Tape cassettes to CDs etc

[Richard Barrett]

You can always get one of these
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NAKAMICHI-...0AAOSwEKNZu~8~

MrGG is right. I'm sure I've said this before, but what you do is buy a high-quality cassette machine on eBay (a Revox B215 in my case) to transfer the cassettes via a proper AD converter to files on your computer, then sell said machine again for the same price you bought it for. Simple. (Although I still have the Revox because it looks nice.) In my experience there is no perceptible degradation of the sound if all your settings are chosen sensitively - no more than is caused by the audio cables when you listen to the cassette through your speakers.

The problem with not copying the cassettes is that they do disintegrate over time. Some of the cassettes I converted were already 25 years old and converting them is a much better way of preserving what's on them than just keeping them on a shelf.

[pastoralguy]

The problem with not copying the cassettes is that they do disintegrate over time. Some of the cassettes I converted were already 25 years old and converting them is a much better way of preserving what's on them than just keeping them on a shelf.

That's exactly what what I was going to write! I had a lot of cassette tapes from the 1970's of stuff that would now be regarded as archive material including long departed Radio3 announcers but, alas, the tapes had deteriorated to such an extent that they sounded terrible.

I have one tape that survives which is of my father speaking just before he had a massive stroke in 1977. I must get that transferred to cd soon.

[Alain Maréchal]

The problem with not copying the cassettes is that they do disintegrate over time. .

I appear to have escaped that problem (mostly TDK SA90 from the 1980s). Perhaps I have been fortunate (all my LPs, reel/reel and cassettes have been very carefully stored, and have survived several transmanche removals) but I will heed the warning and consider a backup archive.

[DracoM]

Thx to Dave2002 and Hornspeiler: have to say I am beginning to come the same conclusions. Is it worth it?
Most of the stuff constitutes sundry sojourns down memory lanes and byways of one sort or another, and maybe having them on cassette is part of that lure? So like a lot of the past,leave it behind in the museum of the mind, and dust off occasionally?

[vinteuil]

Thx to Dave2002 and Hornspeiler: have to say I am beginning to come the same conclusions. Is it worth it?
Most of the stuff constitutes sundry sojourns down memory lanes and byways of one sort or another, and maybe having them on cassette is part of that lure? So like a lot of the past,leave it behind in the museum of the mind, and dust off occasionally?

... and embrace entropy. That's certainly my approach. Detractors might say it is coz I is lazy....

But actually, at a certain age (unless you're thinking of handing down to posterity) I think it's all right to consider things in the light of the few and diminishing years ahead. And not in a dispiriting way, far from it...

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[Richard Barrett]

I appear to have escaped that problem (mostly TDK SA90 from the 1980s).

So far! But it really doesn't matter how well they've been stored. Every archive in the world of sound material recorded on analogue tape is busy digitising everything or has already done so or is pretty anxious about the need to do so, and these are people whose tapes have been stored in optimal conditions, albeit in some cases since the 1950s and 60s rather than 80s, and of course an archive will be looking at how best to preserve their materials over a longer timescale than a single human life...

[Alain Maréchal]

a longer timescale than a single human life...

..après nous le déluge!

[gurnemanz]

So far! But it really doesn't matter how well they've been stored. Every archive in the world of sound material recorded on analogue tape is busy digitising everything or has already done so or is pretty anxious about the need to do so ...

Does this include the BBC who must have a vast store of pre-digital material recorded from live concerts? Are they digitising "everything"?

[Dave2002]

You can rely on Dave 2002 to give you sound (ha, ha) technical advice, but do you need to go to all this trouble?

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

Cassettes take up much less shelf space than CDs or DVDs.

That may be correct - I've not checked - it depends on the packaging.

However, even 1000 cassettes should digitise down to around or (considerably) less than 1 Tbyte of storage, so could fit on a portable hard drive, or on an SSD (say a 256 Gbyte SSD for 500 or so) - which would take up even less space. A modest number of cassettes would go on a USB memory stick or an SDHC card.

So if you have a quality cassette recorder/player (Yamaha was always favoured by my colleagues at the BBC) with a good working tape counter, why not concentrate on connecting the output to a good amplifier* and speakers?

Agree with this, though could still be a good idea to digitise some material in case of damage to the cassettes.

From my experience, any copy from the original tape loses something.

Seconded - usually anyway. Also, it's sometimes best to play the tapes on the same recorder used to make the recording.

I still listen to my set of cassettes of "The Art of Dennis Brain" for instance. It gives me a memory of the time (and of Dennis himself) when I first heard it.

Think of the amount of time and shelf space you will save by not copying those cassettes - they are a part of your past life and will bring back many other memories.

HS

The time saving and faff saving of not digitising cassettes which are still playable can be considerable. OTOH we have cassettes which we liked which we didn't copy or digitise, and some got mangled which was a shame. They weren't music, but spoken word material which we rather enjoyed. They are probably replaceable, but ...

Sadly some of us do record concerts and other material, and then later in life the recordings all (cassettes, reel to reel, and also LPs) go to land fill or to house clearance sales (and then perhaps to land fill...) - which I think is what happened to some of my father's carefully recorded and catalogued tapes - some of which were very good recordings. Around that time one of the London orchestras (LPO?) was actually making pleas in its programmes for any earlier recordings made from radio - maybe even elsewhere - no questions asked - as they didn't have the archive material themselves.

[Richard Barrett]

..après nous le déluge!

J'espère que non.

I can't speak for the BBC, but digitising the tape archive of the Institute of Sonology, consisting principally of electronic music compositions produced there since the early 1960s, is proceeding apace, and not before time, since a lot of the material is unique (as indeed is much of the BBC's sound archive!).

[pastoralguy]

One day, although not in my lifetime I suspect, the BBC's entire sound archive will be available online.

[cloughie]

One day, although not in my lifetime I suspect, the BBC's entire sound archive will be available online.

Yes but how big is the archive - I think a lot of tapes were wiped or reused.

[pastoralguy]

Yes but how big is the archive - I think a lot of tapes were wiped or reused.

Probably colossal even with wiping and 'recycling'.