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Digitizing old cassette tapes
I’m working on project that is going to have a lot of music. Unfortunately all the music is on old cassette tapes. Does anyone have any recommendation on how to digitize those – is there a particularly good piece of equipment (that isn’t too expensive)? I’m assuming I want them to be AIFF files, but is there something better? They’re going to need a little mixing work before I can use them.
Thanks!
RJ Thomas
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8 Replies
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I’ve got a lot of old cassettes that I’ve been wanting to digitize and have been trying to think of an efficient way to capture them. I tried to find some sort of equipment that has a cassette deck and a CD burner where it will just do an automated transfer to CD. Then I could rip the CDs into iTunes. But I couldn’t find anything like that.
So I’m going to set up my DV camera and use FCP to digitize them in (only capturing the video). That way, I can limit the capture time to the length of the tape. I could probably just subclip the tracks then and do a batch export for iTunes.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT -
Using a DV camera to act as a capture/transcode device probably isn’t too bad – it’s certianly not going to be the weak point in the chain.
Most important thing is probably going to be getting a good tape deck to play them in. Something like a Fostex 4-Track would be good as they built them with really good tape heads in them and a pretty tight mechanism.
Another option would be something like a M-Audio USB/Audio converter (similar products are available from many other companies too, I think Edirol/Roland have a few options) – this will allow you to capture audio at higher sample/bitrates (96kbs/24bit for example) which would be handy if you want to try and sweeten or restore them a little.
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I’ve transcribed vinyl LPs into the computer using Soundtrack pro and an M-Audio USB box. I used the pop filter to reduce the noise and made a pretty good digital copy. I was even complemented on the quality of the transcription.
The route through the DV camera will probably be just as good as the M-Audio box. It’s uncompressed PCM digital audio.
Bias Soundsoap may also be useful for reducing the noise floor of the tapes.
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Going the DV route is going to gobble up loads of time. One pass to record to DV, another pass to import the footage.
Have you looked into a Griffen iMic? I’ve digitized dozens of cassette tapes using a standard analog line out connection. It’s provides standard 16bit/48KHz conversion. Considering that all cassette tape is pretty crap, going to hi-bit audio 24bit/96KHz is probably overkill.
https://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic
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[Navarro Parker] “One pass to record to DV, another pass to import the footage. “
I wouldn’t be recording to DV tape, but just using the camera as an analog to digital converter. So it’s only one pass right into the computer.
-Russ
Russell Lasson
Kaleidoscope Pictures
Provo, UT -
Ronald,
I use a free audio program called Audacity. You run a stereo miniplug cable from the headphone jack on a cassette player to the audio in on the back of the Mac. Then use Audacity to capture it, it works incredible. Real time.
Have a wonderful day.
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Dear Chris,
if you are still seeing this post…I have questions that i think you could possibly help me with. I have been trying for over a year to figure out cassette tapes to my mac. audacity doesn’t seem to have clear instructions to help me with it. your ‘line in’ reference is something i have not noticed in any other posts.
please respond if so inclined. Thank you.Tim
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