Cassette to MP3 conversion USB devices.

[gurnemanz]

I've done some conversion from audio cassette and it worked very. I have an excellent collection of 34 Dylan cover tracks with many highlights. I had acquired it for some reason on double cassette not CD. Because it was not available any more on CD, I just digitized it onto my Pioneer CD recorder, transferred it as a wav file to the PC, inserted track markers using Magix Audiolab and then burned the tracks to CD. I've just listened to some tracks. It sounds pretty good.

[John Wright]

Sainty, a few years ago I got a very nice Wharfedale cassette player from local 'CashConverters' shop, think it cost me just 20 quid, which I connect to amp and then to PC, and record via Audacity (I also have a noise-reduction software (Algorithmix) for 78s, which has a tape-hiss removal facility but the cassettes I have are OK anyway).

Bryn, the Wharfedale has a horizontal tray-load system which doesn't give me access to try your shimmy device

[Dave2002]

Sainty, a few years ago I got a very nice Wharfedale cassette player from local 'CashConverters' shop, think it cost me just 20 quid, which I connect to amp and then to PC, and record via Audacity (I also have a noise-reduction software (Algorithmix) for 78s, which has a tape-hiss removal facility but the cassettes I have are OK anyway).

For serious conversion one may want to have "very nice" as a minimum, so I'd recommend a second hand high quality deck. However, as I've mentioned before, sometimes tapes recorded on bog standard kit do not come up well when played back via high quality equipment. I think our OP teamsaint needs to decide how important the tapes are, and what level of quality would be acceptable. As Gordon and others have mentioned, it may even be worth keeping a good playback device for when high quality playback is required, rather than trying to digitise them.

Having said that though, I have some tapes where the quality isn't that important, but they are currently unplayable because the tape has come adrift from the spools. If I'd recorded them before that happened things would be better. I can probably get equivalents, either in charity shops, or CDs, but it is a very slight shame - e.g Paul Merton doing the "Hancock Radio Ham" etc.

[teamsaint]

Eventually I gave in and bought one of those cheap USB cassette to digital machines, (£10 from amazon).

With not too much faffing around, it copies via Audacity , exports to Mediaplayer in MP3, and burns to CD pretty easily.
Absolutely fine if quality reproduction isn't too important.

haven't mastered marking the different tracks yet though, although to be fair , I haven't tried !

[gurnemanz]

Eventually I gave in and bought one of those cheap USB cassette to digital machines, (£10 from amazon).

With not too much faffing around, it copies via Audacity , exports to Mediaplayer in MP3, and burns to CD pretty easily.
Absolutely fine if quality reproduction isn't too important.

haven't mastered marking the different tracks yet though, although to be fair , I haven't tried !

If not inserting track markers you are surely losing one of the main reasons for transferring. Might you not just as well play the original cassettes?

[Hornspieler]

If not inserting track markers you are surely losing one of the main reasons for transferring. Might you not just as well play the original cassettes?

My brother has just purchased one of these and is now raiding my shelf of Jazz Cassettes ranging from Humphrey Littleton's Best of Jazz, Alan Dell's former Monday night programmes and my vast collection of old 78's, transferred to cassette from the original recordings by me and now being fed onto his hard drive, for future writing to CDs. By ignoring Audacity and transferring onto computer using Magix Audio Cleaning Lab, he can edit, clean up clicks and scratches and insert Track Markers before writing the content to CD.

Wonderful opprtunity to keep him and his Jazz Club fans happy on Wednesday Nights.


NB Copyrite constraints all expired.

HS

[Dave2002]

HS

Is yours (your brother's) also a cheapo £10 one from Am? Do those do the digitisation in real time, or do they have high speed playback?
Of course using high speed modes may cause other problems, not good for "priceless" tapes, or for quality sound, but could help with "bog standard" tapes which aren't too critical.

[Hornspieler]

HS

Is yours (your brother's) also a cheapo £10 one from Am? Do those do the digitisation in real time, or do they have high speed playback?
Of course using high speed modes may cause other problems, not good for "priceless" tapes, or for quality sound, but could help with "bog standard" tapes which aren't too critical.

I have no idea, Dave. Most of the cassettes are in mono, of course, but the stereo recordings seem of very good quality considering the age of a) the original disks b) The time elapsed since recording and not spooled through since c) the unknown quality and condition of the original cassette recorder and d) the quality of the cassette itself, varying from Sony to Woolworths!

