Listening To December 30 & December 31 1979'!

[Ghettoboom767]

Hi all,been listening to a special tape I recorded in my basement while
living at home from New Years Eve and the night before from 1979'!!

I just love this tape,so many hits from late 70's KFMX 104 Disco station
I was listening to.

The music is so rare that Satellite radio can't touch this!!!

 

[k2j]

Digitize it!

 

[Ghettoboom767]

Digitize it!

That's a very good idea!! Need to do this stuff,many rare cassettes that
need to be transferred to disc.
Plus the conversion will have proper filters and what-not.
Would a good CD recorder do this for me?
Thanks for the reminder!

 

[k2j]

Here's how I do it... YMMV

Get a cassette player.
Use the line-out RCA and feed it into your line-in on your soundcard. (you may need a RCA to 1/4" adapter)..
Download Audacity -> its free.
Select line-in on audacity and hit the record button.
Hit play on cassette.
When tape is done hit stop on cassette (unless autto-stop) and stop on audacity.

Once the tape is done you will have a graphic representation of the Wave file in audacity. Simply drag the mouse to select the audio (which you can preview by hitting the play button in the program). then when you have selected the audio you wish to export. Hit export selection. then you can choose options on what method you want to save as. I do MP3 @ 256 (it may be a bit high, but drives are cheapish).

That's the least expensive way I know. There of course are other ways to do it, but I've used the above method for YEARS and YEARS and duped hundreds possibly thousands of tapes. Yea, I know get a life...

 

[k2j]

There are also noise filters, and amplification settings for a more advanced rip. However, I've found I prefer the awe-natural sound of the slightly hissy cassettes.

The biggest difference in sound quality I've found is to get yourself a decent cassette deck. Be sure that the play head and capstain etc are in TOP shape. Shoot for Nakamichi -> even low enders are fantastic.

You can google for better instructions than I have listed above too. Many other people do it this way.

Have Fun!

 

[Ghettoboom767]

Hi K2J!! Thank you for this!! I just have to get high-speed Internet again!
I actually am just using my IPhone 4 right now for Internet.
I do have about an 08' Dell Tower with 1gb memory,going to upgrade
to 2gb memory for faster running.
So I feel this computer will be sufficient for this to be done.
I have an old Gateway but is old,it's my main old comouter for running
on but newer applications and video music the Dell will be better.

I love the original non compressed sound of the analog cassettes that
I record.

I have 2 excellent decks,an 91' Onkyo Integra TA2600 3 head/3 motor deck that makes
remarkable recordings.
I also have a Nakamichi BX-2 vintage 85' but is only a 2 head but it's
A Nak!

I will pursue this winter when I get my Internet back up and going.
I have Vista but am going with Windows XP on this Dell.
Wish I could afford a better system but I can't afford to put like windows 7
on this thing,my buddy is a computer guy and can load XP for me
but doesn't like the new programs.

Thanks again,I have many tapes (2,000+) I guess I better get going!!

 

[k2j]

Awesome! Let me know if you need any help once you get rolling. Sounds like your computer would be fine, esp with 2 gig ram. When I started it was back in the win 2000 days. Just don't multi tasks when recording if you get artifacts. Something else to consider would be a sound blaster audio card. Check local computer recycle businesses for deals on those. That will help offload allot of the computers work load and increase the quality of your recordings. It doesn't have to be the latest greatest even an older sb16 or..

Main goal is to get that stuff backed up from analog source before its too late. Tapes just go bad.

I love digitizing,.just picked up someone's hoard of alternative 80s music around 1000 cassettes. Going to do a few hundred out of the bunch. I just hope the fleet of decks I have can handle the work load. I've discovered lots and lots of Music this way. Once I found a bunch of concert stubs from the 80s big metal bands, ozzy, scorps and the like stashed in the tape sleeves of the prospective album they were touring. Real neat.

Cheap alternate hobby of mine.. running out of stashing places for all the heavy cassette boxes though, if my wife knew how many were hidden, oh man.. most people just throw them out these days they don't have much resale value.

Cheers!

 

[Ghettoboom767]

Thanks K2J!
I'll let you know when I get started and thanks again for your help.
I love music,so this should be fun.
This Dell is a good one,has all sorts of slots in front and is a better quality
one it's a Inspiron 531S with a AMD64 AthlonX2
processor.
I know my bothers kids has games on this and
it runs well.
Just need to wipe out Vista and put on XP.
I don't have the passwords for this but will get
it going nice with a fresh XP on it
Thanks again.
Jeff.