[Tutorial] Cassette to CD

[avichandana20000]

This tutorial is regarding HOW TO RECORD CASSETTES TO YOUR COMPUTER AND THEN BURN IT IN YOUR CD/DVD

All most all of us have old cassettes in our home catching piles of dust and gradually dying out. So before they rest in peace revive them .

There are two sections for this operation
1)HARDWARE
2)SOFTWARE

First we will setup the hardware.



My Tape recorder



Side Ports




So accordingly i have bought the cable.
from a local electronics shop get this cable(just say audio cable with two jacks. Mine is a local made 45/-)




Normally this comes with one Stereo jack with two RC cables. But we need two 3.5mm jacks instead of two RCs. So i requested the shopkeeper to cut those and join two 3.5 jacks.

CUT THE RC CABLES



JOINED TWO 3.5mm jacks



If you get a cable with both the sides as 3.5mm then these steps are not required.

Plugged in



Now at the back of your PC you will find the audio panel.

The BLUE one is the LINE-IN jack.



Put the other end 3.5mm jack in this BLUE port.

This ends the HARDWARE SET UP.

Summary: 1)one tape recorder 2)Audio cable 3) PC

Next is the software part.

First thing first. Locate speaker Icon in your system tray



Right click on it and select Recording devices

This window will pop up



Click on Line-In and click on Set Default if it is already not set. Click on OK.

Now you will need a software called AUDACITY. Download it from HERE

After installing go to Edit then Preference. Click on it



In the Next Screen make the settings like this.


Now put the cassette in your Cassette Player and press PLAY button. Immediately press the RECORD BUTTON in AUDACITY.



You will see recording has started.

When it ends press the STOP button from AUDACITY. Playback in AUDACITY for testing.

If your cassette makes noisy sound then record that sound first.
Under EFFECT MENU go to NOISE REMOVAL.Just record few seconds of that sound and it will be updated as Noise Profile. Then set the other parameters in that window.

Under File Menu go to Export and choose your favourite extension. You can select each song from the recording to save it as a seperate file. For that click on Export Selection under File menu.

After you extracted as per your choice Burn them on a a CD/DVD.

Thank You.

[d3p]

Nice Tutorial..

[Sarath]

Nice tutorial. Just rename the title thread with [Tutorial] added to it. I though this was a query. Good effort.

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Added [Tutorial] prefix. Nice tutorial

[GhorMaanas]

Nice avi ji ! repped....i had purchased a kit for recording cassette songs to mp3 format from ebay sometime back. had the usual stuff + some software. i used it once and then god only knows where i kept it. the result was not very enthusiastic though. may be i didnt try it whole-heartedly. but this one i will do. thanks again !

[RazorbladeXtreme]

Nice tutorial. My dad would be more than happy to turn his cassette collection digital.

[Skud]

nice tutorial.

[abhidev]

damn nice tut buddy...will give it a try

[d6bmg]

Nice tutorial..

Actually the very first time I applied this method was in the year of 2007. Still, old is gold.

[socrates]

Good one Thanks

[avichandana20000]

thanks to everybody.

Has any one tried the method?. i want to know if there is any flaw in the method.

[noob]

Nice post. Raped you.

[Extreme Gamer]

A very crude method to copy your tape records (not condemning it at all) which I had used last year to record some cassettes into MP3 CDs.

I would suggest using SPDIF (preferably optical) to transfer data because it creates much less noise versus the traditional 3.5mm approach. But then you are looking for old Hi-Fi systems (maybe even new ones) that support SPDIF
You dont even need a tape recorder. Any device that supports cassettes playback over a pair of headphones will do.

Just plug one 3.5mm connector into the headphones/line-in port of the playback device and the other 3.5mm connector into the line-in/microphones port (prefer line-in port over microphone port if your board has both) of your motherboard/soundcard (here a professional one actually helps).

In case of SPDIF use the out-port of the device and in-port of the mobo/sound card.

IIRC, Cassettes are mono-audio right?

But a good basic guide

[avichandana20000]

thanks for the info.

So basically there are 2 processes evolving out:

1)those who have the basic tape recorder and mobo without SPDIF go for my method.

2)Those having both in the mobo and in the device SPDIF ports go for ExtremeGamers process.

Second one is more digital.

My mobo is having SPDIF but never used it.

[d6bmg]

thanks to everybody.

Has any one tried the method?. i want to know if there is any flaw in the method.

Sorry for the late reply. As I've said earlier, I've used the same process stated by OP many many times. There is one flaw of it, you can't control bit rate. So, sound quality will decrease.

[KDroid]

Nice Work there!

[{vIpIn}]

thank u for this tutorial. got to do homework on this.

[gopi_vbboy]

Reminds me of those days of tape to mp3.Good tut.

[avichandana20000]

try googling it first.

[manishrpvv]

thnx very helpful

[fz8975]

my car speakers take input from RC sockets, can I use that cable(the one u bought) to connect it with my phone and play audio from my phone ??

[avichandana20000]

no , a phone(mobile) usually takes 3.5mm jack and RC cables are not made for Mobiles.

[lumaah&shaukat]

Hi
your suggestion was very helpful as we did it and were succesful.....but with a slight change in hardware part.... Instead of using 3.5 mm jack as u described we used our speaker box's 3.5mm jack.we fixed one end to the computer blue port and the other end into our small tape recorder earphone jack.......and this really worked,,,,,,actually we have a seven year old boy and we had his voice captured in that cassette (2mnths to 1 and a half year).......and we it wid ur help.......so we r vry grateful ......thank you from our heart......

[swordfish]

Nice post. Raped you.

what really

nice tut

[DeSmOnD dAvId]

I have done this a long time back. But the problem I faced was that all the recordings are in Mono and not stereo. Since Line-in does not take stereo, and there is no easy work around, all your songs thus recorded will be mono.

Better sound cards (dedicated) might have a stereo input, so that might solve this problem.