record sound from tape to hard drive
 

Hello!
I want to record sound from a tape audio cassette to my hard drive. I have a Panasonic cassette tape recorder with sockets for phones and CD (left and right). Is it possible to record the sound from a tape that is played in the cassette recorder, to my hard drive without using my computer microphone? If yes, what software do I have to use?

Thanks for your attention.
Regards,
Martin

For software, I dunno, I know it exists. Google for 'sound recording' or look on this forum, the question has been answered before.

On the hardware side, you can feed the signal from the phones output into the the 'line in' of your computer. Try to adjust the input gain in your computer to 50%, and then adjust the sound output of your tape recorder to peaks of 80% in your recording application. Be very keen to detect distortion. On one side, record as loud as possible to decrease noise, on the other hand, one loud peak can spoil your recording as it immediately causes distortion. If your signal level is not high enough, try to use the mic input of your sound card, disable '20 db boost' if your soud card has that, and start with zero output from your cassette recorder. Be careful!

If you phone is 3.5 mm plug get a cord with such plugs on each side. If it has 6.3 mm output, you should be able to find a 6.3 to 3.5 mm adapter.

jlinkels

Make sure your tape player has line-out jacks. Those those to connect your tape player to your sound cars line-in jacks. For software to record and save the songs as mp3, use audacity and lame. I have converted all my tapes into mp3 here and it worked great. Keep in mind that the better the sound card, the better the sampling will be and the better the end product will be.

Keith

As for software, you could try out Audacity. With that software, you can record audio (even several tracks), edit the audio, and save in several different formats.

You'll find it here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

- Ingar

Thank you for your replies. I followed your instructions and started recording with audacity. The sound quality really satisfies me. In alsamixer I unmute everything to 100%. However I still do not understand some of your suggestions:

1. adjust the input gain in your computer to 50%
2. adjust the sound output of your tape recorder to peaks of 80% in your recording application
How do I do these in practice?

Here are the setting in audacity that I currently use:

Playback Recording
Device: ALSA Device: OSS:/dev/dsp
Using: Portaudio v19 Channels: 2(Stereo)

Sampling
Default sample rate: 96000 Hz
Default sample format: 3-bit float

Conversion
Sample rate convereter Dither
Real-time: High-quality sinc interpolation None
High-quality: High quality sinc interpolation Shaped

Please let me know if you have better suggestions, e.g. do you recommend changing some settings to improve recording quality.

Regards,
Martin

All what I said using those numbers referred to audio level.

The 'input gain' refers to the 'Line in' level on the mixer panel on the computer.

The 80% peak level can be seen with the VU meter application, you know those green/yellow/red bars which light up according to audio level. Maybe Audacity has something as well to tell you what the level peaks are, I can't remember.

If there is an 'auto volume' setting you should avoid using that. It is ok for speech, but it will remove the dynamics from music.

jlinkels

I am sorry for the stupid question, but what is the mixer panel of the computer? Do I control it by alsamixer? I mean what application should I use to adjust the input gain?

The mixer is a panel with a number of buttons you can shift up and down to increase/decrease the volume of various sources.

Therer are a number of mixers in your start menu under "Multimedia". I think AlsaMixer is one of them, but you also have KMix (if you use KDE). It doesn't matter that much, mixers look different but they all control your sound card, regardless of which one you use.

Mixers can look totally different dependent on the sound card that you have. But that doesn't matter either.

Most mixers use different tabs one for input and one for output. You need to look at the input tab and control the volume of Line In.

If you use KDE there should be an application which is named 'VU meter'

Never mind! I just checked AudaCity and it has a VU meter and input level control built in! On the top in the middle/right of the window. You have everything on hand. Just make sure the level meter of the input level peaks at about 80%

jlinkels

Mr Jlinkels,
Thank you very much for your responsiveness and collaboration! Now everything is clear to me.

Regards and best wishes,
Martin

Just a small correction.
Recording at "80%" is a good enough guide line if you have no exact dbu meter in the program. If you do, you should keep the peaks at -18db That is what AD converters are made for. Going above that will not cause clipping until you go above 0db, but it will color the sound. On some sound on board cards the noise level is so high, that you might want to go higher, but with a good consumer or semi-pro equipment I would stick to the -18db rule.