There are all these gadgets out there that you can use to rip old music to your computer. USB turntables, USB cassette decks. My brother is the keeper of all things old and retro in the family, and he's been doing a great job of ripping vinyl that can't be gotten on CD. But he has some of our old 8 tracks, and has no way to rip them.
Does anyone here know of a gadget that will do this? He doesn't actually even have an 8 track player any more either, so we'd need something that includes that, or a place where we could get one cheap.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Well, USB 8 track players are conspicuously absent from my Google results. So you have either discovered an untapped market with real profit potential, or you're one of the only people who wants to do this sort of thing.
I think he would need to find a vintage player with line output. Then hook that to the line in jack on the computer's sound card, and record the audio using any number of programs.
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
My dad has also been ripping old recordings, including 8-tracks. He used the line jacks, like scifibum suggests.
He had one tape that was waterlogged from a basement flood and eh was afraid to work with that one himself. He found a service in (I think) Des Plaines that he felt did a good job at copying the contents off. I was a little disappointed because he got a group of CDs with one long MP3 track on each disc, but because of the water damage, we ended up buying new digital copies of those songs for the project he was working on and just used the 8-track reproduction as a guide for what purchases needed to be made. I can get the name and phone number of that service for you, if you think he'd be interested.
Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
I rip vinyl albums using line outputs from my stereo system. It works fine.
I have a friend who collects 8 tracks simply because they are cheap and music from the 70's and early '80s is plentiful, if you know where to look. He gets them, and the players, at garage sales. Check ebay or Craiglist, too.
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
What? Line output? And degrade the awesome fidelity of eight-track cassette? Posted by Glenn Arnold (Member # 3192) on :
Not to mention the value of archiving works of such cultural importance like the Bay City Rollers.
Posted by adamdavsi (Member # 13733) on :
I like that
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
![[Wink]](wink.gif)