importing music from tapes.

[imnotquitesure]

What is the best solution for importing music from tapes to be played on an iPod?

 

[2A Batterie]

what kind of computer setup do you have? Do you have an audio interface?

 

[MemphisSoulStew]

And what are you playing your tapes on? Any tape player with a headphone socket will work, but the better quality player you have the better the quality audio file you'll end up with.

Basically you need to connect your tape player/hi-fi amp to your Mac, fire up some software, then play the tape.

If you have a decent hi-fi setup and a spare pair of audio out ports you'll need a RCA to mini cable like this one from Monster. You'll need an audio in port on your Mac, but if you haven't got one you'll also need something like the Griffin iMic, which plugs into a USB port and gives you audio-in.

If you haven't got a hi-fi you can use a tape player with a headphone socket, but I can't imagine that the quality will be as good as from a hi-fi. For this you'll need a mini-to-mini cable like this but longer. Plug one end into the headphone socket and the other end into your Mac/iMic.

As far as software goes I use Sound Studio which came bundled with my Mac. (If you get an iMic Griffin offer Final Vinyl. I've tried this but didn't have nuch success with it.) The software will allow you to play the entire tape, then split it out to individual AIFF tracks which can then be renamed and imported to iTunes. Once in iTunes you can convert them to whatever format you prefer then load them to your iPod.

 

[indifference]

if your mac has rca plus on the back of it you can get a tape converter from apple, that will plug into a tape and then into the computer, as long as your computer has RCA plugs on it, and use a computer program toast and also a program that it comes with CD Spin Doctor to put the audio into the computer.

 

[imnotquitesure]

will this work

I have an old iMac G3 500. It has a microphone jack, can I hook a tape player right up to that with a mini to mini cable and use some cheap/free audio program to record?

 

[MemphisSoulStew]

I have an old iMac G3 500. It has a microphone jack, can I hook a tape player right up to that with a mini to mini cable and use some cheap/free audio program to record?

Yes, shouldn't be a problem connecting them using a mini to mini cable.

Are you still running OS 8 or 9? Or if you're running OS X can you still boot into OS 9? I don't know of any free audio apps for OS X (Sound Studio for OS X costs $49.99) but if you're running an older OS you can use Coaster which is free. I used to boot into OS 9 and use this on my old Graphite G3 iMac before I got a newer Mac that included Sound Studio, and it does the job just fine.

 

[MemphisSoulStew]

There is a free app, with versions for both OS 9 and OS X - Audacity. There's also a free plug-in to allow you to encode MP3s from within the app, so you won't need to import to iTunes as AIFF then convert to MP3. You'll need to download the LAME MP3 encoder from the same link as above.

 

[imnotquitesure]

I got a free app called Audio In. it works fine. except I have to break the tracks up, is there a good app for that too?

 

[jeffy.dee-lux]

I just got Audacity and its working fine for multi track recording so far on my 500mhz iMac.

 

[devman]

FWIW I used Garageband to do this.

 

[Hoef]

Any tips out there how to digitally clean up the recordings from tape? ... the muted dolby sound, noise etc... There must be some presets..

 

[Somewhere Tom]

Quitter

Final Vinyl never lasts more than a few commands on my brand new mac mini before it "unexpectedly quits." I have no idea why. Have never seen a program that tempermental. What a waste. So I quit Final Vinyl, see ya FV.

I have a stack of cassettes I want to get to MP3, and I have an iMic, and Sound Studio did not come bundled with the mac mini.

I am going to give Garage Band a try per an earlier suggestion on this forum.

The simplest stuff is never simple, is it....?


tom

 

[840quadra]

Any tips out there how to digitally clean up the recordings from tape? ... the muted dolby sound, noise etc... There must be some presets..

I am going through the same process..

Here is a link to the Thread I was working from, and got some good advice on how to clean up audio.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/122168/

 

[Hoef]

I am going through the same process..

Here is a link to the Thread I was working from, and got some good advice on how to clean up audio.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/122168/

Thanks!