I’ve got a couple of boxes of old cassette tapes that I would like to try to convert to mp3. I see that Amazon has Walkman-like cassette players that will either record directly to a thumb drive or that you can connect to a computer. Anybody have any experience doing something like this, and have any recommendations for a converter?
I use a Canopus analog to digital converter and record them with Sound Studio.
I’ve gotten good results with one of those cassette-to-MP3 units. Tips: Retension (fast-forward and rewind) tape first and clean the heads and rollers every so often.
MOTU M2 is not bad. Thing is, you will need a (good) cassette deck as well; not sure if it would be worth acquiring one solely for this purpose if you do not have it already. For convertion to MP3 I use Lame with a preset (“standard” should probably be OK in this case; test it if you are not sure).
I did this about 18 years ago with a standalone unit you plugged into your cassette player and into your laptop. It came with software that cleaned up the sound, and it did a great job. I had some tapes I recorded onto reel to reel tapes and then onto cassettes, and the sound quality was better than the cassette. I assume it is better now.
The only negative was getting the tracks right. But I assume that this is better now also.
You recorded tapes onto tapes onto cassette tapes?? Not sure I understand your meaning. Plus the reel-to-reel deck should have Line Out so there is no need to introduce a cassette. Or do you mean the reel-to-reel tape (set to 71/2 ips or whatever) sounded better than the same material on cassette, which is not surprising)? Regardless, I was actually thinking how you might go about cleaning up the sound (I guess you are talking about noise reduction, hum, flutter, etc.) but if some software can “automagically” take care of it, that sounds great. There are plugins like Tape Restore Live.
Just as an FYI… When I did this with my vinyl, I had a USB turntable that I plugged into a laptop, then used Audacity to record an entire album side then split the individual tracks up and save as mp3s. So I’d be comfortable doing something like that if I could use a cassette player as input to Audacity. But I’m also open to other suggestions.
@DPRK I do have an old NAD cassette deck that I’ve had sitting idle for years, but last time I tried to use it it was dead. Unfortunately there aren’t any shops around anymore that will repair stereo equipment, so I’m not sure how to get it back up and running.
Audacity is perfectly cromulent for recording, as far as I have used it. Tape Restore Live was specifically a Winamp plugin, but maybe he upgraded it, or more likely there are simply newer/better plugins that do the same thing.
Good question… hypothetically speaking since there is no diagnosis yet, you might need to be comfortable enough with electronics to do things like replace a capacitor; if not I would take it to the shop… I have one tape deck that I was lucky enough to find complete schematics + mechanical diagrams for online; I see there are some NAD ones but you have to look.
Or get a tapehead/studio engineer/music library buddy to help with equipment, that’s one possibility?
I’ve been doing it since 1995 or thereabouts. Or, rather, converting tapes to AIFF (we didn’t know about .mp3 back then) to burn CDs. I used SoundEdit 16 back then, nowadays I use Sound Studio.
Lots of decent entry-level software available for all the platforms, including the Audacity that DPRK mentions.
For the hardware, your device (computer or otherwise) needs a method of acquiring a sound-in signal, all mine have had a dedicated microphone jack receptacle (stereo miniplug) until the most recent contraption that only has those damn all-purpose Thunderbolt 3 thingies. Adapters exist for all forms of USB if you don’t have a microphone minijack. Your existing cassette player (assuming you have one) is pretty much guaranteed to have a headphone jack. You get a cable that goes from that to your computer(/etc)'s microphone port (or the one on the adapter you’re using if it doesn’t have a native one), designate that as your input sound source (depending on the software you’re using, you either do this at the System Preferences/ Settings level or within the sound software package itself). Click the button to start recording in your software, after adjusting the quality settings, hit the play button on the cassette player, and watch the cute little sound-signal display as it wiggles by. When done with cassette Side 1, stop the software recording, save in uncompressed format (I like AIFF, nothing wrong with WAV) as “Side One_albumname” flip cassette and repeat. When done with both sides, open each uncompressed file and slice it into individual tracks (you can usually tell visually; if not, rely on a combo of playback and the track duration info on the track listing, which you can Google if the cassette and/or cassette case don’t provide it), save as MP3 of the desired bitrate.
