Converting Cassette Tapes to Digital

[Velarian]

I have a few of my old band's cassettes from the early 80s which I'd like to convert to a digital format.

 

I don't actually have a cassette player but I might be able to borrow one from a friend. I'm thinking it should be possible to connect the L/R phono out sockets to my dual input audio interface and then record into two Logic Pro tracks. If this is viable solution then it raises a few questions if anyone can confirm the best way forward.

 

1. The tapes are the best part of 40 years old and haven't been played. I'm guessing there may be some oxidisation and probably print-through. Is there anything that can be done to minimise any effects of that?

2. My audio interface has two combined XLR/Instrument Jack sockets each with a Line/Instrument toggle switch. What sort of levels can I expect to get from the cassette deck phono out sockets which input options will best match that signal? Knowing the answer to this will help me to source the right cable/connectors.

3. Assuming I can get a good signal into Logic, is there any processing I can apply to enhance the recordings?

 

Alternatively, I anyone has any suggestions on a better way to achieve this they would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks

[Thump]

There are readily available converters on Amazon for around £20 at a quick glance. Can't link as I'm on my phone at work (shhh) and it's refusing to let me copy/paste here 

[Boodang]

If you don't have a cassette player, you could always pull the tape out into a bowl, add some pasta sauce and eat them.... that way you could internalise them.

[upside downer]

This is what I believe @Thump is talking about. I've had this one for a few years, it's a fine piece of kit and a doddle to use.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Super-Portable-Cassette-Converter/dp/B00YQZ521W/ref=asc_df_B00YQZ521W/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309953091299&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7899797203090088465&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007037&hvtargid=pla-564073872608&psc=1

[Velarian]

6 minutes ago, Boodang said:

If you don't have a cassette player, you could always pull the tape out into a bowl, add some pasta sauce and eat them.... that way you could internalise them.

The other option is to wrap the tapes around my head and transfer them by osmosis. 😂

[Velarian]

7 minutes ago, upside downer said:

This is what I believe @Thump is talking about. I've had this one for a few years, it's a fine piece of kit and a doddle to use.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generic-Super-Portable-Cassette-Converter/dp/B00YQZ521W/ref=asc_df_B00YQZ521W/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309953091299&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7899797203090088465&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007037&hvtargid=pla-564073872608&psc=1

Thanks, I'll take a look at that.

[BigRedX]

I'm about to do this very thing to get some ancient recordings from my 80s synth band digitised along with any of the local band demos that have IMO stood the test of time.

 

1. Use a good quality cassette player. Ideally one with dual capstans and separate motors for the capstans and tape tension. Nakamichi, and the high end Aiwa or Sony decks should be suitable. (I've got an Aiwa F660.)

 

2. Play the tapes as little as possible. Once to set the levels and then once to actually record the contents. If you can set the levels so that you are just under 0dB in your DAW for the hottest off-tape signal then you can just get on and play them all once. Be aware that the tapes may have been recorded at up to +10dB for a good quality Chrome or Metal tape so attenuate the signal at the interface appropriately.

 

3. For leads, I can't help you. I have phono to just about everything leads so I'll be experimenting to see which gives the best match. I'd probably start a phono to jack line level and take it from there.

 

4. If the tapes have been recorded with Dolby B, turn it off for playback and use EQ in the DAW to re-balance the bass and treble. However, if they have been recorded with Dolby C or S then you will need to have it activated on playback. Make sure your cassette deck has the appropriate NR.

 

5. There are all sorts of tape enhancement/restoration plug-ins available. Start by having a look at the mastering tools available in Logic. You shouldn't need any compression as the recording process should have already taken care of this for you with tape saturation. Certainly all the analogue tapes I've digitised in the past have already had plenty of tape compression on them, and apart form hard limiting some very excessive peaks I've not had to used any compression at all.

 

 

[Boodang]

 

If you can, use one of these.

[Velarian]

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'm about to do this very thing to get some ancient recordings from my 80s synth band digitised along with any of the local band demos that have IMO stood the test of time.

 

1. Use a good quality cassette player. Ideally one with dual capstans and separate motors for the capstans and tape tension. Nakamichi, and the high end Aiwa or Sony decks should be suitable. (I've got an Aiwa F660.)

 

2. Play the tapes as little as possible. Once to set the levels and then once to actually record the contents. If you can set the levels so that you are just under 0dB in your DAW for the hottest off-tape signal then you can just get on and play them all once. Be aware that the tapes may have been recorded at up to +10dB for a good quality Chrome or Metal tape so attenuate the signal at the interface appropriately.

 

3. For leads, I can't help you. I have phono to just about everything leads so I'll be experimenting to see which gives the best match. I'd probably start a phono to jack line level and take it from there.

 

4. If the tapes have been recorded with Dolby B, turn it off for playback and use EQ in the DAW to re-balance the bass and treble. However, if they have been recorded with Dolby C or S then you will need to have it activated on playback. Make sure your cassette deck has the appropriate NR.

 

5. There are all sorts of tape enhancement/restoration plug-ins available. Start by having a look at the mastering tools available in Logic. You shouldn't need any compression as the recording process should have already taken care of this for you with tape saturation. Certainly all the analogue tapes I've digitised in the past have already had plenty of tape compression on them, and apart form hard limiting some very excessive peaks I've not had to used any compression at all.

 

 

Thanks, this is really useful advice.

 

I think this is the route I'll take as I've confirmed my mate's cassette deck is a Tascam model which I think is a half-decent bit of kit and should be better than the £20 option from Amazon. I should be able to get the right cables for less than a tenner from Amazon.

 

Cheers

[Velarian]

10 minutes ago, Boodang said:

 

If you can, use one of these.

