I want to transfer old cassette tapes to CD's. How do I do that?

Question

I have several cassette tapes with lectures on them that I want transfer to CD.

Answer 1

Download Audacity-
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/......

Get one of these-
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index....

Plug the RCA end of the patch cord into the "output" or "play" of your tape deck. Plug the other end of the patch cord into the "line in" of your sound card.

Open Audacity. Hit play on tape and record on Audacity. When you are done recording press stop. It may be a good Idea to make each song/lecture on the tape its own separate recording (this will make them separate songs on the CD). Click file>>export as wav. The program will ask you what folder you would like the file in. The easiest place to store it is right on your desktop (you can always move it later). Click save.

Open Windows Media Player. Click the burn tab. Drag and drop all your recorded files into the burn list. Insert a blank CD and click burn. You’ve just converted a cassette into a CD!

Answer 2

Difficult to write all the steps down here, but you can have a look at the following for some guidance (currently under development...) http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/DIY/how_to.htm This is certainly 'do-able', if you have the patience....
You will need a cassette player (!), PC with a stereo input to soundcard, conversion software and CD writer.
Note: if you are using a laptop, you may need a USB external soundcard (mine has only a mono mic input – not good enough!) – you can get cheap, simple but effective ones (from Hong Kong) via ebay…
You could get someone to do it for you, there are plenty to choose from out on the web, this type of job is perfect for a 'virtual' studio.
The software is probably the thing you really want to know about.. you will find loads out there. Personally I use Magix Audio Cleaning Lab – primarily produced for lifting vinyl, but will take any analogue signal. It has loads of features including cleaning filters, effects and editing… it’s cheap too and even comes with a stereo cable – try ebay. There are loads more, some even free downloads (audacity avaiable from download.com)– listen to folks who have used the software then have a go….
Oh yeah, and Magix has automatic track recognition based on silence between tracks and auto-stop recording so you can go out for the day and it will stop at the end of your tape – really useful!! You will use up loads of hard-drive space, so don’t try this if you are pushed for space…You may need to purge the huge files every so often (10MB per minute WAV files, 1MB per minute MP3). You could save some space recording directly into MP3 at the sacrifice of a little sound quality

Answer 3

get a tape player with a line out and a CD recorder with a line in.
get a cable to connect line out to line in and record it.

can be done with a computer as well and give the option to clean up the hiss & etc.