Audio cassettes-anyone?

[tannat]

Anyone still play audio cassettes on a regular basis?

Since we traded my E30 BMW a few years back I've listened to my own tapes very rarely...

Sad as I have a LOT of great music stashed away :(

[schmenke]

I can't remember the last time I've played an audio casette. In fact, our current vehicles, both of which we've had for over 5 years now were never equipped with a casette player :s

[tannat]

I can't remember the last time I've played an audio casette. In fact, our current vehicles, both of which we've had for over 5 years now were never equipped with a casette player :s

Hee hee-my E30 was a 1987 model....

[schmenke]

That's o.k. tannat, I remember cars equipped with 8-track casettes! :D :erm:

[race aficionado]

I just purchased a tape to CD converter for under $80 US bucks.

TAPE2USB Cassette To PC

I have so many tapes that I want to save that I'm very glad I invested on this contraption. I just ordered it through Amazon and hopefully it will work as nice as it advertises.


:s mokin:

[tannat]

I just purchased a tape to CD converter for under $80 US bucks.

TAPE2USB Cassette To PC

I have so many tapes that I want to save that I'm very glad I invested on this contraption. I just ordered it through Amazon and hopefully it will work as nice as it advertises.


:s mokin:

Wait-you mean burn tapes to CD? Under $80?

I am there...

[race aficionado]

Wait-you mean burn tapes to CD? Under $80?

I am there...

Once I try it, I will let you know.

:s mokin:

[Drew]

My car has a cassette player, but I've no idea if it works, I've never used it. I listen to the radio :p :

[Mark]

I once hired a car c.2003 which was the base model and in those days base models usually still had cassette decks. Never seen one since.

[Dave B]

I haven't used cassettes in about a decade. I did consider transferring my old ones to a digital format but the original quality, even on pre-recorded ones, is so dire it's not worth the bother.

Scary to think that kids now will probably never experience cassettes, vinyl, and possibly even CDs. :eek:

[gadjo_dilo]

I have a radio with CD and cassette player but I'm sticked to TV so the device is full of dust. However on Christmas I use to listern to some cassettes of romanian Christmas carols which are the best in the world.

[schmenke]

...am going to purchase one of the turntables that records to your computer. You can then burn CDs or copy to a MP3 player or whatever. ...

I purchased one of those turntables a couple of years ago with the intent of transferring my vinyl collection to MP3 format, however the audio quality was extremely poor. To achieve a half-decent quality I had to muck around extensively with the settings on the software provided, and these varied from LP to LP. The process was so time consuming, producing mediocre results that I gave up after only a handful of albums :s

[Firstgear]

I purchased one of those turntables a couple of years ago with the intent of transferring my vinyl collection to MP3 format, however the audio quality was extremely poor. To achieve a half-decent quality I had to muck around extensively with the settings on the software provided, and these varied from LP to LP. The process was so time consuming, producing mediocre results that I gave up after only a handful of albums :s

If you still have your old stereo equipment (turntable/cassette deck/amp) I believe you can do a better job - cheaper. It'll still be time consuming though. I did all my old albums not too long ago.

The old amp will have inputs at the back for various components. The inputs intended for the cassette deck will have IN & OUT inputs. Connect your turntable (or cassette deck) to the IN. Then connect the OUT to your computer. I can't remember right now if it's the mic or headphone jack at the back of the computer that you need to connect to - but it's one of those two. To make this connection, you'll need a cable with RCA plugs on one end (at the amp) and a normal jack at the other end (computer). I had a cable like this from my old cam-corder - but they only cost a couple of bucks if you need to buy.

Then download free software "Audacity" onto your computer, and you're ready to copy your music to mp3.

What is a bit time consuming is cropping a complete side of an album into individual tracks. I'm not a computer or music whiz - but I was able to figure it out quite easily, so it's not too difficult. The one mistake I made initially was recording to mp3 in mono instead of stereo. The default setting in Audacity is one track - so just go to 'settings" and switch to 2 tracks and you're good to go.

The crappy quality you speak of Schmenke might be in the equipment you bought. I remember a stylus alone for a turntable costing about $100 years ago, so the complete unit that Race mentioned (for $80) probably isn't that great.

[Dave B]

^ All good advice with one exception - the output of a standalone hi-fi turntable will almost certainly require a pre-amp before you can plug it into a tape deck, not only to boost the signal but correct its equalisation: vinyl is RIAA equalised before recording. You may be able to correct the EQ in software, I've never used Audacity, but somewhere along the line you'll need to do it.

[Firstgear]

^ All good advice with one exception - the output of a standalone hi-fi turntable will almost certainly require a pre-amp before you can plug it into a tape deck, not only to boost the signal but correct its equalisation: vinyl is RIAA equalised before recording. You may be able to correct the EQ in software, I've never used Audacity, but somewhere along the line you'll need to do it.

Like I said, I'm no expert - so I'm not even sure I understand what you're saying there Dave :p

But I do know that Audacity has a slide bar type of control to turn the recording level up or down (I had to turn it way down). It was just like in the old days of recording albums to cassette, where you had to turn the dial up or down to get it into the correct volume range for recording.

