Converting a cassette to a CD ?

[Barbara Jay]

Greetings
I have several foreign language instructional cassette tapes that I would like to convert to CD's
These tapes are not sold as CD's and I am afraid they will wear out from use.

I found some directions that said I needed a RCA-to-stereo Y cable that would plug into the cassette player and the Mic on the computer. It would transfer the audio to the computer and then I can burn a CD
It also said I could use Garage band or a free program called Audicity to do this . Here are the directions I found

How to Convert a Cassette to CD on a Mac | eHow.com

Are these directions good or are there better directions some where else?

I have never used Garage Band.

What brand of Y cable is a good one to buy? These are foreign language tapes and I want the best sound possible
Which brand of blank CD's would you recommend to get clear audio ?

Thanks in advance
Barbara Jay

 

[chscag]

The directions are straight forward and will work well. Don't use Audacity as it's not near as easy to do the recording as Garageband and iTunes are. As for the cable you'll need, any Radio Shack store or store that sells electronics and accessories should carry that cable. As a matter of fact I have several here at home in my "junk" box.

Quality wise, it depends on the cassette. Many of my older cassettes are noisy from having been played and would not make good recordings. If your language cassettes are not noisy or otherwise damaged (blank spots, etc) they should sound almost as good as the originals. Good luck with the project.

 

[Slydude]

If you find that the tapes are noisy you might give Amadeus Pro a look. It has some denoting capabilities and I like the interface much better than Audacity.

 

[Barbara Jay]

Thank you!!!
One end of the Y cable has two plugs that go into the cassette player. My portable cassette player has 4 place to plug something in . (1) 6V/DC (2) EAR.Spkr (3) MIC (4) Rem
Where do the two Y cable ends plug in? MIC & Rem?

I believe the single end plug goes into the mic on the computer

Thanks again
Barbara Jay

 

[Slydude]

OK you have a different set of connections on your cassette deck than most directions account for that I have seen. You should still be able to do what you want using this. These should be available at any decent electronics outlet for a few bucks. They can be either mono or stereo. I personally would make sure they are stereo.

Once you have that cable one end goes into the Mic in on your computer as you suspected. The other end will plug into the ear/spkr spot on your cassette player. It may take a bit of fiddling with both the speaker volume and mic levels to get this to work. With some players that have this connection I have been forced to borrow a cassette deck that plugs into a stereo,

 

[Barbara Jay]

OK you have a different set of connections on your cassette deck than most directions account for that I have seen. You should still be able to do what you want using this. These should be available at any decent electronics outlet for a few bucks. They can be either mono or stereo. I personally would make sure they are stereo.

Once you have that cable one end goes into the Mic in on your computer as you suspected. The other end will plug into the ear/spkr spot on your cassette player. It may take a bit of fiddling with both the speaker volume and mic levels to get this to work. With some players that have this connection I have been forced to borrow a cassette deck that plugs into a stereo,

Thanks again.
I am so happy I asked this question. I looks like I need to take this recorder to Radio Shack and explain what I want to do. Then they can sell me what I need. I bookmarked the link you provided if Radio Shack personnel can't help me. The link has a contact to ask for assistance

Frequently I get in over my level of experience/knowledge when I try to do things .
Thanks
Barbara Jay

 

[Slydude]

That's not a bad idea. I am in the middle of a similar project so I can say from experience it can be daunting at times. If you have any other questions feel free to ask away.

Always remember: When in over your head keep paddling. You'll eventually break the surface.

 

[Slydude]

One thing that can be time consuming is dividing the resulting sound file into individual tracks. iTunes could play the albums as one large file but then it is difficult to move from song to song.

There is software out there that breaks the file up for you. Audio Hijack Pro and Sound Soap are two that come to mind. You can adjust the amount of silence needed before a new track us created. This feature often has difficulty with live albums, tracks with silence within the song or "noisy" tapes/lps.

 

[Lightcraftsman]

I hadn't heard of Sound Soap, so I looked it up and found the developer is out of business. Too bad, as the software had excellent reviews.

Several years ago I ripped about 500 cassettes to my iTunes library. I started with Audacity, but got frustrated with the interface and frequent crashes, so I switched to Audio Hijack Pro. I cannot hear a difference between my cassette recordings and music from CDs. However, I must admit I was using a Nakamichi cassette deck, a rebuilt Yamaha CR-1020 receiver and a 24-bit USB DAC. This might be overkill for language tapes.

 

[chscag]

I must admit I was using a Nakamichi cassette deck,

Man after my own heart. I purchased a top of line Nakamichi on one of my trips to Tokyo, Japan. Used it for many years until I finally retired it and gave it away to a relative. Still have my Yamaha receiver though which I use on occasion.

 

[Lightcraftsman]

I just gave the Nak to a friend a few hours ago, along with a Yamaha integrated amp and tuner, a Rotal CD player, and a Technics turntable I haven't used in several years. He scored some Paradigm tower speakers for $30 at a garage sale over the weekend and needed some front-end gear to drive them. He's also one of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of excellent but starving musicians in Austin, so the equipment went to a worthy cause.

I'm using my CR 1020 in my home office. Talk about overkill. 70 wpc driving a pair of 3-way Ohm bookshelf speakers for near field listening. My ears start bleeding when the power meters show the amp is peaking at less than 5 watts.

Back to the OP. Download Audio Hijack Pro and test it. The price is only $32 if you decide to keep using it. While you are on the developer's website check out Piezo. It is only $10. I haven't used but it might work for you.

 

[Slydude]

I have the version of Sound Soap SE included with Toast Titanium 11 Pro. I have not really played with it. I don't think this is as full featured as the full version of the program was but then again I have tons of software that does meow than I have managed to teach myself.

I am currently recording the cassettes using a Yamaha receiver and JVC deck The output is being fed to my Mac Pro. I normally use Amadeus Pro for the recording but need to pay for the recent update so I am using Audio Hijack Pro at the moment.

 

[chas_m]

I do this task all the time (I convert tapes of my old radio show into a podcast, and also make a CD of them as a hard copy).

My setup is an Akai tape deck to the iMic sound card to USB. I use Audio Hijack Pro ($32) to capture and clean up the sound, then I use Amadeus Pro ($40) to edit, mark tracks and burn the result to CD. If the source is in good shape, this works very well. Still looking for a better way to clean up "carrier wave" background noise for the radio recordings, but for the most part I use isolate that frequency and that works well enough.

 

[Slydude]

Sound Soap for Toast is has a function that is supposed to remove 50 and 60 Hz hum as well as some of the crackly sometimes heard on albums. I really don't see myself using it though. The interface is simple enough by the text elements are positively tiny with no apparent way to increase the size other than changing monitor resolution. Think as small or smaller than Media Store listings.