Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment

Subject: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 09:33 PM

I am trying to determine if it is possible for me to save onto my computer, the contents of some casette tapes using the equipment and software I already have (where I can find it... there's probably other stuff I can't get to just now).

This is what I have:

- A Sony Walkman tape player that has an earphone jack, but no line out or microphone jack.

- A portable Sony tape recorder/player that does not have any kind of earphone or microphone jack. It does have an internal microphone.

- A Sony Walkman minidisk recorder/player, which has an earphone jack, a microphone jack, a line in jack, a microphone, and a couple of jacks that look like they might be for connecting to a computer.

- A computer.

- Some software called Sonic Stage.

If I find anything else, I'll add it here. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: robomatic
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 10:07 PM

Carol:
Rich up front I'm not familiar with mini-disc recording.
I've digitized quite a few LPs, cassettes and open reel tapes that go back 40 years or so.

There are some previous threads also labeled "Tech" which may prove helpful. I know there are some minidisc fans out there who may urge you to somehow employ this.

To my mnd the simplest way to go about it is to feed an analog signal directly into your computer, utilizing software which knows how to 'save' the digitized music onto your hard drive:

You need for the computer:
1)a 'line-in' receptacle, which either comes on a soundcard or on the more recent motherboards. The line in receptacle expects to see stereo or mono analog sound and passes the signal to a converter so the computer will see this as digital.
2)A program which will process the digitized sound. I use "cooledit" which is no longer available, but is a wonderful program. There are programs which are free downloads which can do this. In general the sound is 'saved' as a wave file (.wav) The program will ask you how you want to sample the music and generally give you a choice involving sample rates and stereo/mono. If you have a CD burner in your computer, the software that came with it might have a sound editor in it. Typically the Nero software provides a nice one.

Of course, what you're sampling dictates how much computer power and memory you require to preserve it. For a start make sure your cassette player is plugged into an outlet or has fresh batteries. You want the sound going in to be as good as possible.

You will need some kind of patch cord. For a hesdphone to line in you requrie a mini-jack at either end. They are inexpensive and available at many big box stores in the audio department. If you intend to use stereo, make sure it's a stereo mini-jack at either end of the patch cord.

At the high end, if you are sampling stereo music, you will select 'stereo' and a sample rate of 44100. If you are sampling monophonic spoken word, select 'mono' and a sample rate of 22050.

High quality music takes up about 10 megabytes of storage per minute of music. If your original tapes are not super high quality, you won't lose anything by sampling at a lower rate, thus you can get more music into memory.

The big advantage to this is that you can play around with the computer and use your ears to judge whether you're getting what you want.

Hope this helps.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Gypsy
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 11:20 PM

Yer all good. Go from the out put of the little noise maker (translate: earphone OUT) to an input on yer soundcard. Dive into yer program, and you are set. Now: you DO have capacious memory, yes? You would be surprised at how much room a tape can take up.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:02 PM

Carol, we've done a lot of tape transfer from a regular tape deck. You do have to go to Radio Shack or somewhere and get a cable that feeds from line out to your sound card input.

I'm confused as to how you can go from your Walkman though. Robo, are you saying she can patch from the earphone jack right to the sound card? If you can, that's great, although I'm curious whether the Walkman can deliver high enough quality sound. Would it be better to borrow an old tape deck from a friend?

I've been using RipEditBurn to do the transferring and 'clean-up' but am really unhappy with their support and not too excited about their noise filtering. Any other good software people can recommend?

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:37 PM

Thanks everybody!

I have a cord that we use to hook our speakers up to our computer. Is that the kind of cable you guys are talking about? If so, can I use that?

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: robomatic
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:40 PM

Good is relative. Carol hasn't said anything about the quality of tape recording she needs to encode. If we adhere to her basic demands and utilize only the equipment she mentioned, good voltage to her walkman will do it. The main items necessary for adequate playback are: that the motor drive is on speed and don't wobble, and that the tape head is in good shape. A portable unit can be way better than a ratty old tape deck with a bad drive.