I'm sure that's more than up to the job but it looks like a seriously expensive bit of kit!

[skankdelvar]

Thread about playing old cassettes here on Tapeheads. Useful stuff about common problems / tape failures and how to fix them.

 

https://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=57112

[Boodang]

13 minutes ago, Velarian said:

I'm sure that's more than up to the job but it looks like a seriously expensive bit of kit!

Well, I did see a refurbished Dragon on ebay for 5K, which I didn't think was too bad all things considered. 

A more reasonable bet might be the BX-125 model which goes for normal money.

[JapanAxe]

I wouldn’t worry about oxidisation - most cassette tape magnetic media are oxides already.

[Velarian]

1 hour ago, skankdelvar said:

Thread about playing old cassettes here on Tapeheads. Useful stuff about common problems / tape failures and how to fix them.

 

https://www.tapeheads.net/showthread.php?t=57112

Thanks, that’s very useful information. 

[Rayman]

 

[itu]

If the cassette has been played back and forth a lot, it may be wise to put it to deck and use the FFWD once (or twice). The tape will run smooth after spooling.

[zero9]

I did a similar thing, using a crappy cassette player with phono out into my little Mackie desk. From the Mackie, I took another phono out to my Tascam digital hand held recorder (into the aux input). Worked a treat, as the Mackie allowed me to adjust levels to get a better signal to noise ratio.

[tauzero]

4 hours ago, Velarian said:

I think this is the route I'll take as I've confirmed my mate's cassette deck is a Tascam model which I think is a half-decent bit of kit and should be better than the £20 option from Amazon. I should be able to get the right cables for less than a tenner from Amazon.

 

If you have phono-to-phono leads, a brace of jack-to-phono adaptors will do the job.

 

Doing it with a proper cassette deck, decent soundcard, and good software (when I did this a while ago I used Audacity) means you can record to WAV rather than MP3 which gives you the best starting point to go from.

[matski]

I've done it before by just plugging my ancient Walkman into my audio interface and recording with Logic Quality wasn't the best, but it was good enough for my purposes.

 

[BigRedX]

Personally I wouldn't touch that cassette player in the Amazon link with a bargepole and certainly not let it anywhere near the only existing copy of a tape I was trying to digitise.

 

Some extra things I forgot to mention yesterday:

 

Digitise your tapes without any audio compression (.wav or .aiff files formats) and record at 24 bit. IME when you then reduce the bit depth to 16 bit it significantly reduces the amount of background noise and tape hiss.

 

If the tapes were made in the early 80s the NR will either be Dolby B or C (Dolby S wasn't available until 1989). As I said in my previous post, you will probably get away without using any NR or playback for Dolby B tapes, in fact it may restore some top end frequencies that have been lost over the years, and if you need to compensate for the missing NR a bit of corrective EQ will be more than adequate. However trying to play back a Dolby C encoded tape without the correct noise reduction switched on will result in a harsher and sibilant sound which no amount of corrective EQ will fix.

 

[Velarian]

6 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Personally I wouldn't touch that cassette player in the Amazon link with a bargepole and certainly not let it anywhere near the only existing copy of a tape I was trying to digitise.

 

Some extra things I forgot to mention yesterday:

 

Digitise your tapes without any audio compression (.wav or .aiff files formats) and record at 24 bit. IME when you then reduce the bit depth to 16 bit it significantly reduces the amount of background noise and tape hiss.

 

If the tapes were made in the early 80s the NR will either be Dolby B or C (Dolby S wasn't available until 1989). As I said in my previous post, you will probably get away without using any NR or playback for Dolby B tapes, in fact it may restore some top end frequencies that have been lost over the years, and if you need to compensate for the missing NR a bit of corrective EQ will be more than adequate. However trying to play back a Dolby C encoded tape without the correct noise reduction switched on will result in a harsher and sibilant sound which no amount of corrective EQ will fix.

 

Excellent thanks. As I will have access to a pretty good cassette deck I’m not going to bother with the Amazon tape thing.

 

I’ve checked situation regarding output levels from the deck and inputs to my audio interface which should all play nicely together so I’ve ordered a set of phono-XLR cables from Amazon which should arrive today. 
 

I’m pretty sure the tapes will be Dolby B recordings so I’ll try recording without NR as suggested. The bit rate info is also good information thanks.

 

I’m quite looking forward to experimenting with the variables that doing it this way allows and as long as I can get the best possible initial recording into Logic then I can play around with post-production settings to my hearts content. 😊

[BigRedX]

When I last did this (which was for a retrospective CD compilation of my first band's recordings for a US indie label) I found that apart from a couple of tracks that had been recorded with weird EQ peaks that required taming, simply reducing the digitised files from 24 bit to 16 bit was all that was needed. Anything that wasn't correcting an obvious audio error on the original recording made them sound worse to my ears. There wasn't even a lot of level balancing between tracks required since the original tapes had already been recorded hot and tape saturation had taken care of the usual mastering compression.

[WinterMute]

Old tapes shed oxide like a b*st*rd, some are better than others, the "metal" formulation being the best, you'd be advised to get a pack of cotton buds and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol, then clean the heads very regularly, check for deposits on the heads and guide posts after each playback, I've had tapes dump oxide all over the shop.

 

Don't apply isopropyl to the rubber parts, which are the capstan roller or rollers, depending on the mechanism.

[BigRedX]

I knew I'd forgotten something!

 

Also I've found that unless you can hear the audio quality deteriorating due to oxide build-up on the heads, don't bother trying to record each track separately. Do a whole side in a single pass and then chop the audio up into individual tracks in Logic.