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blueflame

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 3, 2003
852
147
Studio City
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

macrumors 68030
May 28, 2002
2,554
3
downtown
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 and a cable... plus a little bit of patience at getting the levels just right.

Good luck.
 

zimv20

macrumors 601
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
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

macrumors 68030
May 28, 2002
2,554
3
downtown
zimv20 said:
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

macrumors regular
Oct 21, 2004
218
0
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

macrumors 68030
Jun 24, 2004
2,821
1,310
England
The sound can be recorded with Garageband if you have that already. Alternatively a low cost option is Amadeus II.
 

zimv20

macrumors 601
Jul 18, 2002
4,402
11
toronto
cr2sh said:
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
 
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