Converting cassettes to MP3 - help!

chessfan

Hi Guys

I have come across a big of cassette tapes whilst clearing some stuff and would like to maybe convert some or all of these to MP3 format so I can listen to them on my MP3 player; I believe there are devices that can do this so would be very grateful for any suggestions about the best one(s).

Cheers

chessfan

abibee

I don't know if it's the best one, but a quick look on Ebay and I see the below...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tape-to-PC-USB-Cassette-to-MP3-Converter-Captue-Adapter-Audio-Music-Player-/261429675641?pt=UK_AudioVideoElectronics_PortableAudio_MP3PlayerCarKits&hash=item3cde6c4679

Semms decent enough, and says it includes the software for recording/converting. It's from a high-rated seller too, so can't be bad I'd imagine.

bluesnake

To be honest I would only do it if it had sentimental value, like kids talking etc.

you go get the cheap tape to pc converters for about £50, but the ones I have seen offered very poor quality.

also last time I listened to a tapes, the magnetic medium had depreciated/decayed and there was loads of noise on the tapes too.

The second best experience I had was to use a hifi, the aux output into the mic socket.

software: audacity for recording from microphone. Cd ripping software: Exact Audio Copy and Audiograbber

The best experience was ripping from cd, which turned out as good as downloading and without the effort of ripping.

Edit... my friend had similar to the Ebay one above. She paid nearly £50 and it is poor in both construction and sound quality

Stooby2

Have a look at the back of your PC - if you have a "line in" socket you can use a 3.5mm lead to connect from the tape player headphone socket to the line in. Just use windows sound recorder to record the sound.

OneADay

The time, effort and money to convert to MP3 and ending up with low grade quality is not worth it. I had tons of cassettes, other than giving away a small number to a friend (who did not want them all), majority chucked into recycle bin.

You would be best off buying cheap music downloads to replace your collection or sign up to some free streaming service.

Backbiter

Stooby2 wrote: »

Have a look at the back of your PC - if you have a "line in" socket you can use a 3.5mm lead to connect from the tape player headphone socket to the line in. Just use windows sound recorder to record the sound.

I've used the above method with decent results, although I used Audacity, which is an excellent free programme. Thinking about it, I linked the headphone socket to the laptop's microphone socket rather than the line-in.

barmonkey

I use an old sony walkman and with a bit of faffing around the results are good

DUTR

I purchased an EnVivo cassette player from Aldi, it was about £9.99 and came with the audacity software, as other have said, the quality is acceptable, but compared to regular MP3, CD or FM radio, it is inferior, liken it to listening to AM radio. But if you have a collection that you cannot obtain elsewhere , eg disco mixes etc, then it is time consuming.

emptybox

I suppose it might be worthwhile if you had a good quality tape deck that eliminated most of the hiss.

You can do some editing with Audacity, so you could use it to get rid of some high frequency hiss, but the quality is never going to be there.

I've got quite a few tapes, but I found they'd deteriorated over the course of the last forty years, so decided it wasn't really worth digitising most of them.
Might try a few once I've finished my CDs and vinyl. :eek:

DUTR

emptybox wrote: »

I suppose it might be worthwhile if you had a good quality tape deck that eliminated most of the hiss.

You can do some editing with Audacity, so you could use it to get rid of some high frequency hiss, but the quality is never going to be there.

I've got quite a few tapes, but I found they'd deteriorated over the course of the last forty years, so decided it wasn't really worth digitising most of them.
Might try a few once I've finished my CDs and vinyl. :eek:

It's not so much the hiss, but just the general frequency response and dynamic range

Moneymaker

I used a simple "ghetto blaster" with a 3.5mm headphone jack socket. I connected it with a 3.5mm jack lead to my Griffin iMic that was connected to my Mac via USB. That was selected as input source in System Preferences. Then I used "Audiocorder" software to record and save the audio.

The ghetto blaster volume control had to be adjusted so that it wasn't too low (excessive hiss) or too high (distortion). Bear in mind that the recording all has to be done in real time. Luckily, "Audiocorder" didn't need much baby sitting, so I was able to do other things while it worked.

For tapes of "baby's first words" and other irreplaceable stuff, all this palaver might be worthwhile. For ordinary music, you can often download it via a torrent. (I have no conscience about downloading something I already paid for and, as I use a Mac, I'm not going to fall foul of a Windows virus. YMMV)