Overview This guide covers, in outline form, what is required to setup a Windows based digital studio, capable of recording CDs and DATs.

PC Requirements   A reasonably fast PC A digital soundcard SP/DIF I/O (best) AES/BU I/O (OK) The Gina from Event is very highly rated SoundBlaster Live has known defects more info about soundcards more info about S/PDIF and AES/EBU

Digital Sources (record from) Digital Sources may include:  DAT/CD via S/PDIF or AES/EBU  AES/EBU:  XLR connector  no SCMS  no DAT control codes(index, etc)  S/PDIF:  RCA connector (coax) TOS-link connector (optical) passes SCMS (if present) passes dat control codes)  more info about S/PDIF and AES/EBU   Digital extraction from your computer's CD-ROM  use EAC to extract some drives, like Plextor, extract cleanly w/out using EAC    MP3, yeah, but not lossless, so not for serious traders...ok for casual, not to be traded     other digitized sources, such as Real-Audio

Digital Destinations (record to) Digital Destinations include: MP3 great for posting to the web, and sharing via email   DAT (via soundcard digital I/O)   CDR (internal to computer)   CDR (external: via soundcard digital I/O)   DDS (internal, in .shn format, as backup)   Hard-drive (intermediate staging between digital source and destination)

S/W Choices cdwav: used to split a large chunk of music into smaller, individual wave files. cool-edit-pro-se: general purpose music editor.  used to control recording from DAT to hard-drive EAC: essential tool for reliable, accurate digital audio extraction of music from CDs new cool-edit sound-forge xp shorten etc.