but if they are slow you'll end 
up with a 24 kHz sampling frequency which may make some archivists 
upset, hence my original suggestion. You won't get anything above 10 KHz 
off the micro cassette at the slow speed, and probably not at the fast 
speed, either.

You will also need to reverse the track, but since no noise processing 
was used, there is no "direction-ness" to the transfer.

There won't be any Dolby or DBX to the best of my knowledge.

Of course azimuth needs adjustment (I've modified my Dragons for manual 
azimuth, still using the motor, though the range is not always great 
enough for some tapes). If you get the azimuth adjusted well, you'll be 
able to sum the two stereo channels for improvement in signal-to-noise 
ratio and also reduced dropouts.

If there is analog clipping, De-Clip can repair some of that.

Once you've done all that, then I'd look at a combination of the 
spectral editor (the main screen, not a module) to trim frequency range 
to useful information (remove rumble and HF noise).

Then I think I'd use the spectral (not dialog) de-noise (the names of 
the modules have drifted a bit over time) and perhaps two 
lower-intensity passes, or using the spectral editor process different 
frequency bands separately. Every job is different. Don't forget you can 
have different adjustments by splitting the sliders (I think in 5, I'm 
not certain) for tonal and noise reduction.

If you have advanced, you might want to run the azimuth adjuster module 
before summing--just to be certain, or even run it on small sections if 
there is drift.

I sometimes find Ozone to be a help with its dynamic equalizer.

You can attempt de-reverb if you have that module (I forget when these 
were introduced) and then do corrective EQ to taste.

Then sum to mono.

Cheers,

Richard




On 2018-06-20 7:45 PM, David Breneman wrote:
> Von: "Eli Bildirici" <[log in to unmask]>
> 
>> There was a discussion about this fairly recently. IIRC the
>> recommendation for capture was rehousing in regular sized
>> shells and playing back with a recommended deck (e.g. Tascam
>> 122 Mk3, various Nakamichis inc. the famed Dragon, etc)
> 
> The GE Microcassette machines I've seen (and I even owned one
> back in the 80s) were rim drive, so playing the tapes back with a
> constant-speed regular cassette deck might introduce its own
> problems.  Also, the tape is extremely thin, so a cassette deck
> which introduces too much tension before and after the headstack
> might damage the tape.
> 
> FWIW.
> 
> 
-- 
Richard L. Hess                   email: [log in to unmask]
Aurora, Ontario, Canada                             647 479 2800
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.