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Old cassette tapes to my Mac mini m1

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Walkingdead

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 16, 2024
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Can someone please tell me what device/cables I need to transfer old cassette tapes to my Mac mini? They are recordings of family members they made in the 80s. Amazon had a bunch of stuff but they all have a few crappy reviews. I don't need anything great, just want copy the entire tape that I can then put on my mom's iPad. I just want her to be able to pick one from the home screen and be able to play it. TYIA


ETA: I don't even have a tape player now.
 
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Well assuming you already have a cassette deck which works and which has RCA outputs on the back, all you really need is such as a Behringer UCA 202 or UCA222 interface ($25) and some RCA cables. You can easily record the tapes in Garageband or Audacity, both of which are free.

If you do not have a cassette deck, try to find one that works from a thift store or equivalent. A basic one should cost you next to nothing, and when you've finished, you should also be able to sell it for what you paid. Do not under any circumstance buy one of those sh*tty cassette players from Amazon / eBay / Aliexpress / wherever, that look like Walkmans and which claim to be able to transfer old tapes to either a memory-stick or to your computer via USB. They are universally dire, and even if they don't eat your tapes, they will still give you horrendous results, with high W&F and a ton of noise.

EDIT : With that said...the quality of the results is going to massively depend on the quality of the recordings you're trying to digitise. Most people just did not ever invest in a good cassette recorder and good cassettes, so the recordings people are wanting to digitise some 30-40 years later were often poor-quality to even begin with, and after all this time the tape may also be suffering from age-related defects such as mould and oxide-shedding.
 
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MajorFubar said:
Well assuming you already have a cassette deck which works and which has RCA outputs on the back, all you really need is such as a Behringer UCA 202 or UCA222 interface ($25) and some RCA cables. You can easily record the tapes in Garageband or Audacity, both of which are free.

If you do not have a cassette deck, try to find one that works from a thift store or equivalent. A basic one should cost you next to nothing, and when you've finished, you should also be able to sell it for what you paid. Do not under any circumstance buy one of those sh*tty cassette players from Amazon / eBay / Aliexpress / wherever, that look like Walkmans and which claim to be able to transfer old tapes to either a memory-stick or to your computer via USB. They are universally dire, and even if they don't eat your tapes, they will still give you horrendous results, with high W&F and a ton of noise.

EDIT : With that said...the quality of the results is going to massively depend on the quality of the recordings you're trying to digitise. Most people just did not ever invest in a good cassette recorder and good cassettes, so the recordings people are wanting to digitise some 30-40 years later were often poor-quality to even begin with, and after all this time the tape may also be suffering from age-related defects such as mould and oxide-shedding.
Click to expand...
TY. I will do this and don't expect great audio. They were recorded on one of those old black, flat, crappy mic built in players from the 70s.
 
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Yeah just be wary to use digital noise rediction in Audacity very sparingly though. By that I mean don't try to work wonders with it by trying to achieve more than a 10dB reduction. It can leave pretty bad gurgly artefacts that are worse than the original noise. There are tools out there which can achieve noise reduction better will less audible artefacts, notably Izotope RX, but of course they aren't free.
 
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However, Logic Pro was almost the only DAW where "remove silence" worked perfectly.

I would recommend any Focusrite two- or more channel sound card.

If you digitize cassettes for your friend, grandma, and enemy, then Audacity and Behringer cheapest audio IO's is also suitable.
 
Walkingdead said:
Can someone please tell me what device/cables I need to transfer old cassette tapes to my Mac mini? They are recordings of family members they made in the 80s. Amazon had a bunch of stuff but they all have a few crappy reviews. I don't need anything great, just want copy the entire tape that I can then put on my mom's iPad. I just want her to be able to pick one from the home screen and be able to play it. TYIA


ETA: I don't even have a tape player now.
Click to expand...

You need an RCA to phono cables.... something like this. -BUT- That's not all.

The tape deck needs to have line-level stereo RCA out. You can't go from a headphone jack because a headphone output is amplified and carries a different (usually lower) impedance than a line level signal... the higher voltage and lower impedance will result in distortion at best and, at worst, can permanently damage some line level hardware.

The interface receiving the signal for encoding on the Mac needs to have line level inputs corresponding to the 1/4" mono ends of the cable.

You need to find an interface that does NOT use USB bus power and instead uses properly grounded AC power. If it uses a two prong adapter or has only USB power, you're going to end up with ground loop hum because any stray current needs to be discharged at the interface before it is carried into the Mac which is not properly grounded for audio (Minis and Macbooks bleed off stray current through their metal chassis, which often results in ground loop hum getting into the audio signal itself).

10 times out of 10 when I hear about someone struggling with noise on, e.g., a Focusrite interface, it is always because it's a model that is USB bus powered.

What this ends up meaning is that you have to go up to a Focusrite 18i20 (which I have), which runs by itself about $700... not to mention the software, filters, outboard processors, etc., what have you.

Honestly, if you want the highest quality transfer, I would find a small studio that can do them for a fee... take all your tapes there and have them properly transfer them using reliable hardware and software. No matter how much you think it will cost, it'll still cost you less than buying all the proper hardware for a one-time deal.
 
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If you look into craigslist, offerup, something simillar, there might be a old sony walkmans that can be had. Also AIWA was pretty popular back in the day. I believe that was also a Sony product.
 
I imagine OP already found a solution or sidelined the project, given the thread has been dead for two months.

One of the best pieces of advice in the whole thread was given by Avatar74 on 31 December: for a small project like this, reach-out to traders who offer tape transfer as a service. Disappointment and misery lies ahead for anyone navigating the quagmire of slurry advertised as "seems to work ok" by apathetic sellers and house-clearance specialists who mostly don't know how to test or use the 25+ y/o obsolete gear that's fallen into their hands.
 
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