tape to mp3 or aiff?

[blueflame]

hello all, i have a 17 in pb, how do i take a tape cassette and turn it into a digital file? thanks guys
andreas

[cr2sh]

Well... if you really want to do that... let's see... you have cassette player with a headphone jack... and a 17" powerbook with a line-in.

All you really need is a program to record the file (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and a cable (http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=42-2497)... plus a little bit of patience at getting the levels just right.

Good luck.

[zimv20]

i did this very thing last night.

took the RCA outs from the tapedeck into my patchbay, which goes via d-sub connector into my apogee rosetta 800 converters, which connect via ADAT lightpipe into my digi002r, which is connected via firewire to my g5. using ProTools LE, i recorded at 48kHz / 24-bit to AIFF, mixed down with POWr dither to 44.1kHz / 16-bit AIFF, which i imported as-is into itunes, then converted to a 192kHz mp3.

so it's pretty much as cr2sh said. 'cept i've spent a few more bucks on gear.

you need an analog -> digital converter. your mac has one built in, but it's not very high quality. you also need recording software, like Peak. there's a bunch of others. AIFF is a lossless format, so i recommend that for the conversion. you can import that into itunes, then convert it to whatever lossy format (e.g. mp3, aac) you want.

[cr2sh]

so it's pretty much as cr2sh said. 'cept i've spent a few more bucks on gear.


I'd be interested to see how much better your mp3's sound than this guy's.. I mean seriously, it doesn't matter how much money you spend.. it'll still prolly sound like butt. :)

It's a cassette! :)

[roadapple]

I transfered some old tapes I made off the radio in 87 using the 14 day trial of:

http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/

Hooked up a walkman to a 15" pbook using a Griffin iMic USB Audio Interface, you may be able to skip this if you have a line-in on the 17". After editing the file with sound studio, save it then open in itunes to convert.

[Loge]

The sound can be recorded with Garageband if you have that already. Alternatively a low cost option is Amadeus II.

[blueflame]

sweet thanks everyone.

[zimv20]

I'd be interested to see how much better your mp3's sound than this guy's.. I mean seriously, it doesn't matter how much money you spend.. it'll still prolly sound like butt. :)

It's a cassette! :)
heh heh. good point. i will say that my rendering sounds more like my cassette than his rendering will of his.

to clarify, i didn't buy all this gear to dump cassettes, i bought it to record new music. the song from the other night was the first song i've dumped in this manner, a song my band recorded (in our basement studio) about 11 years ago.

if anyone wants to hear it, get it here: Last of the Chafikans (http://www.boxsetauthentic.com/Music/ShovelChoir/TheShipmentIsLate/Last%20Of%20The%20Chafikans.mp3)