If you got good ears, trust 'em.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:50 PM

Mudcatter Skipjack K8 sent me a couple of tapes of his accordion playing that I have been using to help me improve my accordion playing. A while back I told a few people (including Skipjack) that I would make copies of the tapes so other people could benefit from them. I haven't been able to do this because a lot of our stuff has been in storage for the last couple of years and also, the computer we had our sound recording software on has a dead motherboard. I'm trying to figure out a way to make the copies with the equipment I have here at hand. I don't think I know anyone nearby who has the equipment to do this job.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:50 PM

To come from the "Walkman" Headphone Jack to the Line In on your PC, you most likely need a 1/8" Phone jack ... (looks like the plug on the end of a set of portable headphones, at both ends)

Unless you're lucky enough to have a sound card with RCA jacks for input...

Then you'll need a cable that goes from 1/8" to probably Right and Left RCA Jack...   common enough cable to be got just about anywhere....

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 05:52 PM

Oh ya...

"that the motor drive is on speed and don't wobble"

One thing that can help somewhat with this is if the tape player CAN be powered by an adaptor, use that instead of the batteries...

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 06:17 PM

Clinton, the jacks on the cord that we use to hook up our speakers to our computer look pretty much just like the 1/8" phone jack in the link you provided (except that it's different colors than the picture). Do you know if the speaker cord could work for this application?

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 11:05 PM

If it's the same jacks on both ends, I don't see why not... but if you're recording without the speakers plugged in, how are you going to know when each track ends?

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 11:15 PM

Yes, they are the same on both ends.

I have the speakers for this computer already hooked up. The cord I have in mind to use is from our other computer.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 12 Jul 05 - 11:20 PM

There ya go... problem solved...

Godd luck

Subject: RE: Tech: Cassette tapes and my equipment
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Jul 05 - 02:37 AM

The speaker output is a low impedance (sort of like 'resistance' but more complicated!) - the line in jack is at a medium to high impedance (the mic input is at a much higher impedence, and this can give troubles). Connecting this way you will be OK, usually - just watch the volume output from the player - if too low you will not have enough signal relative to the noise, and if set too high if will distort. Test it - Crank it up slowly till it is distorting, then back it off a little on the loudest portions of the music. This level should then be OK for the whole recording - I could get far more technical, but ... ;-)

You might need to fiddle with any bass/treble controls to get the best sound BTW too... make sure though that when monitoring it thru the PC spakers, that they are not the real cheapies - they may not have a good bass response. Good quality headphones may assist when doing the setup testing.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 12:01 AM

Very interesting (and helpful). Thanks everybody!

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 14 Jul 05 - 12:22 AM

RE: Computer in storage - several years - dead motherboard - lost sound recording software.

Carol - find a "geek friend" - explain the situation with your old computer.

My guess is... that for a $10 ni/cad battery (and a six pack with home cooked meal for the geek while he plays around) ... you can resurrect your old beast.

The information IS there - you can even swap your old hard-drive (with the software you are familiar with ) into another machine.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 12:39 AM

Interesing idea. Thanks .gargoyle.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 01:03 PM

when you get set, do a 10 second test first to see if it's working...play back that 10 seconds to see if you are happy with setting, volume...etc.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 01:09 PM

and you 'may' want to convert to a compressed format after you have a .wav file...unless your program make MP3s on-the-fly.

if you are gonna do much recording, editing and/or converting Audacity is an invaluble tool to have...free and easy to use.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: Doug
Date: 15 Jul 05 - 06:36 PM

I've transferred quite a few tapes successfully to the PC, then to cd using a little program called Polderbits.
It's the one and only piece of shareware that I've eventually paid for, as it was so useful, and above all, simple to use.
Polderbits

For converting to mp3, wav etc I use dBpowerAmp, a brilliant little free piece of software.

There are hundreds out there, though- it's worth test-driving a few to find what you're comfortable with.

Judging by some of the tape deterioration I've come across, it's well worth the time invested too.


Doug

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jul 05 - 01:46 PM

Oh, wow... thanks guys! This is very helpful.

Subject: RE: Tech: Casette tapes and my equipment
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Jul 05 - 07:13 PM

YES!

The Polderbits did the trick. I've successfully recorded one of Skipjack's tapes onto my computer (D drive, lots of room there), and I'm just now recording the other one. I'm using the Sony Walkman tape player with the Polderbits software, and it's working like a charm.

Thanks everybody!