Copy Cassettes to Computer Hard Drive

Copying your old cassettes to your computer is a great way to preserve your music collection, and is very simple with the right equipment.

Steps

  1. Obtain a cassette player with a "Line Out" of some sort. It can be RCA cables, or even a headphone jack, like on a Walkman.
  2. Make sure you have a "Line In" somewhere on your computer, and see what type of plug it has. If it's a small hole, like a headphone jack, it will be 3.5mm (1/8 inches). If there are two jacks, with red and white around them, they're RCA jacks.
  3. Make a trip to your favorite electronics store and pick up the cable you need to connect your cassette player to your computer. Be sure to specify that you want a stereo cable. It will need to have the red and white (Right / Left) RCA plugs on one end and the 1/8" plug to go into your Line-In connection on your PC. The way to be sure it's a stereo cable: There will be two little grooves running around the plug-in part of the plug. If there's only one, it's a mono cable and will not transfer your recording in stereo.
  4. Install recording and editing software onto your PC. The standard Microsoft "Sound Recorder" won't work very well. Try Audacity which is free, and easy to use.
  5. Connect your cassette player to your computer, open up your recording software, and try recording a little audio.
  6. Listen to what you just recorded, and decide if the sound quality is ok. Is it too loud? Too soft? Adjust the volume of the Line Input on the computer until it's just right. It should just hit the top (just where it begins to turn red) where the song is loudest, but it shouldn't be going over all the time.
  7. Play your cassette through, while recording. If your cassette player automatically plays the other side of the tape, you can leave the computer to its own devices for a while. If not, flip the tape over, and record that side.
  8. After both sides are recorded, you can start splitting the long audio file into separate mp3 files. Read your program's documentation for more information on how to do this with your specific program.
  9. Export each song as mp3. Don't forget to add ID tags!



Tips

  • Always record a sample before recording the entire cassette to ensure that your sound levels are ok.
  • If the sound quality on the original recording isn't great, you can try improving it with your audio editor.
  • Make sure to export your song files as mp3 or something similar, as WAV files will use entirely too much disk space.
  • If you have a large collection to convert, and limited hard drive space, consider purchasing an external USB hard drive to store your mp3 files.
  • If the sides of the cassette are uneven (i.e. one side has five minutes of silence while the other side is full), don't forget to remove all of the unwanted silence.

Warnings

  • If you redline too much (the volume is too high), the music will be distorted - you'll hear this as fuzz in certain places. If the volume, or gain, is too low, the song will never be able to be played very loud. If you have either problem, and adjusting it is very difficult or impossible, consider buying a converter. You can get this at any place where computer stuff is sold and it costs about $30. It acts as a pre-amp between your cassette player and the computer without the need to use a regular amp.
  • If you must use your computer's microphone jack, the sound will probably be mono instead of stereo. If the cassette was originally mono, this doesn't matter, but a stereo recording will lose sound quality.

Things You'll Need

  • Cassette player with an output of some sort
  • PC with soundcard with an available "Line In" jack
  • Appropriate cables to connect the cassette player to the PC
  • Audio recording/editing software, such as Audacity

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