Analog to digital on PC

[rickw08090]

Yet another in a series of annoying questions from the new guy: I have a collection of audio cassette tapes (yeah, I'm ]that old) that I want to record into some format (MP3, I guess)that I can put on CDs. Can anyone give me any guidance?
-
Rick

 

[TimOBrien]

Line-out (or earphone out) of cassette deck to line-in (NOT mic-in) of soundcard.

RadioShack can set you up with adapter cables.

The free program Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) is enough to record, edit and save the music to mp3.

Here are guides that says the same thing in a lot more words:

http://lifehacker.com/software/mp3/alpha-geek-how-to-digitize-cassette-tapes-222394.php

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071002110754AAsB42k

http://www.help2go.com/Tutorials/MP3Audio/Convert_Cassette_Tapes_to_CD.html

 

[Dani Pace]

Tim beat me to it, I've recorded a lot of cassettes to CD using the method he suggests and it works quite well. Just be sure to set "record stereo tracks" in the preferences, otherwise you will get mono recordings.

 

[gtrmaker1]

Tim beat me to it, I've recorded a lot of cassettes to CD using the method he suggests and it works quite well. Just be sure to set "record stereo tracks" in the preferences, otherwise you will get mono recordings.

Also, don't make them mp3's. Just record from the cassette to the computer as .wav files, and make your CD from the 16 bit/44.1KHz sample rate .wav files.

MP3 is a file compression format that permanently degrades the quality of audio. Unless you need to fit more than 74 minutes of audio on each CD, you have no need to convert the audio to mp3 format to burn to CD. If you do want more than 74 minutes of audio per CD, and you will be playing that CD on a player that can read a DATA CD with mp3's on it, then go ahead and make mp3's, but have the bit rate be at least 192kbps. 192kbps is the lowest bit rate you can use where the audio still retains something close to "CD Quality".