Converting analog cassette tapes to CDs

Hi everyone!
How do I convert analog cassette tapes to CDs? I don't have any fancy equipment or anything. Just a nice tape player.
Thank you!
PowerBook G4 17 Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Hi, zoopop - This subject was discussed recently, and several options for achieving your aim are described in this topic:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=250698&tstart=0
Good luck!
Tuttle
1432/8140

Similar Messages

Advice on converting analog Hi8mm tapes to digital

Hi,
I am looking for advice on converting some Hi8mm analog video tapes to digital. They are not my tapes but I would still prefer to obtain a good quality transfer. I may do some editing on a few of them in PRE and would like to maintain the ability to edit them in the future.
At present, I've bought a Roxio easyVHStoDVD USB converter which states it can capture in DV-AVI format but doesn't actually appear able to do so. Results so far at capturing have been finicky at best but I'm still working on it but am wary because the format captured is not DV-AVI.
I've read several people here suggesting using an ADS Pyro A/D Firewire converter. Would that be a better, less troublesome route to go? And what other tips does anyone have in doing an A/D conversion?
Thanks,
Paul

The workflow that you outline is good for archiving the material, but not so good for later editing that material. As Paul_LS states, a DVD-video will use MPEG-2 encoding. Material and quality will be forever lost. These DVD's are good for doing a backup of the material on tape, but the best quality will result from editing the Captured DV-AVI Type II material. Get an external HDD, instead, and copy those files over to it for later editing.
If you need to do much correction to the Captured material, especially color and exposure work, you might want to look into the Canopus 300, which allows one to do more at the Caputre stage with regards to color and density. The 100 will do a great job of straight Capture, but all corrections will need to be done in PE later.
For a similar Project, with 34 VHS tapes (all sorts of film rates, EP, LP and SP, I did a quick archival copy to DVD (I used my Panasonic VHS-DVD deck for this), and then did a Capture to DV-AVI Type II for all tapes, logging each with details and notes on what each scene was and where it was located, via Timecode. This was all done, while the Capture was being made, and these notes were invaluable, when it came time to actually do the edits.
Using the DV-AVI Type II files (stored on about 4 2TB external (FireWire 800) hard discs, I then Imported just what I needed to create 17 finished DVD's from the tapes. During the edit, I archived each Project to another set of external HDD's, because I will need to do extensive editing for a finished set of DVD's for the two subjects, whose lives were recorded on those 34 tapes. Again, I kept notes on these files, so I know exactly where every scene is located. I can still go back to the Captures, but as I have doine the color grading, and density correction on the next phase of files, those would be the ones that I'd want to use.
In this Project, the biggest help was my "shot sheet," that contained all details of every shot. It saved me countless hours of searching, just to locate a particular scene. If you need a "shot sheet," let me know, and I'll share a PDF of the one that worked for me.
Good luck,
Hunt

Converting analog hi8 tapes into FCE using canopus

I am trying to convert some old home movies (HI8) using a canopus converter (ADVC110). When I play the move clip back in FCE - the image is very blurred/distorted. Am I doing something wrong, or is this to be expected given the tape format and converter I'm using?

Welcome to the forum.
Here are some things to check. The video should not be "very blurred/distorted".
Does the video look sharp when you connect your Hi8 camera directly to your TV? (Check this because the problem could be degraded tapes.)
Are you using good quality cables that are in good condition? Both from your camera to the ADVC and the ADVC to your Mac.
What are the exact DIP switch settings on your ADVC? In North America, all the DIP switches should be OFF (except #2 which could be on if you want the ADVC to default to Analog-IN when you power up.) Note: only change the DIP switches when the ADVC is disconnected from power. And don't connect or disconnect the firewire cable unless both your ADVC and your Mac are disconnected from power (not just shut down).
What FCE Easy Setup are you using?
Have you used the ADVC before with good results? Or is this the first time you are using the ADVC? If so, did you get it new or used?

