MediaMonkey forum

Just joined forum today & before I download MM I want to know if I can download Cassettes & LP's?
I have approx 300 Cassettes & would like to download them to my HD. Some of them are up to 25 years old & contain among other music classic Rock & country which is almost impossible to find today
I am older & have very limited knowledge on computors so if it is possible I would need help on what to do.
Thanks in advance for your responses.

champ wrote:Just joined forum today & before I download MM I want to know if I can download Cassettes & LP's?
I have approx 300 Cassettes & would like to download them to my HD. Some of them are up to 25 years old & contain among other music classic Rock & country which is almost impossible to find today
I am older & have very limited knowledge on computors so if it is possible I would need help on what to do.
Thanks in advance for your responses.

You would need special hardware to record cassettes and/or LPs to your computer. MM can only record from CD's, and is mainly meant as a tool for organizing and playing music rather than recording.

If you want to record audio from records/cassettes I suggest you start searching the market for one of these.

nohitter151 wrote:You would need special hardware to record cassettes and/or LPs to your computer.

Not true. If he's got a stereo/cassette deck that has a Phono In on the back and a headphone out and a sound card with a Line In, all he'll need is the appropriate audio cable (1/4" or 1/8" to 1/8", depending on the headphone out of his stereo) and software. Audacity, which is free, will fit the bill nicely. I've recorded a bunch of my old vinyl this way, and it works perfectly.

The big thing is to make sure that the stereo has a Phono input. Vinyl has a special EQ curve applied to it (called the RIAA curve), and the output is at a much lower DB level than a standard line level signal. The Phono input applies the appropriate curve & gain so that it sounds right coming out of the speakers.

In theory, you can even work it without the stereo receiver. Simply hook the turntable up directly to a stereo Mic input (if your sound card has one), and then apply the RIAA curve post-recording in Audacity, but I don't think that sounds quite as good.

champ wrote:.... I would need help on what to do.

Hello champ, here is some more help about Recording Your Cassette To CD.
http://www.acoustica.com/spinitagain/cassette_to_cd.asp
and Transferring LPs to CD
http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm

It'll all take time to set up, and the results may not be very high in quality.
I started but gave up coz the results were so poor.
That is unless you spend a good deal of time tweaking the sound files.
No thanks not for me.
I found it much easier to find my eclectic stuff scattered around the internet.
Then download Remastered versions much better than my cassette originals.

btw fizzjob, an excellent post - well done

SpinItAgain is a great program for recording Tapes/LP's. It does a great job of removing most of the clicks & pops from records. Whatever you use though, if you try to remove the "noise" (the hissing) from the music, don't remove too much, or it will sound very compressed.

You will need a turntable and software. I also use "Spin It Again". I hate their wave editor, and use "GoldWave" instead. Both pieces of software are about $30.

I have 1,000's of records, and quite frankly, the time, effort and quality of the recordings made with this set up is rarely worth it. You have to work in real time, so a 45 minute record takes 45 minutes of your time to record. You have generally boost the volume and take out pops and scratches with a wave editor (10 min). You have to split the tracks (automatic track splitters are not perfect) (10 min.) You have name the new tracks, scan them into MM and convert them to flac or mp3 (10 min).

So for each record, I spend about 1.5 hours.

The used CD of the same record can be as cheap as a couple bucks off ebay or Amazon.

Bottom Line: Unless the record is very rare, then you are better off with CD versions. Exception: Beatles, which is highly compressed over saturated mixes which sound awful on CD.