How to create MP3s from tapes?
 

I have a bunch of old concert tapes that I would like to convert into MP3s so I can listen to them on my ipod. Any good programs for this?

Ideally, I'd like to record them in 45 mins (one side) at a time and then break them into individual tracks on the PC rather than sit there and stop and start the tape for each track.

Any suggestions?

I got a program from Blaze Audio called Wave Creator. This allows you to capture anything you can play on your computer, do some editing/cleanup and save as a .wav or .mp3 file. I have used it to rip my old vinyl and from DVD. Quality is tops.

I've done something similar with the s/w that came with my sound card. There was a 'wave editor' app that let me copy chunks out of a track and save them off separately. I think the Nero suite has this capability.

Any decent 'wave editor' should suffice once you get the .wav file on your pc. I've never input analog into my pc (although I have a great digital sound card for transferring DATs), but that's the key piece....i.e. a sound card that's going to provide a 'decent' AD (analog > digital) conversion.

We use SoundForge (its old, dunno if still available) to record to a wav file, then split to tracks (or get rid of dead space at each end of wav file), then use lame or similar to convert to mp3.

I too use SoundForge, but I believe any .wav editor will suffice. Which soundcard (with analog inputs) is everyone using?

Most are crowd recordings or soundboard anyway. They aren't perfect, so I'm not expecting CD quality. Might be nice to bump the levels up on a couple of them.

Audiograbber can be set to listen out for breaks between tracks when ripping, and will then save each track as a seperate MP3.

OK, I just downloaded this. Any tips for what settings to use for cleaning up some old recordings from tape? Did you buy the add on software?

Considering you're going from cassette to digital, it doesn't really matter how good quality of a sound card you're using, because the cassette will easily be your weakest link. As for cleaning up tape noise, I use Cool Edit Pro (has since become Adobe Audition, which I had a quick look at and didn't bother with). Its built-in noise reduction feature (actually hiss reduction for tapes) is phenomenal once you get used to how it works and get the settings right. It's one of the best noise reducers I've ever used. It takes a while, and it helps if you read the manual to understand what the various parameters are, but it's well worth the 20 minutes or so it takes to figure it out.

You might be able to find a shareware version around somewhere - it used to be available with a 30-day lockout, IIRC, but I have no idea what's happened since Adobe bought them out. There are "found on the ground" copies out there...

That's funny. :) Thanks for the tip.


I haven't listened to some of this stuff in YEARs. So tired of the radio and an 4000 songs in my ipod. This shall bridge tha gap for a while. I have something like 100 bootleg/rare/demo tapes to record.

Funny, I just did this yesterday - converted a tape my brother and I made in 1985 when we were kids. I got a cable that goes from external speakers to the line-in/mic socket of my Macbook, then I used QuickTime to do an audio recording and exported the recording in QuickTime as an MP3. On a PC, I assume you can use Soundrecorder or something similar.

I'm f***ing ecstatic. I finally started getting around to recording my old bootleg and demo tapes into the PC. Some of this stuff I haven't heard in like 10 years. Old Neil Young live tapes, demos of Counting Crows and Smashing Pumpkins. It's like college all over again.

Except I won't bring in the demos from my band(s). We f***ing sucked. Bad.

I didn't buy any of the add ons. My vinyl collection is in pretty good shape. I was always pretty anal about how I handled my albums. Also internet sounds can be pretty good. I didn't really do anything with tape so you will have to experiment. One thing I did discover was the "normalize" effect. I rip my wave files at a fairly low volume so they don't saturate (just like tape) and then I normalize them to get them all about the same volume before I save or convert to mp3.

I encode my mp3s at 256K and have been satisfied with the quality.