Should i buy an mp3 player without having regular internet access?

Question

i don't have regular access to the net, but i do have hundreds of cds and cassettes which i want to be able to take on my travels in the coming months. i know it's possible to put cds on to mp3 players, if a bit time consuming, but how would i get my cassettes on? i fear this would take even longer. is it cheap to buy music on the net? any advice, details would be greatly apperciated.

Answer 1

Hi Genius,

Yes - you should definitely join the 21st Century and get yourself an MP3 player.

It's very easy to set up your PC as a jukebox using iTunes (very highly recommended) or any one of a million other free music organising software titles.

The advantage is you can easily copy all your CDs onto your hard disc and then you can do all sorts of cool stuff like search, playback with visualisations, create playlists, burn your own compilation albums onto CD and, of course, fill an MP3 player.

Getting your tapes on there is more tricky but not really difficult and you may already have the right equipment. All you need to do is output your tape deck into the Line In on your PC's sound card, press play and record it on the PC. If you've got a sound card that's built in to your motherboard, or a really cheap sound card, this may not work. But good cards are not expensive and most come with software you can use to record tapes and records. Have a look on Ebay but get a new one because second-hand ones can burn out and you lose the quality.

You can get a perfectly adequate sound card for about £30 or less - if you don't have the right cable (phono-to-1/8" jack), drop into Maplin - it will cost you £3 or £4.

Good luck!

Cheers

KaiBosh

Answer 2

Your cd's would be easy, the tapes are possible but time consuming. You can use Audacity to record the tape, then split it into seperate tracks, then Export as MP3's.
I don't think it is always that cheap to buy music over the internet from Britain, you pay per track which is ok; but there may be a limit on what you can do with them and that bugs me. Once I've paid I want a copy on the pc, a backup burned to disc and a copy on an MP3 player. So check where you buy from and make sure you can get a hard copy as back up in case your hard drive or player fails.

Answer 3

The majority of people with mp3 players get only a small (or zero) part of their music from download services. I would never buy from them. Just record from your own CDs. For cassettes, you might want to consider getting one of the MP3 players that has "direct encoding" and "line-in". That means it can record directly from your stereo into mp3 without going through some other inefficient file type like wav first. Then all you need to record your music onto your mp3 player is a stereo cord from your casette player/stereo to the line-in jack of your mp3 player. On the other hand, if you have access to a computer (just not on the internet), it might be better to record all your cassettes to your computer and then sync with your mp3 player.

Answer 4

Just copy your favourite tracks from your CDs to your computer and then put the tracks into your mp3 player. I don't know how to do it with cassettes, you'll probably need some special gadgets. You might download music from the Internet from time to time, when you have access.

Answer 5

you can put all your cds on your computer. As with the tapes you would have the get some other things to put them on your computer like some special input/output cords to use a tape deck or s cd player with tape cassette option. But it is cheap to buy mp3s over the internet like from 89 cents to 99 cents.

Answer 6

MP3 is great for tapes and vinyl - if you have the time to record them. You have to do it in real time and use a program [like early versions of Musicmatch Jukebox] that will take it from the line in socket.
I needed to set up the levels well but once done just stack them all in. I use one mp3 track per side rather than splitting them up into songs, but you can do it afterwards with apps like MP3 Workshop [ freeware]

Answer 7

Depends.

If you buy loads of CD's, you can extract the music off of them on to PC and MP3
For tape cassettes, you can either get special equipment that tattaches a tape deck to a PC to record.

Answer 8

Internet access is a big boost in mp3 terms

Answer 9

yeh just do it sounds like u need a big memory but once u've downloaded all that music put it on random and who says that new music is any better than old so just appreciate the old stuff until u have internet access and then download.

Answer 10

I think you should it really does make it easier..I have a video iPod .I dont have a fast enough connection to really dl much but its still worth the money spent.