What is the best way to go from cassette to Mp3?
JustAlice
1,308 Posts
I have some irreplaceable tapes of an acoustic trio I performed years ago and one of the homies passed away last year and I need to immortalize the recordings the best way possible. I know this has been discussed many a times but I couldnt find anything in a search. Do I just daisy chain the ish through my receiver and into my confuser? Should I go through the mixer, or is it even possible? Are there any special free/share ware programs (mac) that will sound better or specifically made for cassette to digital?many thanks.
Comments
Than you should maybe do some EQing, rais the bass, lower the bass or whatever is needed for a better presence of the material.
There are certain programs / plug ins where you can try to clean the material because it will have some tapehiss.
But you should be careful, beacuse those programs can destroy the material in a way too.
After that you can master/limit it carefuly for making it louder.
And keep a WAV File copy of those datas. Now the standrat format is MP3, but MP?? is shitty and will be replaced in the future by better CD quality standarts.
Thats all you can do, nothing more nothing less !!!!
Peace
Hawkeye
however, if you have outputs on your casette deck you could just plug them into your soundcard...and if you dont have one with decent preamps you probobly know someone who would let you borrow it for a day or two.
there are also services for this. you send your tapes off, they send you wave files.
if you can, record at the highest resolution possible. 192 khz, 24 bit for example. and have backups.
- J
To send the audio into the computer, ideally you use an interface (no need to go through your mixer ... just direct from tape player to interface). I use an older version of this one and like it. [You'll need to grab RCA to 1/4" converters at Radio Shack to use this one.] It also comes with a cheap-o version of Cubase (LE), which is decent recording software. Audacity is much simpler to use for basic editing, though.
Within Audacity (or whatever software), you have to choose your interface as the input source. Go to the "Audacity" pull-down, choose preferences and you'll see Recording/Device. If your interface is connected, it should appear in the list of choices.
Then you just hit record and play the tape. Recording one song at a time is probably easiest.
Make sure levels aren't too high (they can be adjusted where you see the mic image).
When the recording is finished, select all audio (Apple-A) and choose Effect/Normalize to boost the levels.
Then just trim off the silence at the beginning and end.
When finished, go to File/Export. I usually export as WAV. If I need to convert to MP3, I do that with iTunes.
Hope that helps.
Still having a tough time figuring this out though.
I keep getting a super high buzz because I think the confuser is just using the external mic not the input.
How do I change input options in audacity?
Plus I have three tape players that all work half way, finding the right one is challenging, plus Im still not able to transfer this onto the confuser at all.
Do have to go through the reciever? Right now Im trying to go directly out the speaker output on the tape deck....not working.
AND the most important tape is missing!!!!!
I found a bunch of me rapping and singing and a whole bunch of wake up show tapes but not the one in question, which has me bummed.
I got another box of tapes to go through, but the technical issues have me stumped.
Ill keep fucking with it I suppose.
yeah, audacity is what i use. it's a free program and it's self explanatory and easy to use. i go through a mixer but i don't think you need to. you can adjust the EQ in audacity.
the only other thing you need is an extension called "LAME LIB". This allows you to export what you record on audacity and convert it to WAV or MP3 or whatever. This should also be free.
oh, go to your system preferences and open the sound icon. you should have 2 choices...built in mic, or audio line-in port. switch to audio line-in and make sure the volume is up. that should be it.
maybe I need to update my version of audacity??
Or Maybe I need to just run it through the reciever, and try that but I never had a problem going directly from the numark to the mac...so I thought it would be the same.
Either way. I gotta find the tape still..fuck I hate when i think I put something somewhere safe only to stress for days not finding it. Super frustrating. The last time I remember hearing it was at least 1 1/2 years ago.
Im the kinda of person who hides weed for a little insurance and then cant remember where I put it....anyone else do this?
then you should be able to tell if the problem is the signal coming from your tape deck or if it's audacity not recognizing anything.
but i guess finding the tape is first. good luck. and yes i do that kind of thing all the time
Do you have a desktop or a laptop? If you have a desktop, does it have a built in mic? If not, then it makes sense that there is only one audio input option. The "built in audio" would be your audio input jack (I'm assuming 1/8").
If you're getting noise, maybe that jack is shorted out a bit. Do you know anyone (locally) that has an interface that you can borrow? You'll get much better sound quality if you use one. Even the iMic would be a big improvement.
If you use an interface, when it is plugged in it should come up as a new audio input option (in either the Audacity preferences or the OS X preferences ... they should never be different, by the way). If it doesn't come up automagically, you may have to visit the company's website and download the driver for OS X.
Good luck finding the missing tapes ... maybe you'll find some lost "stashes" in your search.
This reminds me of something I learned about back in my Psychology days. Basically, if you put your keys somewhere when you are drunk, you'll have an easier time finding them if you're drunk. The brain organizes things that way ... associations of events with states of mind. So, with that "in mind", if you were stoned when you hid your tapes from yourself, you should get stoned when you're looking for them.
Of course, that doesn't help you if you're looking for your old pot to get stoned with and therefore can't get stoned to make looking for your pot easier. So only hide pot when you're not stoned or you'll never find it.
I would rather invest my money in a quality interface, even if it costs more cash
*I know that comment wasn't very helpful but I hate the iMic with a passion.
I tend to agree (I use an interface) ... but it is an improvement over the built-in 1/8" audio input. But, you're right, if you're going to spend money, you may as well buy a real interface.
what do you recommend ?
I use this and have had no problems:
It, like many interfaces, came with Cubase LE and was about $150.