How can I save my music old tapes to my pc. What free software can I use to?

Question

How can I save my music old tapes to my pc. What free software can I use to?

I have hundreds of music tapes, I want to save them to my pc. How can I do that?

Answer 1

Connect your tape deck to the line in terminal. Don’t connect your tape deck or turntable to the microphone jack. If you do, you’ll be disappointed--it records in mono. To record in stereo, you should use the line in jack. The line-in and microphone jacks actually belong to your computer's sound system. Almost all retail computer models include them. If you must use the mic port, use a 1/8” mini jack. (You can get audio cables at most electronics stores. These plugs are also known as 1/8-inch or 3.5mm.). Run the cable from the line-out port of your tape player (If your player doesn't have this jack, try the headphone jack.) to the line-in port of your computer’s sound system. If you are unsure where to plug into the computer, check your computer’s user manual. DO NOT USE SPEAKER LINES TO THE LINE IN JACK ON YOUR COMPUTER--THIS IS A HIGHER VOLTAGE AND WILL FRY YOUR COMPUTER!

Now test your connection. First, make sure that your computer's line-in is not muted. Click Start, Control Panel. Double-click Sounds and Audio Devices. Select the Volume tab. Under “Device volume,” click the Advanced button. Under Line In, make sure the Mute box is not checked. Then start your record player (or tape player). The player’s sound should make its way to your computer's speakers.

For the next part you'll need a recording program to convert analog music (your tape or record) into digital form to place on a CD. Audacity is a free program that can handle the job of recording. You can find it at audacity.sourceforge.net. Download Audacity 1.2.4b—this has the Click Removal feature under Effects (on the menu bar). Popular software titles Musicmatch and Nero can also handle line-in recording as well as Goldwave ($40-50).

Install and open Audacity. To begin working with Audacity, click the drop-down box on the toolbar. It will offer options for the recording source. Select Line In. Start your tape player and immediately press the red record button on the Audacity toolbar. You will observe the digital display of the song on the screen. The song is being recorded in WAV format. When the song is finished, press the yellow stop button.

Click Edit (on the menu bar) and point to Select and click ‘All’ on the submenu. Then click Effect (on the menu bar) and click Amplify. Go with the prescribed amplification since this will prevent clipping (distortion).

Audacity has a noise removal effect to remove small clicks and hisses. It also allows you to edit unwanted breaks and more. If you want more creative audio effects and editing techniques, Audacity has online tutorials and a download manual.

If you plan to store the file on your computer or e-mail it, you will want to compress it since WAV files are very large. You can convert the file to MP3, a compact music format. Audacity has a plug-in that will allow you to create MP3 files. Instructions are on its Web site. Or you can use DB PowerAMP, an excellent, free conversion tool, located at: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

After you finish editing the song file, click File, Export as MP3. (From there you can start burning your music to CDs. Most music programs, such as RealPlayer and Windows Media Player, will burn CDs that work in regular CD players.) Name your song file. Continue until you have recorded each song from the tape or record. In Windows Media Player, you can select which format to burn to your CD (MP3 or convert to an audio file for use in almost any CD player).

You can record each side of the tape or record into one big file and break up the tracks later. Or, you can record each song as an individual file (preferable). You will want to create a file in My Documents—I named this file ‘Music to be burned’ (this will save you time later when updating WMP).

To convert to MP3 format:
You can download the free MP3 encoding program Lame 3.96.1 (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lame_Encoder.htm). The first time you try to export as an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you for the location of the lame_enc.dll file. Navigate to its location (in the Look in box); after that Audacity will ‘remember’ its location.

Then convert your music file to MP3 format by clicking File, Export as MP3. Navigate to the Music to be burned file and put the song there.

Open Windows Media Player and maximize this window. Click the Library tab. Then click File, Add to Library, By searching computer. In the next dialogue box, to the right of the Look in box, click the Browse button. Navigate to the Music to be burned folder. Click the search button.

To burn a CD:
Place a CD into the drive to be burned. Click the Burn tab. In the left hand window, click the down arrow in the Burn List row and choose the style where you listed the music that you want to burn. This will display all of that style of music in the left pane. Uncheck any songs that you do not wish to burn. Click Start Burn (above the Burn List row). If the selections exceed the available space on the CD, a message will appear in the window advising you uncheck a/some of the selections.

I have an extensive record and tape collection and am converting them to digital using this method.

Answer 2

Use ABSOLUTE RECORDER to capture the main wav file;
Absolute is free.
The next thing is a wav editor. If you have tapes with more than one track per side, or you want to edit out the tape hiss, you will at least need an editor, or a processor.
Easy CD Creator 4 used to do this really well. They took it out when it became Roxio 5, and re-introduced it with Raxio Suite 7 and 9.
I also used to have a cheap editor, but after my Main storage drive went above 300-400 GIG, I lost the free programme, and just used ROXIO suite.

HARDWARE: Use a basic Cable from tape player to sound card. Turn off all other noise units on the PC, and record from the Sound Card with the tape at about 30 % volume, this reduces Noise ratio per channel, and will help when editing or processing out tape hiss, crackle and pop

Answer 3

There is a program for sale at WAL-ly World called "Instant Music" that works very well. It can convert formats, record sound, and edit recordings. I got it to convert old cassettes and Lps to mp3 and wma. It'll take out most of the tape hiss and crackle. It takes a little practice and experimentation though. It costed just about $30 and came with some piece of hardware to hook stereo cables to a pc. I didn't used that. I just hooked a patch cable between the headphone jack of the stereo and the line in jack on my pc, then used the software. BTW audacity bites!

Answer 4

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!)
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