Cassette Tape to MP3 Converter

T

The Pool Boy

Registered User
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I'm looking to convert my tape and LP collection to mp3 format.

Can anyone recommend a product and where to get it....shop or online.

Ta very much.
 
The free Audacity program (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) has worked very well for me, although I found the Windows version easier to use than the Linux one. I couldn't set the audio properties correctly under Linux, although that was probably due to my lack of patience when I was trying to get it done.
 
For your LP's you can buy a turntable with USB output to convert to MP3
I have seen a numark one in HMV recently for €130 ish
Seems like a good deal to me.
There is a similar product avaiable for Casette tapes - try the Firebox website I think they have them

Mik
 
Considering you can buy a cable to connect your HiFi to your PC for under next to nothing and use a Free music applications like Audacity (though I prefer CDWave). Spending €130 seens a little price to me. I did a bunch of my older hard to get cassettes using a HiMD as it was was easier than having the laptop beside the HiFi.

Bear in mind takes a lot of time, quality isn't always what you might hope for, and editing it to clean up the recordings, isn't always better. You have to consider that buying cheap used CD's from the amazon or similar is going to save a vast amount of time and you'll have perfect quality, simple and automatic tagging and album art from the web. The CD's also are your backup in case you lose the MP3's.
 
Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, most of the tapes would be hard enough to find on cd....I've tried that route already.

Maybe if the artists had made been more successful in their day that would be an option. ;)

I'll try the audacity and I've seen another program - "Accoustica -spin it again" that might offer a cheap alternative.
 
I just had to post back again.

That website mentioned by mik_da_man - firebox - what a site. Loads of absolutely useless stuff that I want !!

I might just have to buy the equalizer t-shirt - the equalizer on the t-shirt moves to whatever music it hears. If only I had that when I was in college !:D

[broken link removed]
 
aircobra19 said:
Considering you can buy a cable to connect your HiFi to your PC for under next to nothing and use a Free music applications like Audacity (though I prefer CDWave). Spending €130 seens a little price to me. I did a bunch of my older hard to get cassettes using a HiMD as it was was easier than having the laptop beside the HiFi.
Click to expand...

That's all well and good if you have a machine that still plays those tape cassette thingies!
 
The Pool Boy said:
I just had to post back again.

That website mentioned by mik_da_man - firebox - what a site. Loads of absolutely useless stuff that I want !!

I might just have to buy the equalizer t-shirt - the equalizer on the t-shirt moves to whatever music it hears. If only I had that when I was in college !:D

[broken link removed]
Click to expand...

If you like that you'll also like this one:
http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/
Loads of stuff you dont need but want to spend your hard earned cash on :D


Back to the OP if you have equipment that has outputs then a simple cable to the PC would work. But your sound card must support it too.
From reviews I have read the stuff on Firebox is of good quality and is very simple to use
 
Stifster said:
That's all well and good if you have a machine that still plays those tape cassette thingies!
Click to expand...

If you don't then you never listen to the tapes anyway ;).

I picketed up a quality HiFi Cassette unit for about €50. Record my faorite tapes and binned the ones that were too far gone. As most of them had degraded too far over the years to be worth recovering.
 
The Pool Boy said:
Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, most of the tapes would be hard enough to find on cd....I've tried that route already.

Maybe if the artists had made been more successful in their day that would be an option. ;)

I'll try the audacity and I've seen another program - "Accoustica -spin it again" that might offer a cheap alternative.
Click to expand...

What I liked about CDWAVE was it could split the a recording based on the gaps/silences in between, (you can fine tune this) then automatically encode these to MP3. I used a dual tape deck that could play both sides of both tapes in one go. So I was doing tapes at a time. The big issue for me was the time it took so every little step that speeds the process up was a big help. CDWAVE stops recording after a certain amount of time so you could leave it running and go out. You didn't have to nanny it.

I found MediaMonkey was great for mass tagging and correcting tags afterwards.
 
If your computer has a line in as 99% of them do. You don't need any of that stuff. Plug HiFi into computer, hit record. Thats all you need.
 
aircobra19 said:
Did you get anywhere with this?
Click to expand...

I've downloaded the software for spin it again. I'm going to buy the cables and connect my hi-fi rather than buy the unit. I hope to get motoring soon.

The good weather has stopped me spending all day putting tapes, pressing record and pause together,release, waiting til the end of side 1, fast forwarding, and then turning the tape over. The memories.;)
 
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