looking for cassette tape to wav conversion freeware

I currently have a huge stack of tapes that need to be digitized, and I was hoping to find freeware that anyone could use (im talking close to no computer experience).....

I didn't know if any Watmmers here have used this kind of thing extensively (Margaret Thatcher?)....any help would be much appreciated.

you just need a tape player with an audio output and a cable going from that to the audio input on your computer. download adobe audition, set it up properly so it is using your computer's audio in as it's input device (not the built in microphone which will probably be the default setting), press record on adobe audition and press play on your tape player - voila.

you don't need any kind of special software just because it's a cassette tape or anything, it's just a source of audio and is recorded like any other audio source.

ah thanks man, i figured it would be that easy.

Audition should give you the option of recording as a .wav or AIFF or whatever, you can then convert that to MP3 if you desire, but you might need a different program for that - can't remember if Audition does MP3 conversion or not...

Download Audacity, it's free. Make sure you don't overdrive the signal into the computer, you'll get digital distortion.

After the recording, you can "normalize" the whole waveform to get the correct level.

soundbooth (from adobe) is a good piece of software as well. Comes with a set of noise reducing/audio cleaning algorithms.

I think adobe audition is free these days...maybe I meant audacity in the first place...hell, I don't know what I'm saying any more....

Audacity. Plus some kind of line-out from the cassette deck to the computer. i'm doing precisely that today, in fact. recording some ancient audiobooks!

i use goldwave to do this. just run into the audio in on my comp like bcm said. i have an old pirated copy so i have no idea if goldwave is free or not

also, you'll probably want to do noise removal to get rid of tape hiss. if you're careful, you can do it without affecting the quality of the music.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Noise_Removal

yep, I use audacity to this (like ezkerraldean, i got a stack of audiobooks i'm sifting through). it's about as simple as it gets...

and psn made a good point, keep the signal relatively low in case there are spikes of audio on the tape (not so common on tapes that were professionally dubbed but you never know)

Audacity, it's free and does the job well :D

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Do you get the "digital birds" a lot with Audacity noise removal? I've been using WavePad Sound Editor, also free, has the same subtractive method for removal. It works well when there's little noise to be removed, but as soon as there's slightly more than your usual hiss, you always get those glitchy twitch-effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQpoyyo8pg

tutorial/comparison - maybe the dude doesn't set up Audacity right, but it sounds like WavePad does a much better job.

I never used the 2nd noise remove filter the video-guy uses, just gave it a go and got rid of the birds. Result sounds VERY convincing and I used a pretty noisy source too!

So I say, get the free version of WavePad, it doesn't create mp3's but lots of other freeware does, and the noise removal is included. Of course you can also use it to rip your tape.

i've actually never used the one in audacity. i like sony's:

comes with soundforge. also, i remember DART being pretty good:

http://www.dartpro.com/index.html

(wow that's an ugly site)

listening to that tutorial while staring at your avatar is pretty fucked up

Almost all mic/line ins on computers (unless you have a good dedicated soundcard) sound like complete shit. If at all possible I personally recommend recording to a source that isn't your computer, and then ripping from there. If you have a sampler, or a CD recorder, it'd be best.

Personally, I record absolutely everything I do into an SP-404 with an 8 gig SD card, and then put the card in my computer and take the wav files right off, and it sounds perfect.

  On 2/19/2011 at 10:36 PM, ganus said:

Almost all mic/line ins on computers (unless you have a good dedicated soundcard) sound like complete shit. If at all possible I personally recommend recording to a source that isn't your computer, and then ripping from there. If you have a sampler, or a CD recorder, it'd be best.

Personally, I record absolutely everything I do into an SP-404 with an 8 gig SD card, and then put the card in my computer and take the wav files right off, and it sounds perfect.

funny, my computer inputs are just fine. have actually been praised on the clarity of my vinyl rips by many people.

if you're into gadgets:

  On 2/19/2011 at 11:11 PM, oscillik said:

funny, my computer inputs are just fine. have actually been praised on the clarity of my vinyl rips by many people.

Well color me jealous. I've never had a computer with good inputs, even when i used to have a good soundcard.

i'd guess most people here have some sort of audio interface for recording... we are the music makers, after all

edit: except for smettingham

  On 2/19/2011 at 11:34 PM, ganus said:

  On 2/19/2011 at 11:11 PM, oscillik said:

funny, my computer inputs are just fine. have actually been praised on the clarity of my vinyl rips by many people.

Well color me jealous. I've never had a computer with good inputs, even when i used to have a good soundcard.

i don't know but, aren't you being a bit too picky, i mean, it's a cassette ffs, a poor line input wouldn't be that significant.

^

this

i've never used digital noise reduction on a tape after ripping it into the computer, i feel as though it has an effect on the more higher end transients of the material.

It seems that the built in dolby NR filters on tape players work better than software methods, but i'm willing to be convinced otherwise

  On 2/19/2011 at 11:55 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

i don't know but, aren't you being a bit too picky, i mean, it's a cassette ffs, a poor line input wouldn't be that significant.

Trust me, my current soundcard input hums more than the chorus on my JX-3P. It's fucking horrible. Besides, some cassette tapes sound quite clean with a proper player & recorder. Not to say that lofi cassettes aren't charming though, as I did grow up loving cassettes and all their quirks. Sometimes I just want a clean sound off of them.