This "Barely the Basics" grandma needs a detailed,step by step instruction for converting her tapes to CD's. Daughter was here (now left) and bought Nero 6 Ultra but that assumes you're a whizz.
I need to know how to make tracks also as prefer "random". Everything is hooked up but when I play back what I thought was recorded--its silent. Yet the time is rolling on the meter. If you can't help me--do you know who can? Cannot find a detailed instruction book for this model on the Web.
Try this, I ran across this the other day from a web site www.komando.com (a computer info site)from Thursday June 23 "tip of the Day" Hope it helps.
Q. Kim, I'm an old coot with a bunch of cassette tapes that I want to|
convert to CDs. I can't just plug them into my computer and make an
MP3. My combo CD writer drive has pink, green and yellow ports. Is
there something I can use to do this?
A. Yes, you can turn your old tapes into music files or CDs. And you
won't have to buy a bulky, expensive appliance to do it. But it will
take a few tools and some patience.
First, you'll need an ordinary cassette tape player. Then you'll need
a cable to connect it to your computer. You can get audio cables at
most electronics stores. The average cost is $5 for a six-foot cable.
You'll most likely use a male-to-male audio cable. Both ends look like
headphone plugs. These plugs are also known as 1/8-inch or 3.5mm.
Plug one end of the cable into your tape player's line-out jack. If
your player doesn't have this jack, try the headphone jack. Plug the
other end into your computer's line-in or microphone jack. The colored
ports on your computer probably include line-in and microphone. Check
your manual.
The line-in and microphone jacks actually belong to your computer's
sound system. Almost all retail computer models include them. Sound
systems are responsible for any music or sound effects you hear.
Now test your connection. First, make sure that your computer's
line-in is not muted. Click Start>>Control Panel. Double-click Sounds
and Audio Devices. Select the Volume tab. Under "Device volume," click
the Advanced button. Under Line In, make sure the Mute box is not
checked. Then turn on your tape player. The player's sound should make
its way to your computer's speakers.
The last part you'll need is a recording program. Audacity is a robust
free program that can handle the recording. You can find it at
audacity.sourceforge.net. Popular software titles Musicmatch and Nero can also handle line-in recording.
To begin with Audacity, click the drop-down box on the right side. It
will offer options for the recording source. Select Line In. Click the
red record button. Then start your tape player. After each song, click
the yellow stop button. Click on the file menu. You can save the song
with one of the Export As options.
For example, you can choose Export as WAV. From there you can start
burning your music to CDs. Most music programs, such as RealPlayer and
Windows Media Player, will burn CDs that work in regular CD players.
To make an MP3, let?s say you?re going to use RealPlayer. You can
download it from the Real site at www.real.com. Follow the
instructions above to save a song as a WAV file. Then start
RealPlayer. In RealPlayer, Click File>>Add Files to My Library. Find
and highlight your song. Click the Open button.
Click View>>My Library. Select your song from the list (it might be
the only one). Click Tools>>Convert Media Format. Under Format, select|
MP3. Then click the OK button. You can use RealPlayer to burn CDs that|
will play in regular CD players.
Depending on the size of your cassette collection, this could take a
while. But once you get the hang of it, you'll probably enjoy it.
I use a walkman, a connecting cable, and Audacity to do the job. Simple, easy, plus very good results. Unfortunately, not much help from the manual. So I'm adding a few things here:
1) After Audacity is up, click box at top right corner to specify source (e.g. line-in, mic). Also, click small box next to the mic. icon and set to 'monitor input'. Now you can play the tape and see if you're receiving audio from the speakers. If so, then you're ready to record.
2) You can actually record through the whole tape, then cut and save individual titles by: a) use left mouse button to highlight the wave profile of the title (you can use the zoom function to adjust the size of the profile), then press 'cut' button; b) unselect by clicking left mouse button again, then press 'paste' button. You'll see that the selected title would be displayed on a new window. Now you can choose from 'file' to export the selected title as wav or mp3.
I have recently turned many of my 20-30 years old tapes into cdr this way. Lots of fun.
I used neromix and audacity with a mini-y adapter.Recorded the tape directly to the computer using neromix and a stereo to amplify the sound coming in.Tried a walkman at first but it was too weak to push the sound bars in the program.After the whole tape was saved to the computer I could play it back in media player.It was just on continuos track.I didn't enhance the sound but atleat I had it on the hard drive. I then tried audacity to split the track and undo dead air inbetween tracks and it worked great.
