Transfer Songs from cassettes to Computer

rajhank

Hi friends

I have a huge collection of audio cassettes. Is there any way to transfer it into computer and save save it in digital format.

Plz give me accurate information.

Traveller

I'm doing just that as I type this: converting my old tapes to CD.

There are probably a lot of products one could use, but I like Nero (http://www.nero.com). You asked for accurate information, so here are detailed steps:

From Radio Shack, or wherever, buy an audio cable that has two male RCA plugs at one end and a 1/8" phone plug at the other.
Attach the RCA plugs to the LINE OUT jacks of your stereo system (this works MUCH better with a real stereo system instead of a boom box, handheld, or all-in-one unit - for those you would need a different cable, and the impedances are not really properly matched to get the right recording levels)
Attach the phone plug to the LINE IN jack of your computer's sound card
Open your computer's "volume control" and make sure the LINE IN control is all the way up (you will be able to adjust the levels from within Nero) and not muted.
Run Nero SoundTrax
Tools->Wizards->Tape to CD Wizard...
For "Audio input line," select LINE IN
If you wish, click "Change Target File" and change the name and location of the wav file into which the recording will be saved.
Make sure your computer's speakers are on, and at a comfortable listening level.
Start playing the tape (you're not actually recording yet), and adjust the "Recording Volume" slide so that level meters stay in the yellowish area for most of the time, with only occasional peaks in the red.
Stop and rewind the tape.
Click the Red (circle) record button and start playing the tape again.
If you need to flip the tape over manually, click the blue (with a square in the center) stop button to stop recording.
If you wish to use a separate file for the other side of the tape, do not proceed with recording the other side yet. Otherwise, click the record button and start playing the other side of the tape.
When done recording, click the stop button.
Click "Next."
Wait a little while until the "peak file" is completed.
If the sound quality from the tape was good enough, this next step will allow you to detect where the tracks break based upon finding a certain amount of silence. If not, you may skip this step and do it yourself later.
When done with (or if skipping) the track detection, click "Next."
If you need to filter out some noise from the tape (especially if the tape, itself, was created by recording from an LP), play around with the noise reduction until you are satisfied. If not, just skip this.
Click "Next."
The next step of the Wizard is to burn a CD and/or design a cover - I usually skip this in order to do manual track splitting. Thus...
Click "Finish."
Now you will see a graphic representation of the recording. Using this (I'll let you practice with it yourself, since the full details are difficult to describe concisely in a simple forum message), you can make a number of other adjustments. The main thing I'll mention here is that, once you have found the gap between two songs, you can right-click at that spot within the beige-coloured area just above where the waveforms are displayed, then selecting, "Insert CD Track Split."
From here, I usually click on File->Export CD Tracks to Audio Files so I will have a separate file for each track (especially if there would be a bunch of space still left on the CD after just the one tape).
If you wish, you may save the "project," but I have found that once the individual tracks have been saved as separate files, the project file is no longer of much use to me, so I just exit the program without saving it.
If you have any other adjustments (and Nero can do a LOT of them), you may run Nero Wave Editor on the audio files, but that would be yet another whole tutorial!

That should be enough to get you started. With a little practice, you'll just be zipping right through those tapes of yours! Have fun!

Guyon

I use cool edit pro for all my sound work. It would be especially good for your tape transfers. The biggest features is that you can eliminate the hiss you will pick up form your tape dubs. Then save as both wave and mp3 for the future when you get a Palm or IPOD.

Traveller

Of course, Nero has all the noise, hiss, pop, and rumble filters, as well. One thing I thought was really neat about Nero (probably available in other software, but don't know), was a "time correction" feature. Once, I had tapes with three sessions from a seminar (i.e. spoken word, not music), and each session was 28 minutes. That made a total of 84 minutes, meaning it would normally have to be put onto two CDs: two sessions on the first, and one on the second. It was SO close to being able to go onto just one CD, but was already trimmed closely enough that I was not able to lop off any extraneous bits at the beginning or end of each session.

Nero to the rescue! Using the "time correction" feature, I compressed each session to 26 minutes. Nero accomplished this by speeding up the audio, but without changing pitch (i.e. it did not sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks), and the percentage of change from 28 minutes down to 26 minutes was not enough for the speaker to sound like the old Federal Express commercial. In fact, it was only perceptible if you had only just then listened to the original. Thus, the total recording time became 78 minutes, and THAT would fit onto a single CD.

Whatever software you wind up choosing - Nero for $70, Cool Edit Pro for $300, or something else - keep an eye out for such features, and you'll find that you can get incredible results.

My mom loves the music of Nat King Cole, so I surprised her by transferring the vinyl LP (that she has had since it was new) to CD using Nero. The CD was absolutely breathtaking, with wonderfully clear audio that almost made it sound as if it had been recorded direct-to-digital in the first place!

varun_dodla

There is a simple way to do this and you only need your tape to have a headphone jack. You will then require a 2-way stereo jack cord that is easily available in the market. You then need to plug in one end of the jack in your tapes headphone jack and the other end in your systems mic jack. Now you are ready.....open any audio recorder software and choose mic as recording source.Start recording and simultaneously play the cassette on your tape....and here you go to start your digital collection of all your fauvorite songs.

Traveller

lol what

If you don't want to spend a large amount of money on a program, there is a simple alternative that comes installed on every Windows PC. Go to the start menu and click run, and then type "sndrec32" without the quotes. This is short for Sound Recorder. It is a simple program that allows you to record any sounds that are inputted to your computer, and save them as .wav. You mentioned that you have a large collection to transfer, so another program might be more convenient for that. However, this is a simple method which should produce decent results.