I have a number of audio cassettes for which I cannot find CD versions. How can I transfer them to MP3 files?

Answer 1

Difficult to write all the steps down here, but you can have a look at the following for some guidance -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 2

Ideally what you want is a hi-fi with an optical out port, and an MP3 player that can record from aux input that will accept the optical input. This way you can make the best quality recording possible.

You can get optical hi-fi cables in any electrical store, for a few quid, then you just connect up the hi fi and MP3 player, start the tape and start recording.

When you have finished recording what you will have is a single long mp3 file complete with the pauses between tracks. If you want to be really sophisticated about this what you need is to go online and get some free to download mp3 splitter and mp3 tagger software (try tucows download site, link below). There is plenty of freeware out there (of varying degrees of user friendliness) which will let you divide your one long file into separate tracks (splitter software) and then label them properly (tagger). Without proper labels when you play the tracks on your MP3 player it won't display the song title or artist.

Good luck, it really isn't as tricky as it sounds!

Answer 3

There are a number of outlets where you can get (vinyl) record decks that plug into your computer, to facilitate transferring tracks on records through to digital format. Most of these have the facility to plug in a tape deck. So this would work, and you wqould also have in the bundle relevant software to 'clean up' the sound. Typical price is £100-£120. Try Maplin electronics

Answer 4

You will need to connect the output of the tape player to the input of the sound card on your pc. I use Nero Burning which save the sound files on your pc as .wav files. Nero can then convert the .wav files to Mp3's or burn them onto CD's. There are loads of other software programs that will do this.

Answer 5

check out the harmon cardon website.they have a unit that will do it if ya got a few big bucks to spare.also look on amazon or e bay,some of those might be available as imports or were put out in limited quantities and someone could be selling one.

Answer 6

The way i did it was through my minidisc player, i linked it to my hi-fi then recorded it onto minidisc, then moved it from there onto my computer and converted it to MP3. There is probably an easier way though.