Cassette Tape Question

LeHah

LeHah

212 Squadron - "The Old Man's Eyes And Ears"
After about five years of looking, I finally found an old cassette tape in my house that has something I'd like to send in for the CIC party this year.

Anyone have any suggestions to recording it to MP3? Should I just get an old cassette player and record it on my IPhone?
 
I guess that depends on what quality you think is acceptable. The better results would be from getting a tape player with proper RCA jack outputs and plugging it into the Line-in on your PC (or mic jack I guess if you don't have a line-in). If you don't think that the quality will matter the iPhone option will do in a pinch.

Alternately you could try something like this which simplifies the process and is relatively cheap. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/agptek-...1308373308.p?id=mp1308373308&skuId=1308373308

It just plugs into a USB slot and includes capture software so the process should be somewhat automated.
 
When I digitize audio cassettes, I usually put the cassette into a player, connect the player to a PC using a cable with green line-in plugs on both ends and record the cassette using any audio program (like Audacity).
 
FekLeyrTarg said:
When I digitize audio cassettes, I usually put the cassette into a player, connect the player to a PC using a cable with green line-in plugs on both ends and record the cassette using any audio program (like Audacity).
Click to expand...

That's what I'd do, just get hold of any cassette player with headphone socket (a walkman would be ideal and cheap on ebay) and go with a a dual line-in setup straight into your PC's microphone socket.
 
Is Audacity the best recorder to use? I haven't done anything like this in a decade and I'm pretty sure Windows doesnt have Sound Recorder anymore!
 
I'm running win7 and sound recorder is still under accessories... Audacity is good though.
 
You'll have to get a particular plug in for Audacity if you want it to process mp3 files (either importing them or exporting them). I think it's called Lame, IIRC. I'd recommend it; it's good for so many other things. Still haven't quite figured out how to do a proper WC3-esque Kilrathi voice with it, but I'm getting closer with each passing day.
 
Good God, people still use LAME? I use to have that when I was using Exact Audio Copy back in 2003.

I may just save it as a WAV file via sound recorder and then compress it with ITunes 192 kps. Fidelity and sound quality aren't an issue in this case.
 
Yeah, people still use it...it still works. It's been updated a few times since '03; I doubt folks are still using the '03 version (then again, I occasionally still use a 3D modeller I was using back in '97 - and for that matter, I'm pretty sure more than a few people around here have played WC1 in the last year...absolutely nothing wrong with old software, IMHO).
 
If I had to use MP3, which I don't for my personal collection, I would still use LAME from the command line. But given the noisy nature of the source I found the smaller Ogg Vorbis recording sufficient. In fact, it didn't sound too bad and it was a nice 'blast from the past'. The hosts kept talking over the top of one another, though.
 
If it was a recording of music, I would've taken much greater care in how I got it from the source - but human voices don't need any great amount of fidelity, so long as its around the audible levels of a landline connection.
 
Well, I don't own a cassette player anymore. But you can also look up companies that offer digitizing for you. I think they have professional equipment. One cassette did cost me €9 and the quality was good.
 
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