General Forum

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

lausvi — Tue, 03 May 2011 13:26:02 GMT

TWG:

I'm using Adobe Audition.

on Mac it's actually free as a beta-version. It's available on PC and Mac.
Personally I think this is one of the best and easiest sample editors on the market.

Easy interface, fast and high quality, and cutting, editing tracks is simple and intuitive.

Wow, thanks for mentioning this, I had never tried that before. It looks like a very nice editor, I am still figuring out all the windows and panes and key shortcuts. Already I like the way how the filters are added and toggled on/off and then applied to selection or entire file.

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

Rich — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:00:54 GMT

stotty1111:

Just come across the above freeware progran to convert cassette content to mp3 format - anybody used it or comments about it?

salut

tony

I have used Audacity to make digital versions of a few LPs. I listen from the computer in a lossless WMA format, and on mp3 players in mp3 format (imagine that!). Audacity is a great program for doing this. All I had to do really was hook up an RCA to 3.5 mm stereo cable from the tape out jacks of my receiver (with built-in RIAA phono preamp) to the stereo input jack on my computers motherboard.

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

TWG — Mon, 02 May 2011 03:22:59 GMT

I'm using

Adobe Audition.

on Mac it's actually free as a beta-version. It's available on PC and Mac.
Personally I think this is one of the best and easiest sample editors on the market.

Easy interface, fast and high quality, and cutting, editing tracks is simple and intuitive.

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

stotty1111 — Mon, 02 May 2011 02:39:20 GMT

Doh this is getting too much - my head begins to hurt with another potential route, I'll have a look at your suggestion Soren later, its like buses, none for hours then along come two!

Seriously guys thanks I'll post when I have decided

Tony

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

Søren Mexico — Sun, 01 May 2011 16:42:28 GMT

I have been using Audio Grabber for years to digitalize my LP and singles vinyl, it has different formats for transfering and also MP3 320 bits as I use, its easy to use after getting to know it, and its free.

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

lausvi — Sun, 01 May 2011 16:26:42 GMT

My task was simpler -in a way- as all the tapes were of the same type and the max volume level was same in all tapes. They were old listening comprehensions and the school (=my work) wanted to have cd-copies instead of the open-reel tapes. The tapes were also monophonical so as I used a stereo input I connected two decks (serviced Tandberg Series 15 mono open-reel decks), one to the left and one to the right channel so I transfered two tapes at once. All the tapes were 45 min long so I just put a pair of tapes running, went out and came back 45 min later to stop the recording and prepare the next pair. Later I cut the extra silence from the recordings (in Audacity) and extracted the tracks to appropriately named tracks which I then burnt to discs.

Also the tape heads and transport should be cleaned regularly in this sort of work. I can't remember surely but I think I used to do the cleaning after every five tapes (per recorder).

I used a Dell laptop with an external usb soundcard.

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

stotty1111 — Sun, 01 May 2011 12:22:39 GMT

hi there

thanks for the info!

i've loaded iot and have given it a quick whizz an M People track - its got possibilities, however i think i'm in your situation, got about 200 cassettes of varying length - I can see steam coming from either the 9300 or the ouverture before they are all transfered

Hey ho something to do these nights

salut

Re: Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

lausvi — Sun, 01 May 2011 11:32:08 GMT

I have used Audacity for quite some time for transfering tapes (both cassette and open-reel) to digital. It does it work well and I have had no bigger problems with it.

In some points the user interface has it's flows, at least in Mac version you can't scroll the window by mouse gestures, in some version save -dialogue might act up (key shortcuts activate playback/other functions while typing a file name!) and the recording volume slider should have more resolution. Also the exporting to multiple files (you can mark fe. the beginnings of new tracks to the recording and export all the tracks to multiple files) might take a few tries to figure out how to use it.

There are many filters and plug-ins. Fe. noise and click remove ones are handy with tape or vinyl transfers. You can also setup batches to handle several files at the time. Once I had a project of making cd-copies of around 75-100 open-reel tapes and I did it all with Audacity. Many commercial programs might have easier user interface and more automated functions but Audacity does it job nicely when you got into it and have time and interest to test all the filters and settings.

Audacity as a conversion tool - cassettes to mp3

stotty1111 — Sun, 01 May 2011 11:01:29 GMT

Just come across the above freeware progran to convert cassette content to mp3 format - anybody used it or comments about it?

salut

tony