How I Convert Audio Cassette Tapes To Mp3 **Simple recording **Not for High Quality Music

quick video showing how I transfer basic audio cassettes. I make the customer aware I am no audio file but I can do basic recording and capture for them. if it's produced music I usually turn them away. but for a tape recorded on a old tape recorder I have no problems with this method. simple easy and efficient. but using QuickTime Player meansss m4a files. m4a files wont play on every device but is better quality. So including a mp3 file is important so they can play it in their car, tv, or on a window computer without problems. I include the m4a files as well.
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#digitizing #vhstapes #tapetodigital

[@gil_L]

This is exactly why i still keep my Mac Pro 5,1 for legacy software. I use audacity for capturing audio cassettes as a 24 bit wave. Then I can make what ever I want inside the software. If it’s music I bring it into logic for mastering.

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

Nice! I might need to consult you on getting a better set up so I can offer quality music digitizing

[@gil_L]

@@EmeraldCoastDigitizingabsolutely, happy to help, if you do decide to upgrade, your better off buying a really good cassette deck from the late 90s then anything new from today.

[@PrankZabba]

I didnt even know you could change the port over. Gonna have to try that out on the laptop i got. I've been using Cool Edit Pro 2.0 for, wow. Has it really been almost 20 years? I forget when I first got it. But after all these years I have learned many things from transferring tapes. Like time coding them while they play. So it's way faster to cut into tracks after. I seem to average it out to 3x as long to get it from tape, cleaned up, cut into tracks, and burned to cd. I also cut from back to front. That way every track is removed from the master file as i go along. The only time I was ever lucky to make money from it was when a friend of a friend was told that the recording studio he asked at to transfer them wouldn't do it. Fine by me. That was a quick $300 for me. There was only 10 tapes and 2 videotapes. Handed them back with every tape as a cd burned from wave files (mp3s will leave gaps between tracks) and also gave them a usb stick with everything on it. Tapes cut up into tracks as wave and mp3. Yes, i went overboard on doing it. Just because i am picky about my own work. That i wouldnt want it to be any less for someone else. My bet if they got it done somewhere else. It would probably be 128k mp3s as each side of the tape. At least mine was 320k. Some reason I think I may have even gave them FLAC files on that usb stick.

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

It’s just that model

[@greggv8]

I use Format Factory for audio conversions. It's super fast, keeps all the tag data, and it takes full advantage of multiple CPU cores to convert several files simultaneously. Even better is it's free.

[@darkraven-666]

For higher quality sources I'd recommend something like a "Nakamichi Cassette Deck 2". Why that specific model? because it's got an azimuth control. I don't know how long you've been digitizing cassettes, however matching the azimuth to the original deck will get you the best high frequency response. You can do this in other decks but it's a bit more involved and requires test tapes to get the azimuth back to factory.

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

Yeah I typically say no to audio cassettes I know there are much better ways to do this. I tell the customer I am not the guy for high quality but if they want me to I’ll do a basic recording. That’s pretty much the extent of it

[@Tomsonic41]

I wonder why Apple removed the ability to capture analog audio from the later MacBooks? I'm actually doing an audio cassette job right now; I have the headphone out of my cassette player plugged into the line in of a modern hi-fi, and am using that to record the tapes to MP3 on a USB stick.

[@sweetbabysean]

I’m def not an expert and won’t take on any music jobs or hi quality recording jobs. If a customer has one or two with their video tapes I’ll usually just tell them I’ll do them for free just to be a little bonus for them. I would never take on a big audio cassette job no way.. not for me… but I’m guessing cause they were afraid people would record music from others mp3 players and steal music easily? I don’t know just a guess cause internet made it easy to get music

[@orihalcon8693]

Newer Macs are just missing the “line-in” jacks. Most jacks have disappeared over the years as most users never did use the line in feature. Cheap USB to line in/microphone dongles work fine and are generally well reviewed, plus are usually driverless. Best option for audio capture would probably be a USB audio interface, but those are quite a bit more expensive and do require drivers which often aren’t Mac compatible. Advantage of those is a super low noise floor.

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

That’s what I dooo

[@leonjohnsonjr3331]

I now u was goin to do that one day because I do it I use magix audio enhancer takes the air out the tapes and the poppin out the records

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

Nice

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

The thing that Apple is famous for to me is eliminating backwards compatibility years too early, especially in I/O hardware. 😤

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

Rat bastards

[@fallow_]

Not to insult your methods, but this sounds like stuff that could be automated really easily using something like FFMPEG in a script. Don't know how often you do this, but it seems to me that you could save a lot of time!

[@EmeraldCoastDigitizing]

Oh man I’m welcome to other methods. But I am not in any way doing this for top quality. It sounds fine but nothing mind blowing. I could prolly do it in Final Cut or obs. Or something else but this is so simple.

[@Dee_Just_Dee]

Yeah... I don't know for sure if OS X supports dragging-and-dropping files onto a script, but if it does, then an FFMPEG script would save a couple of clicks over Apple Music... and potentially yield better quality too, since FFMPEG uses the LAME MP3 encoding library rather than Apple's Core Audio Toolbox.