Question for the audio experts...

[RogueWolf]

While doing some cleaning today...I realized that I have a bunch of cassette tapes that are in danger of being lost to time. Some of them I can get on CD still, but many of them are out of print. So if something happens to the cassette, unless I can find it at a used CD store, I'm out of luck.

What's the best way to transfer them to CD? Anyone here have any experience with this? I really don't want to take them somewhere and pay a fortune to have them transferred.

Any help appreciated! :yesyes:

 

[cabey]

off the top of my head, im sure you can buy a usb tape player and software to capture the music and from there you can just burn your cd's as usual.

 

[AFA]

Tough one. I realized the sound quality on recorded cassettes was pretty bad, so used to buy the LP and record my own on TDK Super Alivyn tape. Much better sound, but I have the same problem now with the LP's. Some are in print on DVD but are very expensive used.

 

[baultista]

Chances are your PC soundcard has a LINE IN jack.

All you need is a RCA to 3.5mm stereo adapter, which turns the red/white cables that most cassette players use into the type of jack that plugs into an MP3 player or computer.


Then you just need a program that can record audio. Windows comes with a sound recording program. Just record each song individually and save them in a folder. Then you can burn those files onto a CD. If you want MP3's you can do the same thing, but you'll need to use something better than Windows Sound Recorder.

So yeah, just make the connections, open up the software, hit play on your cassette player and record on your computer, and let the tape play through. The more expensive, but easier alternative is a special PC cassette player specifically designed for this.

 

[HeartBroker]

Chances are your PC soundcard has a LINE IN jack.

All you need is a RCA to 3.5mm stereo adapter, which turns the red/white cables that most cassette players use into the type of jack that plugs into an MP3 player or computer.


Then you just need a program that can record audio. Windows comes with a sound recording program. Just record each song individually and save them in a folder. Then you can burn those files onto a CD. If you want MP3's you can do the same thing, but you'll need to use something better than Windows Sound Recorder.

So yeah, just make the connections, open up the software, hit play on your cassette player and record on your computer, and let the tape play through. The more expensive, but easier alternative is a special PC cassette player specifically designed for this.

Get a decent audio program like CoolEdit, it's got a ton of useful features like eq, noise reduction etc...

 

[tunsty]

A few years back, I spent several weels transferring some old tapes/Vinyls onto my PC.
Basically I had a turntable hooked up to my PC and recorded each and every record (long work, but worth it).
The thing to remember is that the sound quality will only be as good as the source.
I used a program called 'Audiograbber', which allows line-in recording from an external source.
In the case of vinyl records, I used a small program called Popfix to remove the worst of the pops and clicks from the recording.


BTW: Audiograbber (as far as I know) is now available as a free program, I'm not sure if popfix is still around...PM me if you can't find either.:hatsoff:

 

[tunsty]

A few years back, I spent several weels transferring some old tapes/Vinyls onto my PC.

Spot the dulibrat mustake