I did the same thing about 15 years ago with a USB turntable and Audacity. I digitized about 325 albums over the course of a couple of years. Then I had a number of cassettes with which I did the same thing. I used a cassette player and used an audio cable to plug into the earphone jack on the player and into my sound card on the computer. As I recall, Audacity recognized the input without much human intervention and it worked just fine.
I have to disagree re any use of fast forward or rewind to “retension” tapes. Tapes (whether cassettes, VHS, or Beta) should always be stored after being played. Playing a tape produces the smoothest and most consistent wind for storage. This also helps reduce blow-outs.
If someone has a cassette tape that is partially played or has been rewound, I’d suggest inserting it and playing it through on whichever side is opposite to the one you want to record. In fact, I suggest playing it through on both sides prior to recording. Then, store it in the played condition.
Rewinding VHS tapes prior to return was always a bad idea for video stores. Also, films (especially 16mm) should be stored “tails out.” In the 60s and 70s, we would get a lot of flak from place we rented films (including MOMA) if we returned the films and they weren’t “tails out.”
My only quarrel with recording analog to digital is that you have to do it in real time. Says the guy who uploaded about a hundred LPs. What a colossal PITA.
So it turns out my tape deck is only mostly dead. I pulled it out of the closet, plugged it in, turned it on, picked a cassette that I didn’t care if it got destroyed, and tried winding it from one end to the other. It really seemed to be struggling but it finally made it. Then when I hit rewind to wind it back the other way, it ran for about ten seconds then just stopped, and wouldn’t do anything else. When I turn it off and turn it back on it makes a brief “RRRRrrrr…” sound but that’s it.
The good news is I found a repair shop in the Kansas City area (about 45 minutes away). The bad news is that they’re not open on weekends. I’m going to try emailing them on Monday and see what it would cost to have them look at it.
I have no idea what I just read. 
A newly serviced Tape deck will give you the best possible transfers to digital.
The shop should clean the rollers, and clean / demagnetize the head.
They may replace the rollers if the parts are available. The rubber hardens with age and the tape deck can eat tapes.
I bought a CD recorder at Best Buy to transfer records to cd. It worked great. Very simple to use. I plugged it into my parents record players RCA Output jacks and put a blank cd in the device.
I remember sitting there for almost 20 mins to lift the needle and turn over the record to side b.
Slow process. I’d transfer two or three records a night.
I left that device at my parents. It probably got thrown away when their house was emptied and sold.
They had a big Console stereo with record player, 8 track and radio. It was a nice piece of furniture.
I have to ask how many tapes we’re talking about here; once you factor in the cost of your own time doing this exercise, as well as whatever hardware you have to purchase to do it, it may well be worth just re-buying the music, especially considering it’ll sound much better.
Now if it’s stuff you can’t buy digitally, then I’d say to have at it; one thing to keep in mind is that cassette tape has a certain hiss that’s introduced as part of the recording process (bias) and it’s worth checking to see if the software you use to convert it to digital can remove that.
I converted my old mixtapes (with the headphone to computer+audacity method) because they had (sort of) sentimental value.
When I did this high quality cassette decks didn’t exist, and reel to reel was very common. This was 1969 - 1973, when I was in college and recorded all my friends albums. When I moved them to cassette I did it directly using line out I think (this was 1979 or so.) This was when consumer technology had moved on from reel to reel. This was also when cars had cassette players.
All the stuff that was available on CD I eventually got, but there was some stuff recorded from the radio and the bootlegs that are unavailable anywhere else.
Some of the stuff on the Dylan bootlegs has just become available. And my favorite, which is “Crawl Out Your Window” with Mike Bloomfield (not the version with the Band on one of the official releases) might be in the big all tracks from the Highway 61 sessions set, but isn’t on the more reasonably priced selection I have. $100 for one song seems a bit much. If I ever see it cheap, thought.
WBCN in Boston used to have rare tape nights where they played all the stuff not available on LPs. One of the record stores in Boston had sales on reel to reel tape associated with it. Some of the stuff is available now, some I have, but lots isn’t. Sound quality is great.
Now I am wondering, analogous to the technique where a valuable record or wax cylinder is 3-d scanned and the audio digitally reconstructed, whether there is a “better” way to read all the tracks off a magnetic tape and clean up the sound than to run it past the playback head normally.