Transferring analog cassette tape to GarageBand 3

Hi-
My daughter has a cassette tappe of gymnastics floor music and wants to put it into GarageBand so she can make a CD of it. Is there a good way to do this and what sort of cables would I need to do this?
Thanks-
DMitz

http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/GBFAQ.html#recordcassette
(Let the page FULLY load. The link to your answer is at the top of your screen)
http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/GBFAQ.html#exportsections
(Let the page FULLY load. The link to your answer is at the top of your screen)

Converting Music from Tape Cassette to CD

Hello everyone -
I have music on many audio cassette tapes that I used to play in my old car. But my new car has CD only - no tape player. So I would like to make CD versions of those tapes. How do I do that?
I do have a separate VCR-to-DVD converter/burner, but nothing for audio cassettes. I would assume I could burn a DVD, then read it into my MAC and have Toast burn it back out on a CD - but that is cumbersome and I would somehow have to make my little audio cassette readable by a VCR reader. Is there an adapter which makes an audio cassette playable into a VCR reader??
I have looked for a tape player (read "boom box") with separate audio outputs which I could feed into the DVD burner, but have not found one.
Assuming there is an adaptor or a boom box with audio outputs out there somewhere, would that be my only alternative? Or is there some device that I could feed directly into my 7-year old G4 tower?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
- OF

OF:
Here are some articles with ideas of how you can proceed. Some of them will, naturally, overlap, but by the time you are done reading you should have a pretty good idea of what you need to do. If you still have questions, you can then post back with them and we will see if we can answer them.
Digitize your LPs and tapes
Converting Audio Cassette Tapes to CDs
From Tape to CD
Amicable split: Auto-chunking LPs and tapes
And here are a couple of tools. The first is a highly recommended software for capture and recording, and then a piece of hardware to input audio into you Mac via USB, if you do not have an audio input.
Audacity
Griffin iMic
Please do post back with questons or comments, and do let me know how it goes for you.
Cheers
cornelius

Can you copy cassette tapes?

Is it possible to copy music from cassette tapes onto an iBook G4? If so, how?

Ella:
Your cassette player should have some kind of output port e.g. the earphone jack. The will the source of your sound. Your iBook, unfortunately, does not have a sound-in jack, like a microphone jack. You will need a device like Griffin iMic, which interfaces with the USB port and can be used for sound in, or sound out. There are other devices that do what iMic does, but for the price it is the way to go.
Here is some bedtime reading to bring you up to speed:
Digitize your LPs and tapes
Converting Audio Cassette Tapes to CDs
From Tape to CD
Amicable split: Auto-chunking LPs and tapes
Now, aren't you glad you asked?
Let me know how it goes.
Good luck.
cornelius

Problem converting cassette tape to digital

Hi. I’m looking to convert a cassette tape to digital using my iMac, a Walkman, a male/male 3.5mm-plug cable, and Audacity. I hooked the cable up to the iMac’s line in / mic jack and the Walkman’s headphone jack, set Audacity’s input to “Built-in Input” and hit “Play” on the Walkman. Nothing.
I know the Walkman is working because I can hear the sound through headphones. I went through these troubleshooting steps:
1. Tested the iMac’s line in / mic jack with a microphone. Good signal.
2. Opened System Preferences, Sound, set the input to “Line In” and played the Walkman. No signal picked up there, either, so the problem doesn’t seem to be the settings in Audacity.
3. Tried everything using my iPhone instead of the Walkman. No signal picked up, so the problem doesn’t seem to be with the Walkman.
Other than a bad cable (it worked last time I used it, less than a year ago), anyone have any ideas about what could be going wrong?
Thanks.

Never mind -- problem solved. All I had to do was turn up the volume on the Walkman. It never occured to me that it could be too low, since it was at a comfortable level when listening with earbuds. But that was it.

Cassette tapes into iTunes library

Please can I ask for your advice on the best way to acheive optimum quality when converting/transferring cassette tapes into my itunes library.
Thank you in advance for your assistance,

I'm not sure what you need covered here. Do you already have a mechanism by which you can convert the cassettes to digital files on your computer or are you asking that too?
Tapes will have hiss. Some of this is deliberate as Dolby Noise Reduction technology of the time, some will just be the tape. Dolby NR is probably best handled at the tape end of things if you make sure you use Dolby filtering on your player for tapes on which it was used originally (you'll only know if it was marked at the time of recording). If you don't have it you can try using computer filtering. I did a bit of this with a program called Amadeus many years ago. It let you sample a bit of the digitized recording which is supposedly blank to get the background noise, then apply it acrosss the whole file. There's always a bit of risk in doing this because you may have something in the recording that looks like the noise signal but is part of the actual sound. Audiophiles can have a field day discussing this.
If you're being really picky, I found I had a bit of noise just produced by my equipment I was using. I would record a few seconds with no tape playing at all just to see what was being produced by my equipment.
Audacity is a free audio editor, but I have never had time to figure it out.
Obviously you are going to want to record your files and edit them in a full-quality lossless format such as AIFF. I archive mine in FLAC format (you could use Apple lossless too), then create a mp3 or AAC version for everyday use.

