Hatrack River Forum: Cassette Tapes to digital

This is topic Cassette Tapes to digital in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :

I am an old fogie. I have a nice bit of music, and a few books on tape--cassette tape.

What I don't have is any way of actually listening to it. Cars don't come with tape players. Sound systems don't come with tape players. Old tape players have moving parts that wear out.

What I would like to do is to take my old "Who's on First" Abbott and Costello tape, and record it into the computer so I can play it on these new fanged PMS players (what dear? oh MP3 Players--whatever).

Has anyone tried this?

Do I need special software or hardware, or can I run audio into the computers sound system and the standard Windows Media player do the conversion.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Darth_Mauve:
Do I need special software or hardware

Yes.

Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :

I've never done this, but I think you want a program called Audacity, and then you just run the music into that.

Audacity is open source software and can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I use it for recording karaoke versions of my singing, converting them to MP3s and offending my sisters.

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

Actually, you don't need special hardware or software. As you note, you can run the line-out port of your player into the line-in port on your sound card, then use the free Windows Sound Recorder app to record. You'll probably want something better, though; Audacity's been mentioned already, which means I don't need to mention it again. [Smile]

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
Actually, you don't need special hardware or software.

Huh.

*stands corrected*

Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :

Well, a lot of people don't have a male:male stereo cable just lying around, so that might count as "special hardware" you'd need to visit a Radio Shack to obtain. [Wink]

Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :

I should note that the last time I checked there's an upper limit on how long a sound file some versions of Windows Sound Recorder can record. There's a way around it, though- you can record a "blank", cut and paste the silence to make it longer, and then record over the blank template.

Or you can just record to Audacity, of course, which is free.

There's also USB hardware to automate the process available over at ThinkGeek, but it is pricey.

Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :

If I could afford "pricey" I wouldn't still have cassette tapes.

Thanks. I've downloaded Audacity and will be trying this out later.

Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :

I like Audacity. I was using it over the holidays to convert some old voice recordings and the sound came out very clearly.

Simple too.

Posted by DSH (Member # 741) on :

I've done it many times using Goldwave with excellent results. It helps to have a good tape deck that will feed your sound card with the best possible audio.

I don't know if Audacity has this capability (though it should), but I use Goldwave's 'Filter' function to create a noise reduction filter (by recording a blank portion of tape) to remove the hiss from the recording.

I also record at 48000 Hz, then re-sample to 44100 after I've cleaned everything up and am ready to burn a CD.