Backing up cassettes & 8tracks to cds

[4thman]

Hi, a friend wants to back-up his old cassettes and 8 tracks.I'm not sure if he wants them as wav. or mp3.What free software is best for this?Also is there any specific hardware required? or do you just hook-up the inputs through the soundcard?Any links or advice appreciated.Thanks.

 

[4thman]

bump!

 

[DaveSimmons]

just need the y-cable miniplug to red & white RCA connector, plug the miniplug into the soundcard line-in and the red & white into the tape/8track outs.

Your soundcard should have included recording software, if not try Audacity (open source) or look in the long free software thread at the top of the Software forum.

 

[4thman]

Ok we've got the hardware part covered,thanks.I've no idea what soundcard he has(it's a compaq pc with winXP)as I haven't checked.Does the software usually let you save the recorded music to the harddrive?I'm sure it does,but I'm just having trouble imagining how,as it still has to be burned to a cd from an image of some sort,correct?I'm a total newb to this aspect of burning and want to help a friend out .I have the software that came with my sb16 pci,maybe he could use that.Thanks.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The SB16 sound software probably won't run with anything else.

What you'll probably need to do:
1. record to the hard drive using the soundcard software (T-S-C-S), audacity(?), or something else, as one monster WAV file (up to about 450 MB for one side of a C-90 tape)
2. use T-S-C-S or audacity to split the big wav into little wavs if you want separate tracks

then either or both:
3. burn the wav or set of wavs to audio CD using any CD burner software (pick type of "audio CD")
4. if desired, encode as mp3 tracks using LAME or most jukebox / player software, or to AAC using iTunes, or WMA using Windows Media Player. "128 kbps VBR" MP3 will sound decent, probably very close to a good cassette, or you can use a higher rate to be safe.

 

[Bleep]

I have been doing this for a while and I use Goldwave sound editor, there are some open source stuff that works as well but not as good a interface.
Just plug into your soundcard aux in line from the tape out of the player record the whole thing as one track, I then equalise the volume and split the music into tracks and clean off the hisses and other noises that are on the tape then save it to a folder, then I do the next song on the track. This enables you to burn them to a CD as wave files that will play on any cd player and the ability to change to the track (song) that you want to listen to.
I might also mention that there is a good demand fot those that do this kind of thing and a lot of money to be made by doing it.

Bleep

 

[4thman]

Ok thanks for the info. folks.