2 questions: Convert analog video AV- USB Converter; Good TV Tuner For IMac

1) I need to convert analog video tapes onto my Mac. What's a good AV to USB converter?
2) I'd like to take advantage of my 24" screen and occasionally watch TV on my Mac. What's a good TV tuner?
Thanks.

Most recommend the Canopus converter, but it is $100-200. I was curious if the analog to digital tv converters available for $10 with the $40 govt coupon would serve the same purpose. I don't know why it wouldn't, but I haven't seen one. I'm going to try to borrow from a friend and see.
Otherwise you can borrow someone's Sony Digital8 to use to play Hi8 and it works as a converter (some models don't do Hi8 playback). This worked for me, but I was afraid I would wear out the "eject' on my friends Digital8 bc I have 60 tapes to transfer.
Other option is to play on old Hi8 thru a miniDV camcorder, used as a converter. My Canon zr500 miniDv doesn't seem to have that option.
I may try to use my Presidian dvr from Radio Shack as a pass thru converter. I haven't tried it yet either, but I think it might be yet another option. If anyone knows how to do any of these, please reply. It seems the tv converter should work and I'll get one if it does.

Analog cassette to digital?

I hope I'm in the right place. I'm trying to convert my cassette tapes to digital and store then on my itunes. Any advice on types of cassette players, converter units, and or software to use would be helpful. Also any help in where to find info. on simple audio editing programs, etc. If I'm in the wrong place please feel free to tell me where to go . . .
Is GB the program I use to import the cassettes? Is there a converter unit for LPs? Does it matter if I import thru a USB port or the <audio input> on the back side of my tower? Any help or direction to info. would be appreciated.

Yes, you can use GB.
You can see here:
http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/Tutorials/TransferringLPs.html
Cassette is basically the same (but I don't think you need the Griffin iMic to do cassettes).
But for either cassettes or LPs I would use an interface unit (Firewire preferred) for better results. (You can find some interface suggestions on that site or at Sweetwater or MusiciansFriend, etc.)
And a good quality cassette deck should produce better results as well.

How to convert analog SD video from VCR tapes to DVD

What is the simplest way to convert analog SD video signals from VCR tapes for input to a mac intel mini so that I can create DVDs? Any help would be appreciated.
Owen

not sure about doing it on a mac mini, but based on the costs of the equipment needed to do it and the time, your best bet is to take your vcr tapes to costco and let them transfer them to DVD...
then editing pieces of the dvd's to make a compilation would be fairly easy using any number of software tools for the mac.

How to convert cassette tape to macbook pro

hi
i have a 2009 macbook pro and want to convert cassette tape of me giving a lecture to cd so I don't lose it. the cassette is 35 years old and still works well. my mbp does only has a headphone out jack outlet, not anything for input so I can't see how to connect a cassette player.
any info very wanted and welcome - with thanks

Probably has a combo port.
⌥ > System Profiler…
(ie, hold down Option and choose System Profiler… from the  menu) and post what you get for Hardware Overview > Model Identifier. That will tell us exactly what machine you have. Or you can find out the specs for yourself in Mactracker
<mactracker.ca>
You should also check the user guide which came with your machine.
My guess would be that you can connect your tape player with a 3.5 mm analogue jack and switch to input.
As for the rest, if you search the forum you'll find several threads about digitising audio tapes.

How can i convert cassette tapes to a disc

i want to convert a cassette to my mac and then onto a disc. How do I do that?

If you are using the new slimline iMacs, you will need to use a USB audio interface box that includes stereo inputs to connect the tape deck to.
Google's your friend.
Do a search for USB audio interface boxes.
For audio cables, you may need to use RCA style cables with RCA to 1/4" line level in audio adapter connectors OR 1/4" line level audio cable with 1/4" to RCA audio adapter connectors. This depends on whether the USB audio input interface box has stereo inputs that are for either 1/4 " line level connections or for RCA line level connections OR the USB interface box may have both style of audio inputs.
I use a FireWire (instead of USB) audio interface box (with lots of different types of audio inputs and output) made by m-audio and both the free, open source digital audio application called Audacity OR for more serious audio work, I, typically, use Apple Logic Express for most of my.own audio work.
Audacity works great for many types of audio recording and processing.

