Convert Cassettes To Digital Options

[imjagdish]

How can we convert a recorded song in cassette (audio or video) into a digital file?

[Marcilo]

I've no idea how to copy from a video tape to the computer!

Other day i saw HP Dual Core media center at Sam's Club, it has Audio in and Video in jacks along with S-Video jack/input, i guess that can be used too.

[deewani]

I've no idea how to copy from a video tape to the computer!

Other day i saw HP Dual Core media center at Sam's Club, it has Audio in and Video in jacks along with S-Video jack/input, i guess that can be used too.

Ok, this is so not good for all of you people who still think I'm a guy, lol, but here it goes anyways.

My year old VAIO has both rear and front sets of inputs for: s-video, and tradititonal yellow video, white audio left, and red audio right jacks. Instances where these might be useful - if you like to record a lot of different video feeds at once. For example, say you want to watch one TV show, but record another that airs the same time on a replay or tivo, you can do that. I usually keep the replay hooked up to the rear of the computer (as well as the television), I can then save the replay file as mpeg with the Giga Pocket software that comes with Sony, preserving on DVD if desired. At the same time, I can record a third show in the same time slot on the VAIOs built in TV Tuner. And unlike most current "windows media pcs", I am not restricted to wma formats, I can record directly in mpeg2, minimizing transcoding time when burning the DVD. The front inputs I generally reserve to transfer from VHS - good thing if you want to capture audio from a film on VHS as well. Seems to work better than hooking the VHS into the line in audio on the back. I find that most users who have such computers do not use them to their full potential, often not having cable hooked into their tv tuners. I usually don't have any empty inputs, lol. The inputs can also be used for various video cameras.


Most computers will show 3 audio jacks, one microphone, one line in, one headphone, unless you have 5.1 sound, then you will see 5 like the pic above.


As far as the whole cassette to mp3 thing, I wrote this tutorial long ago, adapting it from an old roxio tutorial and it has changed over the years, hope it benefits people, any questions are most welcome.

Before starting, make sure your cassette player is in top condition, using a cassette cleaner and/or demagnetizer before you begin. Also sometimes, minor surgery is required on the source cassette for our wonderfully manufactured desi cassettes, especially if they have been sitting unplayed for years, or are housed in cheap quality plastic. You can remove the reel and put in a good quality casing for the recording.

Turning audio cassettes into mp3s.

Hookups:
Minimizing electric feedback and stray electromagnetic radiation:
- Turn off the computer and stereo when you make you connections.
- Try to make sure that cables do not touch each other to minimize electromagnetic feedback. For example, try and separate audio cable from power cables, etc.
- Keep your cell phones away from the recording area.
- Keep the cassette player as far away as possible from CRT monitors.

Check your cassette player to see if you have LINE OUT RCA jacks.




(Red and White, Right and Left Channel Jacks). You will need an RCA-to-headphone jack (1/8 inch mini jack) cable which can be found at Radio Shack, Fry's, other electronic stores, etc. It will look something like this one: http://www.monstercable.com/productPage.asp?pin=135. (And please, please, make sure it's a STEREO one, it will have 2 ribs, vs mono ones which will have 1 rib.)

Connect the RCA jacks to your cassette player's Line Out jacks (red side to right channel and white side to left channel). Connect the mini 1/8'' headphone size jack to your computer's line in jack (this can be found on the back of the computer, near the headphone/speaker and microphones jacks). You probably have computer speakers hooked up already to the headphone/speaker jack of your computer. These speakers can be used to monitor the way the song sounds. Personally, I like to disconnect them and plug in headphones for better monitoring while recording.

Preparation:
1. Turn on your computer.
2. In Windows XP, go to Start --> Control Panel (in category, not classic view)--> then pick the category: Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices.
3. Under Pick a Task, choose Change the Sound Scheme. A new window will open with the title Sounds and Audio Device Properties displaying the Sound Tab.
4. Before you do anything else, you may want to save your current sound scheme so you can return to it later, so choose Save As... and pick a name and save. Then change the Sound Scheme to No Sounds, click Apply at the bottom, and then OK to close this window. (This is done so that the regular sounds heard during a computer's operation are no longer heard and are therefore not recorded into your song). You can change this back after you are done recording.

