Transfer audio cassette to PC/iPod/CD

Lulu58

Hi

I would like to copy all my old cassettes and have them on my PC, iPod and/or CD's to listen to in the car.

There's an old thread on here from 2008 about this, but things may have changed a lot since then; aso it does not seem to tie in with the cables I have.

I'm assuming that I need to transfer the cassettes onto my PC as a first step - is that correct?

If yes, my PC is quite new and has a good sound card, along with a headphone socket. My cassette deck is 30+ years old, but still has a good sound (and has only ever needed one repair!). It has 2 x 2 cables, ie two cables with a red and white connector on each of the ends which relate to Line In/Line Out on the back of the cassette deck and amplifier (again, 30+ years old with only two repairs in it's long life and still sounds good).

So what next? How do I connect everything up to ensure I get a good, clean sound? Do I need extra hardware/software?

Any help/advice would be really appreciated.

Many thanks.

Plarkster

What inputs have you got on your soundcard? If you can plug the red and white phono cables straight into your soundcard you won't need any other hardware. I've used Audacity before to record from tape - you will need a lot of hard drive space, but you can convert the recordings to MP3 which will compress them down without losing much quality and you can then burn them to CD with iTunes and copy them to your iPod.

If you haven't got the red and white phono inputs on your soundcard, you'll need something like this to convert the cable into a 3.5 jack which you should be able to plug into your soundcard. Not sure if you'll still get stereo sound, i.e. you'll get the same out of both speakers.

That's how I converted a few of my tapes and the results were fine. There probably is specialist hardware you can buy but I doubt it would be worth the money bearing in mind the sound quality of tapes. Also make sure you do a short test recording first and make sure you're happy with the results as you'll have to record in real time.

PS: you can't use the headphone socket on the soundcard / PC as that's output and you need an input socket - probably marked Line In.

Hope that helps!

lynn2

Maybe a bit expensive, but worth a look?

• U Record Music Converter

• USB Tape Express
• a bit cheaper here
  

James123_2

I'd second the use of Audacity here. It's a long process as all is done in real-time, but the results will be worth the wait. However, as far as I can recall, you'll also need to put a pre-amp between your cassette deck and your sound card. In fact, any kind of amp will do. It's a doddle to set-up. I was using a stand-alone cassette deck and found that the signal strength wasn't good enough without the use of an amp. However, I could be wrong & it's probably a case of trial and error!

fwor

James123 - you are probably thinking of a record deck, which does require a pre-amp with a phono stage.

A cassette player's line output should connect fine to a soundcard's line input without the need for an additional amp.

FWIW, I did this with a couple of old tapes for my Dad, and the results ~were not~ worth the time and tedium involved. The resulting sound was poor, even though the tapes appeared to be in good nick and a good quality deck was used.

For old, well known material I found it much simpler to use ~other sources~ which we can't discuss here...

Lulu58

Thanks to Plarkster, lynn2, James123 and fwor for their responses, links etc - it's really appreciated.

Plarkstar - I have several connectors on the back of my PC including one which says it's a Line-inconnector - is that the one I should use? There is only one hole for this.

lynn2 - thanks for the links. I'll have a look at those.

James123 - I do have an amplifier, but I thought you could just link the cassette somehow. I'll check it first.

fwor - A lot of the material I have is my own compilations of 45's I made years ago. I still have the singles, but no record deck (

Has anyone else used Audacity with a cassette deck plugged into the PC? Love to know what results you had.

lucylucky

You will need one of these

googler

What's your priority? To get the tapes onto CD, or into mp3 form?

I can recommend a non-software solution for making CDs easily, but it ain't cheap...... no PC involved

£$&*"($£&(

As long as you use the line in, using the lead shown above, and as long as your soundcard is OK it should come out OK. Most soundcards on PCs are built into the motherboard and do not provide great quality for recording, though it depends on which one it is. What soundcard do you have?

googler

Further to my post, if your first stage is to transfer your cassettes to mp3, you'll never get a CD out of them - you can make a CD from the mp3s, but it won't be of 'CD quality'.

Your first task if you want to make CDs or mp3s of them should be to digitise them in at least CD quality - 44.1kHz, 16-bit. You can, with suitable soundcard or other gear, sample them up to 96kHz 24-bit, but whether you want to do this will depend on how good your cassettes are.

If you want to make mp3s, then make them from the CDs you've just created.

And, as someone pointed out earlier, if your cassettes are (for instance) the Tangerine Dream back catalogue - and it takes you an hour to play back the cassette, another half hour to make index points, start/end fades, etc, then burn it to CD..... what has this cost you in terms of time, and how do you value your time?

If you can just BUY the same CD as an official release, shrink-wrapped, factory-fresh, for £3.00, what would you do?

lucylucky

As the OP says "A lot of the material I have is my own compilations of 45's I made years ago." so that rules out nipping out to buy a new copy of same.

However I do agree is it worth the effort?

We have a drawer full of cassettes which my OH will not let me throw out. They will never be listened to or transferred so are just a waste of space.