Backing up Cassettes

Greenlizard0 · 1 Aug 2009 at 14:59

How would I go about doing this?

My parents need to back up a few old cassettes.

They have cassette players, one with a red and white (L&R) lineout. What would be needed on the laptop end of things, such that I can create e.g. wav or mp3 files?

What cable would I need? Will a MIC in port suffice?

toblarone45 · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:22

ah i did this a while back

Basically all I did was effectively record what you can hear - i.e from the microphone socket.

I just got a jack to jack lead, plugged one end into the cassette player one into the microphone socket and use software like Audacity to effectively capture the audio.

Hope it helps

CyberSurfer · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:28

Hi Greenlizard0

You need a Twin Phono to 3.5mm Stereo Jack Lead. I have done this before on a laptop using the mic input. For recording I use Audacity Sound Editor which can be downloaded for free.

oggmonster · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:35

toblarone45 said:
ah i did this a while back

Basically all I did was effectively record what you can hear - i.e from the microphone socket.

I just got a jack to jack lead, plugged one end into the cassette player one into the microphone socket and use software like Audacity to effectively capture the audio.

Hope it helps

What he said! Though when I did it, I used the blue input socket on my computer. Audacity is a cracking piece of software

Greenlizard0 · 1 Aug 2009 at 15:58

Just checking out Audacity now.

Would the program called "Free MP3 Recorder" work as well? I used this for using the what you hear" function pretty well.

Neither laptop we have here has a proper line in socket, we only have MIC in ones. I thought about quality, but then in the grand scheme of things I'm not sure whether it'd make that much difference since these are really old recordings (i.e. from mid-90s and earlier).

oggmonster · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:00

You can convert it to MP3 all in audacity

Greenlizard0 · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:09

Sweet - Would I need to download e.g. the lamemp3 codec and away I go?

oggmonster · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:11

Nope just download and install audacity. Thats what I did. It records them as .wav (i think) then u just convert it to mp3

toblarone45 · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:13

Nope no codec required

it's literally install change the recording source and away you go.

If I recall when you save the file it then gives you the conversion options.

oggmonster · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:14

toblarone45 said:
If I recall when you save the file it then gives
you the conversion options.

ahh yeah thats right, I remember now!

Hairybudda · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:19

If you're backing them up with no intent to listen you might want to go with a lossless codec like flac (MP3 + tape source might not sound too great although I don't have much experience with this)

Greenlizard0 · 1 Aug 2009 at 16:53

That's the thing though - the tapes are so bad, I don't think they can be made much worse lol!