5. On taskbar, (near the time and date), double click the speaker/volume icon. A window will open labeled MASTER VOLUME. Under Options, choose Properties. In the Mixer Device, you will see the name of your soundcard, drop down to the rear input so that you see that you can adjust volume for RECORDING. Click OK and you should see a new volume control window labeled RECORDING CONTROL. Under the Line In volume control slider, make sure that you put a check mark next to Select. By doing this, you are telling computer to record this input only. Keep this window open.

6. Now, go back and double click the speaker/volume icon, again to open the MASTER VOLUME window. In the Mute box under every volume slider, put a check mark to mute them – all except the ones for Line In and Master Volume.
7. Now open your program that you will be recording with. For example, if you have Roxio Easy CD Creator, under "make a music CD", choose SoundStream and then Spin Doctor. Alternatively, you can use Adobe Audition (formerly known as cooledit pro). Even if you use Roxio, it's a good idea to open Adobe Audition so you can monitor the sound levels more precisely. I think newer versions of Nero also have wizards for this.
(screenshots of some programs have been added later in the thread).

Recording:
1. It's always a good idea to forward cassettes a few times each side to straighten out the reels. Then go to the song you would like to record and hit play on your cassette player.
2. Now click the record button in Adobe Audition. You will see 2 channels of waves start to form and move to the left. At the top you will also see sound levels in dB – starting with green on the left and increasing to orange and then red on the right. Listen to your song and watch the levels. The goal is to keep the highest part of the song below -3 dB – if it goes into red too much, the recording will be distorted. If the levels are too high, go to the RECORDING CONTROL volume window and slide the volume level under LINE IN a little lower – experiment with this until sound levels look good. You can now stop your cassette and hit stop on Adobe Audition. You can close this file as we are not saving it – it was just to set the sound/input levels.
3. Rewind cassette to before the beginning of your song. Hit play, and then hit record in Adobe Audition. When song has finished, click stop in Audition. Go to File --> Save As. Under "save as type" choose mp3PRO (FhG) (.mp3). Click Options. The following should be selected – CBR (constant bitrate) and MP3, from drop down for encoding, choose 256 kbps, 44100 Hz, Stereo (5.5:1). The rest should be fine. Hit OK to close this window. Now back in the Save As window, name your file (the song's name) and click save to save it to a location you will remember. NOTE: If you would like to back up an entire cassette to CD first, I would record in .wav instead of saving as mp3, that way you won't lose any thing when burning to CD. You can also save another copy as mp3 for the computer.

4. That's it. Now you may need to apply cleaning filters to filter out hiss depending on how the recording turned out. You can also remove blank space in front of the song or cut off the end of the file if you didn't hit record in time – that's all pretty easy to do in Audition. You can also fade in/ fade out the song if you like.
Wrigley Video has an awesome video tutorial you can download and play in wmp that will give you an idea of how to use Noise Reduction in Adobe Audition. While they are trying to do something else, the principal is the same.

For first time recorders, I have to recommend Roxio Easy CD Creator's Spin Doctor which was packed with the older Easy CD Creator 5 versions. This is because if one doesn't know how to clean up a song, it has built-in filters for cassettes and vinyls that you can apply during recording, and preview before you ever hit record. Simply Launch Roxio --> Soundstream -->Spin Doctor. In preferences choose 256 for MP3. Launch Adobe Audition as before to set your sound levels (you can do this in Spin Doctor too, but you get a more precise look at the dB in Audition). But then record in Spin Doctor. Select rear input as source. You can play the cassette, click preview in Spin Doctor to listen to how it sounds. Under sound cleaning settings click the cassette icon. Now you can slide the sound cleaning to less or more based on how the song sounds. While in preview mode, the mute box under the Wave Volume in the Master Volume window will automatically become unchecked. When you hit stop, it will be muted again. When you like the way the song sounds, rewind the cassette and hit record and the song will automatically be cleaned while recording.



