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Cassette to digital - best method?


Mickeyboro

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I have done that in the past. If I remember correctly I just used my old Sony Walkman plugged into my mixer - which is connected via USB to my Mac - and then used Logic to record my old tracks in realtime just as you would an instrument.

I'm sure someone else here will be able to come up with a better option though... :)

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My son bought me one of these: honestech Audio Recorder™ 3.0 Plus with USB Cassette Player
I've not had a chance to really put it through it's paces as yet, but I've tried converting a couple of old demo cassette tapes to mp3's and it seems to do the job. One of my tapes was a tad 'wobbly' (recorded c.1982) so that's how the audio was captured. I gave it a second try and it did a slightly better job.

Details here: http://www.honestech.com/main/audioRecorder30plus.asp

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1 hour ago, Mickeyboro said:

I want to digitise some old 'demo tape' cassettes before they fall apart. I use a Mac - is there a piece of kit that's worked for you and is worth me shelling out for?

Thanks!

If you already have an audio interface for your Mac you don't need anything else. Connect the outputs of your cassette player to the line ins on your interface, and record into your DAW of choice. Cut the resulting audio file up into individual tracks. Job done.

My personal method is Aiwa F660 cassette recorder > TC Finalizer > MotU 2408 > Logic 9. Which is probably overkill for cassette demos but produces excellent results.

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1 hour ago, TheGreek said:

Glad this came up...I have "The Hobbit" read by Richard Burton on tape which I'd like digitised. If anybody can do it for me I'd be very appreciative.

If there is already a digital version available, you are far better off buying it.

From personal experience, the only analogue recordings that are worth the time and effort to do yourself are ones that cannot be obtained in legal digital  format any other way.

Edited by BigRedX
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2 hours ago, Mickeyboro said:

I want to digitise some old 'demo tape' cassettes before they fall apart. I use a Mac - is there a piece of kit that's worked for you and is worth me shelling out for?

Thanks!

 

For the cassettes themselves.  If they are old and coming out of storage, check that dampness has not taken hold.  They can suffer from condensation which will act as a solvent on the oxide coating of the tape itself.  Let them acclimatise to a warm dry room for a bit if you are in doubt.

With a lot of older tape transports you have to be careful because of the tendency of rubber drive belts and capstan pinch-wheels  to perish and harden.  This is something to keep in mind if you get a second hand player; can you replace the drive belt?  Are the heads cleaned and aligned?

That's all I can offer by way of advice but then, it might be that there are new transports out there that work well enough.

 

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I've got a Presonus USB interface.

I have a Sony cassette deck, connected that to the interface via a pair of phono-to-1/4" jack cables, but the line out signal was too hot, so I bought a little box that sits inline that lowers the output level of the cassette deck.

Works fine, but god, it's a slow process.

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4 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I've got a Presonus USB interface.

I have a Sony cassette deck, connected that to the interface via a pair of phono-to-1/4" jack cables, but the line out signal was too hot, so I bought a little box that sits inline that lowers the output level of the cassette deck.

Works fine, but god, it's a slow process.

 

That's tape for you.

I loved chopping bits of it up and splicing it with a cheap record shop slicing kit but I was a lonely kid because of it.  I occupied so much spare time compared to using the cut and paste feature that is on everything these days.  Since digital technology sorted that out I have had to get very good at twiddling my thumbs* with the abundance of free time that I was suddenly faced with.  It was that or go back to smoking as a means of marking time.

I had a Sony twin deck for copying four-track cassettes.  It had a double speed button that halved the copying time.  It worked well.  I only needed it to copy all of the (already pirated) cassettes that I had been lent prior to emigrating from Ireland to come back home.  If such a device was on hand and had a line-out, I am sure it would be possible to hack together a high speed digitising rig.

* After I got bored with thumb twiddling, I took up the bass again.

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When CD recorders came out i copied all my taped albums onto CD and have since downloaded onto Itunes.

That's a long way round but PC's weren't really that common when i did the CD recordings LOL

I still have one or two rehearsal tapes tho that i keep meaning to do so i'm curious to see what best option is these days.

Dave

Edited by dmccombe7
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I copied my cassettes to computer using Reaper, I could chop the ends to what I needed and clean them up if need be, the biggest hassle I had was finding a working tape deck, when I got my old deck out of the loft both the fast forward and rewind belts had disintegrated, cue a Bic Biro and a lot of whirling of cassettes with the occasional one flying across the room if I got over enthusiastic! 

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1 hour ago, Roger2611 said:

I copied my cassettes to computer using Reaper, I could chop the ends to what I needed and clean them up if need be, the biggest hassle I had was finding a working tape deck, when I got my old deck out of the loft both the fast forward and rewind belts had disintegrated, cue a Bic Biro and a lot of whirling of cassettes with the occasional one flying across the room if I got over enthusiastic! 

 

cassetterewinder.jpg

I think there's still one up in the loft at my parent's, along with a little bottle of alcohol and those angled swab on a stick thingies for cleaning the tape heads.

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1 hour ago, linear said:

 

cassetterewinder.jpg

I think there's still one up in the loft at my parent's, along with a little bottle of alcohol and those angled swab on a stick thingies for cleaning the tape heads.

Wow!  I got a strong whiff of IPA from that lickle bit of nostalgia.  Funny how the little things bring back memories with a blast.

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Don’t cheap it out. 

 

Play the tape tape through a decent tape deck. Not a portable Walkman. 

I ripped some of my old mixtapes via a portable and it sounded awful  - highs were cut, wobbles, flutters etc

played it through the denon tape deck- sounded a lot better by 3x  at least 

So when you rip them - do play through a high quality deck into an audio interface usb FireWire whatever 

I got a denon DRR6.5 and DRW 585 into an alesis io2 audio interface 

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