[Dave B]

In a nutshell, if you didn't apply EQ to a vinyl recording the groove would be massive to accomodate the bass - and bring a multitude of practical problems. So a curve is applied where the bass is reduced and the treble increased, which needs correcting before playing back otherwise the music will sound awful. A pre-amp does this, either as a seperate box or more commonly built into an amplifier with a dedicated turntable input. I would imagine that any decent recording software can simulate this EQ curve.

</geek> :p

Edit: have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization if you're really bored

[schmenke]

Thanks for the advice FG and Dave. I may just give it another go!
I don't have my old LP player anymore (come to think of it, I can't remember what actually happened to it), so part of my woes my have been, like you mentioned FG, the crappy $80.00 USB player that I purchased from London Drugs :mark: :

http://www.londondrugs.com/Cultures/en-US/Product+Detail/Electronics.htm?BreadCrumbs=Electronics;Electronic s;Home%20Audio;Turntables&ProductID=3841889&ProductTab=3

[race aficionado]

Once I try it, I will let you know.

:s mokin:

I'm now playing with my new toy and it's worth it's weight in gold.

Ok, so it cost me $87 bucks plus shipping and in terms of physical quality, it shows why it was so cheap. Every time I press the control keys I think it is going to brake if I press them too hard.
After easy installation and the reading of the instructions I have managed to save many precious cassettes that I've hold on to that have precious memories like that of my late grandma reading her poems or me singing with my family 35 years ago.
It is connected to the computer via USB and the quality is as the original tape.
I haven't tested it with a cassette that has commercial music on it but of what I've heard, I'm sure it will do a great job.

Hopefully this deck will survive all the old tapes with its dissolving elements but I have been having a ball re discovering treasures that are being saved.

This is the product:
GRACE Digital Audio Tape2USB
GDI-T2USB
http://www.gracedigitalaudio.com

back to my new toy I go.
:s mokin:

[fandango]

^ All good advice with one exception - the output of a standalone hi-fi turntable will almost certainly require a pre-amp before you can plug it into a tape deck, not only to boost the signal but correct its equalisation: vinyl is RIAA equalised before recording. You may be able to correct the EQ in software, I've never used Audacity, but somewhere along the line you'll need to do it.

If you take the audio output from the amp it'll work fine. Headphone out to the input on the computer. The problem is that it's time-consuming to split up the tracks later.

I've never heard of this EQ correction you speak of. Perhaps it's true, but I doubt it. I used to work in recording, and I never heard of anyone mastering a record with this mystery EQ in mind. It sounds like a bit of an urban legend, because if it existed then it would be necessary to make various masters of a recording, with one specifically for this vinyl conversion. I don't think mixing engineers and producers would just send the master off to the pressing plant trusting the guys there to get it right.

In fact, it's more likely that EQ would be needed to correct problems when going from cassette to computer, especially if there's Dolby noise redution involved.

[race aficionado]

By the way, for my toy to work, audacity is part of the equation.
In their instruction manual, I was asked to download the "audacity" version that was compatible with my operating system and audacity works in tandem with my deck.
I do not need to equalize - It gives me what is actually there and if I want to mess with it, then i can go to other programs if needed, but so far, all has been transfered wonderfully.

:s mokin:

[Camelopard]

I copied some of my wife's cassettes to cd just by using an old walkman and feeding the output into my pc. Quality isn't hi fidelity but is good enough to listen to in the car.

[555-04Q2]

Some people still play cassette tapes :s hock:

This is the 21st century for peets sake!

[Azumanga Davo]

My daily driver still has the original tape deck. Shame I haven't any tapes at all though. :D

So AM radio instead... ;)

[edv]

I've captured and digitised plenty of vinyl and cassettes over the years.
For vinyl, you definitely need an amp or pre-amp between your turntable and your PC as DaveB points out.

Critical points:
1) a Good Turntable with a good stylus cartridge. This exercise is all about removing and filtering, so the initial capture must be as wide in fidelity as possible.
2) clean the stylus & LP before capture. Some people use a special bath...I use a wet and dry brush. Purists will tell you to get it right the first time because vinyl needs to 'rest' for several hours before being 'played' again.
3) Good software. I've been using CoolEditPro with some special plugins to reduce pops, clicks and hiss as much as possible.

It's always good to archive your raw captures, so that you can exploit better filtering software in the future or better compression techniques (ie I have been using FLAC over MP3 for several years now)

[GridGirl]

A girl at work drives a 2005 X5. She was shocked to learn it had a cassette player about a month or so ago. The informant was her 5 year old nephew. Beamer drivers. :p

[Dave B]

If you take the audio output from the amp it'll work fine. Headphone out to the input on the computer. The problem is that it's time-consuming to split up the tracks later.

I've never heard of this EQ correction you speak of. Perhaps it's true, but I doubt it. I used to work in recording, and I never heard of anyone mastering a record with this mystery EQ in mind. It sounds like a bit of an urban legend, because if it existed then it would be necessary to make various masters of a recording, with one specifically for this vinyl conversion. I don't think mixing engineers and producers would just send the master off to the pressing plant trusting the guys there to get it right.

In fact, it's more likely that EQ would be needed to correct problems when going from cassette to computer, especially if there's Dolby noise redution involved.

You need to do some more research then. Did you look at the link in my post, for example? Google "RIAA curve" and prepare to be mildly amazed :)