Good luck. Again, if anyone has any specific questions, please ask. I've been doing this for more than 4 years now. And I've recorded many cassettes for others on here, they can vouch for the quality of the method. I used to record directly in .wav instead of mp3, simply because the sound editor in roxio only accepts .wav. But since I have Adobe Audition now, I just record in .mp3. If however, you would like to back your source recording to CD first, I would recommend recording in .wav.



As far as transferring from VCR to DVD, there's always those 2-in-1 stand alone VCR/DVD units, but if you have a pc with a tv tuner that can not only record tv, but can also select input(s) for recording, (in my case, I can select rear or front input), you can record anything that comes into the input, exactly as you would record on a vcr from another vcr, or TV. So that's the way I do it, using the tv tuner/recording software that came with the vaio. The quality has been very good, As always these things depend on quality of the source, the cables, and the equipment used. My VCR has s-video out, so I use that instead of the yellow video jack, as it renders superior video quality. I never use anything less than monster cables for all recording hookups.


CNET also has a great tutorial with video for vinyl, but can apply to cassettes as well:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-6226087-1.html
I used to listen to this guy all the time when the Bay Area had CNET radio during the dot com boom, miss that station and all the programs on it, learned lots from there.

Also helpful:
How to digitize records and tapes with Adobe Audition (there is also a link for doing it with GoldWave there).
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/audio/...tion/index.html

[sri]

Ok, this is so not good for all of you people who still think I'm a guy, lol, but here it goes anyways.

The front inputs I generally reserve to transfer from VHS - good thing if you want to capture audio from a film on VHS as well. Seems to work better than hooking the VHS into the line in audio on the back.

great stuff deewani !! this would be useful for many of our members, i'm sure !

...and it is so so good that you're not a guy.........b'cos it kinda restores faith in humankind ..and proves that this kind of thing doesn't have to be considered a male domain

didn;t get the point you made about front audio connections turning out to be better than the rear line-in option...is that from experience or is there another explanation - better quality of connection perhaps ?

..and, which model of VAIO do you use ?

Sri

[deewani]

Thanks for you comments.

I realize that I should clarify something, I certainly didn't mean to imply that the RCA jacks on the front of the computer were any better than the RCA jacks on the back, it's simply convenient to use (and I know you were not asking about that, but just in case someone gets confused about it).

Now as far as the RCA jacks working better than the line in, the only thing I can think of is that the sound card likes the Left to Left and Right to Right connection better, there was less pickup of the internal sounds of the VHS.

And yes, it was from personal experience, I recorded a song from VHS using the same cable I would use for my cassette player, taking Right & Left Audio RCA Jacks and hooking them to the line in jack. I then recorded the same song using a pair of RCA to RCA jacks, connecting Right RCA jack output from VCR to Right RCA jack input on computer, and Left to Left. In both cases, monster cables were used (I avoid the free cables that come with the VCRs like the plague, lol).

I use the PCV RS720G, which I bought at the end of it's model year and got a great deal on, the previous years model PCV RS430G also had the same features. When waiting for the price drop on the 720G, I happened upon a VAIO rep and I asked about the current years models, he said that they are eliminating the second set of inputs for the tv tuner card and are now "windows media pcs". So I was pretty set on getting that particular model. Plus it acts like a second replay unit. If I am not at home, and I realize I want to set a recording for a particular TV show, if I can access the web, I can log in to a website, choose the program I want to record (this is also true for replay users, at least with the older units that dont have subscriptions), and the computer will turn on at the appropriate time, record the program, and then shut off.

Now all this might make people think that I watch a lot of TV but nothing could be further from the truth, lol. I just like to record my Depp interviews before movie releases. And I like to make my own "Bonus DVDs" for other DVDs I buy like Gladiator, Troy, etc. recording various related discovery, history, and biography channel programs, and editing out the commercials. I can't abide commercials so really hate watching live TV.