copying from cassette tape to CD using computer

Factual Questions
1

Okay,

So I’m sure that this is a trivial question (and would be undoubtedly even more trivial if I was an Applie user) so here it is:

I have a bunch of cassette tapes with songs/music from my dance teacher. It would be much easier for practice if I had them on CD. My question is what do I need to copy the music on to my Windows PC. Once I have the music on my PC in a standard audio file format, I know how to convert it/copy it to a CD.

I have an audio cable connecting a cassette tape player and my PC. What software do I need? Anything else?

Thanks in advance!
Amethyst

2

There’s a freeware software package called “Audiograbber” that can record line-in sound to MP3, and split tracks based on silence. I use it for recording radio shows and it has worked pretty well for me. I assume you’ve already managed to get the tape audio to play through your computer.

3

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=261568&highlight=tape

I asked this a while ago. I used a simple headphone out to line in on my sound card. Picked up a free mp3 recorder at download.com and away I went. However, I have approximately 11 billion hours of audio so I gave up.

4

If you’re recording from cassette tape, you don’t have to do the splitting in software. Just stop the tape and the recorder for each individual track.

All you’ll really need is something that can record from line in. MusicMatch Jukebox used to do this back in the day, because I used it for something just like this. Winamp has an input plugin for line in, but I’ve never used it.

5

if you have nero (full) it comes with a program that lets you do this and includes filters to clean up the sound some (remove tape hiss etc).
Other than that there’s a couple other free programs, such as dbpower amp at http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm that allows you to copy to computer.

Both these programs will allow you to record as either MP3 or Wave, but I have to warn you that the quality without some sort of filtering is going to be pretty crappy. Tapes put out a lot of hiss.

6

Good point! With Audiograbber, all you have to do is a quick stop-start to ensure that an adequate amount of silence gets added.

7

I figured getting the tape to play through my computer would be trivial - you know, connect the cable from the tape player’s output to the microphone input on the PC … duh what was I thinking … I HAVEN’T got it working and the Windows help seems pretty useless. I’ve been ‘playing around’ with the sounds, speech, and audio part of the control panel and I haven’t been able to make it work. Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong?

Thanks,
Amethyst

8

As usual, ComputerGeeks has your solution:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=PLUSDECK2-N&cpc=SCH&srm=0

For old school music types with bitchin’ mix tapes lying dormant, this is your solution!