Converting Cassette Tapes To AIFF

Hello all,
I am converting my Fathers cassette tape collection to AIFF, and then to MP3 for his ipod, and am trying to retain the highest sound quality I can.
My set up is I have a Marantz PMD 201, with a live feed into my imac. I play the tapes in real time, while Soundtrack Pro records them in AIFF and puts them into itunes. Some of the tapes are a little stretched making the voices a little too high, is there any filter that would assist in unstretching parts of the cassettes?
Also what filter would be recommend to take out the background buzz? I have played around with a lot of different things but it seems there should be something better out thereAs always thanks for any feedback.

Hi JArmeanio:
If your tapes are physically stretched, the audio inconsistency will be hard to determine as the magnetic medium will be pulled across the heads in an unpredictable way; drop outs, deterioration, etc. will be evident only to you in the digital audio performance of the resulting transferred files. If the tape sounds sped up - due to old cassette player tape speed issues - either check to see if there is a tape speed adjustment knob on the MArantz, or use the very handy re-size/re-tempo features in STP.
Likewise - for hums, unwanted 60cycle or other consistent tones interfering with your files, i cant stress enough the magic of editing the frequency spectrum of an audio file. IT IS A FEATURE MANY STP USERS ARE NOT AWARE OF. It is easy to do:
... in the audio file editor window, select the upper right tool in the window to show the frequency spectrum display instead of the wave form.
Right click the left grey area of the window outside the audio file (where the frequency graph is) and select"logarithmic" view - then right click on the file itself and select "show spectrum controls" - use the minimum and maximum frequency controls to highlight your buzz - which will be visibly obvious.
then select the frequency select tool - right next to the arrow in the upper left window of the file editor (NOT at the top of the session, which contains a different set of similar tools) - once you click on the frequency select tool, you will get a cross hair tool in the audio window. If you use that to narrow in on the visual line of the buzz, highlight it, and then delete those frequencies - you will be amazed at how clean it will sound. Its magic!
http://www.lynda.com/ provides wonderful tutorials - and can be accessed free for a time, in demo mode. Good luck! Sounds like a bit of a painful transfer!

Cassette Tapes to iPod

Is there a way to transfer music i have on cassette tapes into my iPod? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Transferring analog vinyl albums (or cassettes) to your PC is not a trivial effort.
You want to convert analog music to digital. Doesn't matter if it is vinyl records or cassettes, the concept is the same. It's a simple concept that it a bit tough in implementation (if you want to get it as right as possible).
Once you record (digitize) the original analog recording, the resulting digital file will be large. You can then convert it into an MP3 or AAC file after correcting it. Most folks I know who digitize their vinyl keep the recorded and corrected files on a separate External Hard Drive, as the work involved to get them is substantial. The best audio will be the originally recorded digital copy in a lossless format. This should be kept, or archived, as it can be burned to Audio CDs or imported (and re-imported, if needed) into iTunes in whatever lossy format you require.
1st: Hook up your stereo to your PC line input jack. I prefer using an analog-to-digital converter hooked into my USB port instead. This may reduce or eliminate a possible PC soundcard hum, mostly found on laptops and low-end PCs. Ederol makes the UA-1X converter that is fairly good.
2nd: Record the album using one of the various free or paid software programs out there. I use Audacity. It is free and can be found here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows
3rd: You’ll need to record each side individually. After recording both sides, you’ll have two computer files. These need to be broken into their individual song tracks and error corrected (if desired).
4th: Assigning track name and other info may be possible using the CDDB, but it may not recognize the files. Manual entry may be the only method.
5th: You can then import them into iTunes as MP3, AAC or other format to play in your iPod. You may first want to burn them to CD in their full-digital form for backup. iTunes and the CDDB may recognize them better coming off a CD rather than your HD.
Do some Google searches. There are many sites that give overviews on how to convert your records to digital. Here are some from my files:
http://www.blazeaudio.com/howto/lp-overview.html
http://www.gmayor.com/CDR_Pages.htm
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index80.htm
http://www.pcabusers.net/vinyllp/vinyllp.htm
http://www.ganymede.hemscott.net/tutorial.htm
http://www.dak2000.com/reviews/2020story.cfm?GLP#pic9d

Converting analog cassette tapes to CDs

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