Can I use MM to rip Cassette tapes to my HDD as MP3's?

[bunker99]

I'm a newbie and have boxes of cassettes I want to record as MP3's. My PC has a Sound Blaster Creative Audio SD 80 card. What sort of input device do I need and can I use MM to do this? Help Please

[onkel_enno]

MediaMonkey is mainly only for organizing your mp3's.
You can use free Audio-Tools like Audacity to create your mp3s from Line In.

[Lowlander]

You can use a normal audio cable 3.5" to connect to your PC's (soundblaster cards) line in connection.
Now you'll need a tool that can record audio and the by onkel_enno mentioned audacity is one of the best tools.

The process of recording casettes or LP's can be tedious and is a lot of work. So I wish you luck.

PS. There is actually a casette player on the market for inside your PC. If you have a lot of casettes to do you might want to look into that. But if memory serves me well it will run you over $100 US.

[Guest]

Lowlander might be referring to the Plusdeck2c which retails for between $130 - $140. The manufacturers website is here:

http://www.plusdeck.com

Reading around the reviews, it's much more convenient than a pc to stereo hook up but it operates in realtime when copying to wav or mp3 only. And apparently sound quality can be diminished as it doesn't have any noise reduction built in. Interesting, though!

[Teknojnky]

Thats a pretty nifty idea.

If I still had a huge collection of tape I'd seriously consider it.

[rovingcowboy]

its a nifty idea but i think i will stick with the old portable boom box and the patch cord to get them in from tapes.

just if you have a sound blaster sound card they put in the software bundle a wave studio. you can use that to record the songs from tape.

just start a new wav file and then start recording then press the play button on the boom box. that will let you record your tapes.

that is how i do it and i put in 100s of songs a year if not 1000s last year was over 2000 for me which is a lot to do from tapes as it takes twice as long to put them in that way. but when you only have the songs on albums or tapes then that is what you do.

good luck on doing it.

you can get free wav edtiors on line just look for them at the freeware sites or you can go buy one fairly cheep at the brick and morter stores if you really want to get to it and don't have a wav editor then you can use the ms sound recorder,

it depends on how much ram you have to use that one but just start it and then start recording a file. and decrease the speed until you get the file the size you want.

you need to know how many seconds long you want it. then stop the recorder and drag the inducator back to the start postion

"do not close the recorder or you will have to start over again."

now make sure you have your line in mixer un muted an then start the boom box playing your tape make sure you start the recorder before you start playing the tape,.

then when you stop the recorder after the song you get the option to save it in the different formats you want too. it does a fair job just long time when it is one song at a time.

but if your in need of a song now then that is a fast way of getting it with out buying and setting up software.

i got up to 10 minutes of time on my win98 with 225 mbs of ram.

[bunker99]

Thanks for your help everyone. Some cool ideas here. Seems like alot of work, but having boxes of Tapes and NOT wanting to repurchase all the music, it has to be done.

Thanks Again

[rovingcowboy]

you might want to go to my site and check on how to restore the songs when you do add them in to your computer.

some songs need messed with in a wav editor some don't how to mess with them is what i posted on my site.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/rovingcowboy/truck.html

just check the restoring tip also while there you can check my media downloads for the skins for monkey and other players. enjoy.