Save/Record cassettes in MP3 and CD format

usignuolo

I have been sorting through my record collection and I have a lot of cassettes I should like to record onto CD or even MP3 format. Is there a reasonably small speedy device I can buy to do this.

My son bought me an ION USB turnable a few years back which I used to copy some LPs but it was a rather slow process and I was wondering if there was anything suitable for cassettes with a smaller footprint?

PS My elderly SONY HIFI has recently given up the ghost so whatever I buy will need to play the tapes as well as copy contents onto another medium.

ABH_3

Lots of options here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o9RiZfS1_c

Download Audacity:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

Some advice on using Audacity here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CD

Download Lame encoder:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/download.php

It looks quite complicated, but Install Audacity, then Lame Encoder. Connect your stereo\walkman as suggested in the youtube presentations ie: one end to stereo\walkman the other to the Microphone IN on your cd\dvdrom\dvdrw drive the simply on Audacity, select 'What You Hear', then the Red recording button, then press Play on your stereo\walkman once you've got a song, simply press Pause on the stereo\walkman, then click STOP on Audacity, click File\Options select whatever you like, name the files and click Save. That's it. Do that per song or per album and that's about it.

HTH

totalsolutions

Nothing is speedy in analogue audio format, 1 hr of music will take exactly 1 hr to record. How many hrs of tapes do you have? When converted to digital that's another matter just a few seconds to copy/move around.

sickparrot

I had around 300 hours of Essential Mixes on cassette, it took quite a while....

usignuolo

When my now defunct Sony HIFI was working, it had a dual tape deck. This had a high speed dubbing option you could use to copy the contents of one tape onto the other, super fast. I was kinda hoping something similar existed to copy tape to MP3s or even PC.

ZZRKarlos

The trouble with converting LP's and tapes is that its done in real time only.
With tapes its easier as all I did was run the recordings through a filter to get rid of tape hiss.
With LP's it takes longer because you have to clean up the sound even more than tape. There are clicks, pops and scratches with all have to be filtered out, unless you like these to stay in a retro kinda way.

There is no quick way as far as I know of to speed up the process. I have got loads of tapes to convert but I cant be bothered as I can't spare the time to do them all.

Taffybiker

You are likely to lose quality if you record to mp3 at high speed, but it is possible.

isofa

Anything running at more than the standard speed will result in a serious loss of quality, high speed dubbing decks (even the top end ones) made relatively poor copies, so dubbing at twice the speed to PC and then halving the speed of the playback track will result in a ropey end result.

Only way to do it properly is to play the tapes on a high quality deck, capture at a high bit rate, clean up and then convert to the highest quality MP3 you have room for.

You should be able to pick up a decent deck on eBay.

My HX Pro Dolby C deck still makes quality tapes sound almost as good as CD, and better than low quality MP3 for sure!