A Coolbuster Exclusive: How to Transfer Audio from Cassette Tape to CD or DVD
Audio cassette tapes are obsolete these days. With affordable CDs ("Compact Disc") and DVDs ("Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc") readily available in the market, we are not anymore interested in buying cassette tapes to record audio.
Storing or recording sounds on CDs and DVDs gives much more convenience considering the high quality audio recording and storage capabiliities these discs have compared to cassette tapes.
But what if your most treasured audio or song collections were recorded on cassette tapes? Like you have a bunch of them in the shelf, clean or dusty these may be. You want to get rid of these tapes and thought of transferring the audio files on a CD or DVD for a longer life span.
Storing or recording sounds on CDs and DVDs gives much more convenience considering the high quality audio recording and storage capabiliities these discs have compared to cassette tapes.
But what if your most treasured audio or song collections were recorded on cassette tapes? Like you have a bunch of them in the shelf, clean or dusty these may be. You want to get rid of these tapes and thought of transferring the audio files on a CD or DVD for a longer life span.
You went to the recording studio. The audio technician tells you that the recording will cost one dollar for each song for example. You got fifty tapes and each tape has ten of your most precious favorites. That is already five hundred dollars ($500). Wew! You backed out and thought of other ways as remedy.
Take that as a problem no more. I have a self-made guide on how to transfer audio from cassette tape to CD or DVD.
First, you need the following:
- A desktop computer or laptop with a separate or built-in sound card
- Audacity
- Cassette player
The procedure, exclusively from Coolbuster:
- Download Audacity - a free open source software for recording or editing sounds / audio. See also my post regarding this software.
- Install Audacity.
- Connect your RCA Jack - Baby Plug from your cassette output to your desktop / laptop computer's sound card, specifically in the "line in" slot.
- Open Audacity. In the box provided for audio input selection choose Line In.
- Click the microphone icon at the upper right part of the Audacity window. You will see a red level indicator if the audio is being recorded.
- Click the red circle recording button after the play button, and then play the tape.
- Wait until all of the audio is recorded before you click the stop button. You can edit the audio with Audacity afterwards.
- To save it in your computer, go to File menu \ Export as WAV. In case you want to save your file as mp3, you need to download and add this file to your Audacity folder or your windows / system directory.
- Save your audio file on the desktop or your desired folder.
- Burn that file to your CD or DVD.
That's it. Pretty simple isn't it? You are now free from the hassles of going to the recording studio and the high cost of professional audio recording / editing. If you have a computer, you can do it yourself at home.
Screenshots
