HOW audio-tapes into computer ??

[Sweden]

Hi !!
I have a lot of audio-tapes lying around. I'd like to record these into my
computer and then burn them onto CD's.
Is this possible.? What do I need to accomplish this??
I'm planning on getting a Video-card for recording films directly
from TV but also from old tapes. Is there a card that will also
record sound only from old cassett- tapes..?

Swed

 

[ukDave]

i would have thought you only need a normal sound card that has Line-In. Just connect a mini jack cable from your headphone port on your tape player to the line in, play the tape and start recording. simple.

 

[Aihyah]

hm yes its possible, just record sources from the line input. but why do you need to do this? If possible just download the mp3s of albums you already technically own. or are they noncommercial tapes?

btw ussually audio is recorded through soundcard line in even if you own a video compression board.

 

[Sweden]

Hi,
Yes, the tapes are non-commercial. I have an ocean of tapes with
recordings of lectures, that I feel are very important and so want
to save.
I have an old Sony Walkman, can I plug this into my sound card??
or do I need a cassett tape recorder and player for this.
Swed

 

[tristramshandy]

Sweden, you should be able to use the Line-in jack of your video card (just as everyone else has said). Note though that the way that you record depends a great deal on the kinds of connections you use.

The simplest would be to go from your portable walkman player to the card -- this just requires a single cord with mini-jack connections on both ends.

You can also use a stereo tape deck. In this case, you will need to go to an electronics/audio supply store and buy a connector adaptor that goes from the tape-deck's two RCA OUT (left and right) cables to a single mini-jack connection (for the sound card). This is a bit of trouble (the connector is very inexpensive), but you will get much better sound quality from a full-size tape deck and/or stereo than from a portable cassette.

There are some other very good threads on this forum describing good programs for editing and recording cassette audio on the computer. Here's one: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=548653&highlight_key=y&keyword1=vinyl

Good luck

 

[Sweden]

Hello again,
just want to thank you all for your help.
I think I just about understand how it works now.
Ta' very much...
Swede

 

[ukDave]

<< Sweden, you should be able to use the Line-in jack of your video card (just as everyone else has said). Note though that the way that you record depends a great deal on the kinds of connections you use.

Good luck >>



dont you mean sound card?

 

[boran]

I would suggest you use something else than your walkman however .. I would get a very high quality casette deck to copy tapes to PC (I use one from a friend who is DJ) and at least some form of dolby hiss reduction, you'll need to have some work removing the hissing afterwards, I suggest u use cool edit 2000 for that (I use that for my recordel MC's and LP's and it works great)

 

[ukDave]

<< I would suggest you use something else than your walkman however .. I would get a very high quality casette deck to copy tapes to PC (I use one from a friend who is DJ) and at least some form of dolby hiss reduction, you'll need to have some work removing the hissing afterwards, I suggest u use cool edit 2000 for that (I use that for my recordel MC's and LP's and it works great) >>



good point boran.

 

[SpongeBob]

I thought that Dolby B/C only work on playback if the cassette was recorded using Dolby? Maybe I am wrong.

 

[Innoka]

Dolby noise reduction works by boosting certain frequencies at the recording stage to best use the headroom of the media to obtain the best dynamic range or shall we say reduction of noise. So Dolby B cassettes will sound trebly played without dolby, Dolby C will sound more artificial. Dolby S is more dynamic in its workings. There is no gain playing with better than a good walkman cassettes recorded without these noise reduction systems.

 

[Raspewtin]

you can also try programs like DART Pro (dartpro.com) to clean up the sound, sometimes work sometimes doesn.t