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What's the easiest way to transfer old tapes to my laptop?

do you have a tape deck? If so plug it in the amp, line out from the amp into the mic socket on your lappy, and use some software like Audacity (free) to record it. I think there's threads on this already...?
 
Yup, Okidoke will give it a blast. I'm sure I tried that before and failed but that was with an older laptop. I'll try again. Cheers :)
 
savoloysam said:
Yup, Okidoke will give it a blast. I'm sure I tried that before and failed but that was witposth an older laptop. I'll try again. Cheers :)
Click to expand...

post if you have problems. Audacity can be sliightly tricky. Note that it exports as WAVs and that you have to install an MP3 LAME encoder in order to be able to export as MP3. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq_i18n?s=install&i=lame-mp3

Also check what the quality of the MP3 as export you want is - it defaults to 112kbps or something, so if you want higher you need to find the option and change it.

check the record levels in audacity - the mic port on a laptop is sensitive, so often the amp doesnt need to be loud at all. The waveform on audacity should be well clear from the edges.

If looks liek this may be distorting so lsiten back firsrt
audacity-software-2.jpg


This is better

audacity.jpg

If you have an external audio card you may find it a right pain to get audacity to read the signal. My PC with external soundcard cant record in Audacity, and I spent a long time trying...others have the same problem.

Last thing is hum - some laptops record with earth hum - its to do with laptop power supplies - the solution is plugging it into a euroconvertor. If you have this problem post and I'll dig out the full details ;)
 
Thanks dude. Gotta finish compiling what I want to record first. Will let you know how it goes once i get into. sometime next week probably.
 
ska invita said:
Last thing is hum - some laptops record with earth hum - its to do with laptop power supplies - the solution is plugging it into a euroconvertor. If you have this problem post and I'll dig out the full details ;)
Click to expand...

Or the free and easy way is just run your laptop on its battery while you're recording :)
 
ska invita said:
do you have a tape deck? If so plug it in the amp, line out from the amp into the mic socket on your lappy, and use some software like Audacity (free) to record it. I think there's threads on this already...?
Click to expand...

Darn, knew it would happen but again I'm struggling. Firstly the mic input will only record mono. So accepting this happen I still can't get much joy.

Have connected casette to line in and lined out into mic. There is two options for 'mic' internal and external. I did seem to get it working for a few seconds but the playback was very faint. I'm not sure what settings I had it on but neither seem to work now :confused:

Is there something easier than Audacity to use although I'm sure it's very useful it's also very confusing!
 
Yeah mono is an issue - i only noticed that the other day :mad: Anyone know a way around that?

Where are there two options for 'mic' internal and external in audacity? You need to go to Edit - Preferences - Devices and get the mic set up there. Its usually very sensitive on the signal, but theres a mic signal strength fader on the top right of the main window display... sorry, hard to help at a distance. Theres audacity's help section online too. Audacity is as easy as anything else out there tbh.
 
Cheers all. I have one particular tape. A 16yr old demo cassette of when I played in a band. I'm going to bite the bullet with that one and take it to a local studio where hopefully they can clean it up a bit and cut it straight to CD.

I need a special cable and will try again with the external soundcard for the others.
 
I've recorded the out-put from tape to a wav/mp3 recorder (Edirol 109, which can record upto 48.0 kHz, as a wav file). It's an easy option only if you have one of course. Then transfer via SD card to computer, to clean-up, edit etc.
 
Yay with the aid of an external soundcard I'm finally getting somewhere, good lord just as my head was going to explode :D
 
OK problem I'm having now is if I plug the tape directly into the soundcard it works but if I do it via my tape>amp>soundcard nothing :facepalm:

All cables pointing and set correctly. Some of the tapes are poor quality so using my amp and EQ helps massively to bring out the bass etc.

Any ideas?
 
savoloysam said:
OK problem I'm having now is if I plug the tape directly into the soundcard it works but if I do it via my tape>amp>soundcard nothing :facepalm:

All cables pointing and set correctly. Some of the tapes are poor quality so using my amp and EQ helps massively to bring out the bass etc.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

thread about sampling tapes ..cool it's like 1984

Sample the tape, then use the audio recording program to normalise it to get full volume, then run it through the onboard equaliser
 
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