Still, if you dig up a genuine Roman Vase in your back garden, you don't complain if its a little the worse for wear, do you?

As far as I am aware, it is the Amazon item that he purchased.

I suppose I might get my cassettes returned some time next year!

HS

[teamsaint]

If not inserting track markers you are surely losing one of the main reasons for transferring. Might you not just as well play the original cassettes?

not necessarily .....depends on the availability of a cassette player. I am planning to figure out the track marker thing anyway !!

plus the little machine works as a player, so its a £10 double whammy !!

any tips on the track marker thing welcome though !!

[Hornspieler]

not necessarily .....depends on the availability of a cassette player. I am planning to figure out the track marker thing anyway !!

plus the little machine works as a player, so its a £10 double whammy !!

any tips on the track marker thing welcome though !!

See my message #21

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is only one of several fairly low cost sound editing systems which can do the same thing, ie. Copy the recording onto a wave file, clean it up, removing extraneous noises, insert track markers, delete unwanted items, equalise frequencies to taste for each individual item and finally Export the finished product to CD, DVD (if longer than 1'20") or as a wavefile or MP3.

It's not rocket science - even my brother can do it.

Have a go.

HS

[teamsaint]

See my message #21

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab is only one of several fairly low cost sound editing systems which can do the same thing, ie. Copy the recording onto a wave file, clean it up, removing extraneous noises, insert track markers, delete unwanted items, equalise frequencies to taste for each individual item and finally Export the finished product to CD, DVD (if longer than 1'20") or as a wavefile or MP3.

It's not rocket science - even my brother can do it.

Have a go.

HS

Thanks HS. I'll certainly have a go.

Just need to retire first.........

[mangerton]

Must agree with HS's remarks regarding Magix. I have used it a lot to clean up and transfer old LPs, and some radio and tv recordings.

I have several hundred cassettes, with a lot of good music, recorded on various hifi decks from 1976 to 2000 or so, using Dolby B and latterly Dolby C. My latest deck, now about 20 years old, no longer works.

What would you recommend I do? I'm reluctant to spend a lot on another deck, but I would like to hear my cassettes, and transfer some to CD/DVD. Are these USB players any good? Can they deal with Dolby? All views welcomed, please.

[Hornspieler]

Must agree with HS's remarks regarding Magix. I have used it a lot to clean up and transfer old LPs, and some radio and tv recordings.

I have several hundred cassettes, with a lot of good music, recorded on various hifi decks from 1976 to 2000 or so, using Dolby B and latterly Dolby C. My latest deck, now about 20 years old, no longer works.

What would you recommend I do? I'm reluctant to spend a lot on another deck, but I would like to hear my cassettes, and transfer some to CD/DVD. Are these USB players any good? Can they deal with Dolby? All views welcomed, please.

Hello. Long time no see!

Yes. Excellent value for money.
Plugged in to your computer they need no internal batteries and, using the Gramophone Input (NOT the CD or MP3 inputs) on your Magix Audio Cleaning set, they work exactly as your old LPs and 78s do.

Go for it. It only costs you two cups of Starbucks:

HS

[teamsaint]

quick update.
Audacity has a function to add tracks.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq_i18n?s=files&i=split

follow those instructions, but you need to carefully point the cursor so that the little hand icon appears....then add the marker.

[ChrisBennell]

quick update.
Audacity has a function to add tracks.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq_i18n?s=files&i=split

follow those instructions, but you need to carefully point the cursor so that the little hand icon appears....then add the marker.

Agree with this, I have been using Audacity for some years successfully for this. Audacity is free, and very reliable in my experience!

I use an old HiFi cassette deck plugged into the input ports on the PC sound card, and set Audacity to record. The sound levels need fairly careful adjustment on the Audacity screen, to avoid sound overload. Then edit the result to add track markers, and possibly remove any unwanted noise spikes. This is really easy. Then use the Export (or Export Multiple) function in Audacity to out the result to either a Wav or a Flac file(s). Each track produces a separate file. Either Wav or Flac format is "lossless" and produces better sound than MP3. Finally can use software such as Nero to copy the Wav/Flac files to an Audio CD. Or just keep the files available for PC playback.