How to create mp3 music from cassette taped music?

Question

I would like to buy an mp3 player (iRiver Clix 4GB for example) and use it to listen to my favourite 'big band' music of which I have many cassettes.

I have no idea how to transfer such music assuming it is possible, or even which mp3 player would be best suited. The clix seems to be getting rave reviews, that's why I mentioned it.

I assume some sort of translating equipment is required, all I have is a Hi Fi and this computer. I am in the uk by the way.

Answer 1

You need to buy a Creative brand MP3 player instead of one by River. Creative makes players that have line-in recording capability, which means that you can hook up your cassette player directly to your MP3 player and convert anything you like directly to digital files with ease.

My MP3 player is a Zen Nano Plus, which is a great little 1GB unit. It's cheap, easy to use, and runs off a regular AAA battery. I checked tons of reviews before deciding on this one, and it was definitely the right choice for me.

The player has an input jack compatible with a standard mini audio plug. So, you just buy a cord with a male plug on both ends (not expensive), hook one end into the headphone jack of your cassette player, hook the other end into the MP3 player, hit RECORD, start playing the tape, then STOP when the song is over. You can hear what's being recorded through the regular headphone jack of the MP3 player.

Here's a link to the Creative website. Look for the models with "Direct line-in encoding". If you want a player with more than 1GB storage, the Zen Neeon and the Zen V can give you up to 5 or 6GB.

By the way, Creative's MP3 players also don't screw you like the iTunes. Once you burn a file to your iTunes player, you can't transfer that file to any other brand of MP3 player and get it to play. The Creative players don't do that. In fact, I can use my player like a USB stick and save data files on it if I want to. It totally rocks!

Answer 2

If you buy the iRiver Clix, there is an optional cradle pack that allows line in recording. You can hook your tape player to the clix via the cradle pack and move your tapes directly to the clix.

There are other MP3 players that also have line inputs. See this review for a list of them....
http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6490_7-6543950.html

Answer 3

I've always just used the headphone jack of the tape player. Use a wire to connect from it into the line in port of your sound card. You can then play the tape as normal but record it onto your computer. It will most likely record it as a wav file, but that can easily be converted into an mp3

Answer 4

There are a number of devices that can convert the analogue music from a tape to a digital version that your PC can read. The device normally does no more than plug into your headphones jack on the hi-fi and a USB port on your PC. you can buy them in PC World for about £25

Answer 5

Put simply, you will need to connect your cassette player to your PC soundcard, then play the cassette whilst recording on your PC. A step-by-step guide is available at:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/diy
The recording software is the key, there are some free software downloads available at:
http://www.cassette2cd.co.uk/downloads.php
I have used ‘Magix Audio Cleaning Lab’ and ‘Audacity’ – Audacity is particularly popular since it is free!
If you record to WAV format, expect file sizes of around 10MB per minute, or 1MB per minute for MP3 (at 128kbps).
Once you have your digital versions of the recording on your PC, simply burn them on to a CD (Nero burning software or similar..). If you use Magix Audio Cleaning, the software will burn an audio CD for you without needing additional software (assuming you have a CD writing drive of course!) or convert to MP3 (need additional 'dll' file to do this in Audacity)
You can also download a free PDF version of the step-by–step guide from the download page mentioned above, the guide is complete with diagrams and screen-shots.

Answer 6

get an RCA to 1/8" miniplug cable from an electronics store so you can hook up your hifi to your computer's mic input. then you'll need software to record and edit the music (such as Audacity - audacity.sourceforge.net). finally, you'll need a transcoder to convert the audio file into an mp3 (use Super C from www.erightsoft.com). good luck.

Answer 7

Hi there,
You can download Nero for free here http://j.mp/VMdQrv

Nero offers you everything you need to burn CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays, as well as an impressive number of multimedia utilities.

Best

Answer 8

you can do this easily in realtime using the line in input on your sound card. It will be difficult to do it faster than playback speed though.

Answer 9

i saw a gadget on something for the weekend on sunday that does this-bbc.co.uk/sftw. it should have the details on there.