Gadgetory

there are some great recordings out there that are trapped on cassette tape to rescue them I'm going to show you my preferred method for turning tapes into mp3s now there are dozens of ways to do this but I like this one because it's free and it's fast first step make sure you're dealing with a recording that you can't easily buy on CD or mp3 check eBay check iTunes but avoid the hassle of converting if you can next find the tape deck in the best case scenario you can find one like this one that has RCA outputs and is in good condition an old walkman will do too if you're not too picky now figure out how the deck is going to connect to your computer in this case I have RCA output coming out of the tape deck and a mini Jack stereo mic going into the PC if you have an older PC with a blue line input that's the preferred way to go if your computer doesn't have a line input like this Mac you'll need to get a USB audio adapter don't go overboard you can find solutions for under $50 next install a free program called audacity which is available for both Mac and PC once that's installed let's do a sample recording to make sure everything is working check up here to make sure that the recording input is set to where the tape deck is connected if you're using the mic input turn that mic gain all the way down to line level now hit record and hit play on the tape deck and if all goes well you should see the waveform of the tapes audio right in front of you after a few seconds hit stop and listen back to the recording to make sure it sounds ok assuming it does you're ready to do the whole thing rewind the tape hit record on audacity press play on the tape and now just let the whole side play through don't forget to stop recording when it's over now listen back to the recording to make sure everything checks out to maximize the volume I'm going to go into the Edit menu and select all and then go into the effect menu and select amplify by default it will set itself to the maximum amount this recording can be boosted before distorting hit okay next comes the real pro move that will cut the project time in half instead of individually copying and pasting each song into its own file we're going to drop markers at the beginning of each song and then export them all in one batch I'll find the beginning of the first song and click on the waveform to place the cursor there then go to the tracks menu and select add label at selection since this is the first song I'll label it number one now do this for the rest of the tracks numbering them as you go typically you can eyeball this by looking at the spaces between tracks but be sure to double-check your markers a dramatic pause in the middle of a song can easily fake you out if you want to do this really fast learn the keyboard shortcut for adding a label on a PC control B will let you fly through this when you get to the end trim the silence off of the last track by selecting the silence and hitting delete finally use the export multiple command in the file menu you'll see an intimidating screen of options but all you need to worry about is that the export format is set to wave and that the export location is somewhere handy I would opt for a new folder on your desktop hit export and you'll be shown a series of windows where you can enter and track information I have a better method for adding track information which I'll show you at the end so for now make sure that the numbers you labeled each track appear here as the track names if so just hit OK on each one of them to close them now audacity will export individual WAV files for each of the tracks you labeled on side a now you can flip your tape over and go through the same recording process with side B just make sure you pick up the numbering where you left off at the end of side a once you have WAV files both sides of the tape is time to start archiving them and converting them into mp3s now with a few tweaks you could have it so that you're exporting mp3s right out of audacity me though I'm going to make iTunes my last stop so that I can archive my high quality wav files to CD convert to mp3 and add track info more quickly so let's do it make a new playlist and name it after your tape drag your files on to this playlist to add them to iTunes and wait for them to pull over make sure they're in the right order and then right click on the playlist to burn the files to CD you'll see options here to burn them as either an audio CD that you can play in a CD player or a data CD where you can copy the files to another computer either one is fine for the job of archiving so it's up to you burn it label it file it away now to convert these to mp3 go into the iTunes preferences open the import settings and make sure that the import format is set to mp3 at whatever quality you want hit OK and go back to your playlist select all of the tracks right-click and select create mp3 version when that's done click on your music library and sort by date added to see the mp3 versions of the songs you just created at the top of the list above the high quality wav versions select just the mp3 versions by holding down the shift key and then go up to the file menu and select get info now you can enter in the artist and album info for all the tracks at once and even add cover art then hit OK to enter the individual track names select just one of the tracks and get info go into the info pane and enter the track title then hit next enter the next title all the way through to the end when you're done hit OK that's it you're done you have an mp3 version of your tape plus a playlist and a backup CD of the high-quality wav files for more tips like these visit how to see Netcom and if you have any tips for me or requests for other how to's you can find me on Facebook and Twitter for cnet.com I'm Donnell bail you