Converting cassette to mp3?

December 28, 2020 12:24 PM

A very thoughtful friend just sent me some limited-edition cassettes (only 100 sets made, apparently) from an artist I like a lot. Sadly, though, I no longer have any sort of cassette player, having given my last one the old heave ho a few years ago. What's the best way to convert them to mp3 format?

I did some poking around and found that there are converters available, like this one. Does the hive mind have recommendations as to which converters will do this job pretty well and with a minimum of fuss and money?

And actually, I'll buy a converter if necessary, but honestly I'd rather not buy yet another piece of electronic equipment that I probably won't use more than once or twice. Are there services that will do this remotely if I send them the cassettes?

(I'm aware there are other questions about this on AskMe, but the most recent one is from 2011, so.)

Thanks!

posted by holborne to Technology (7 answers total)

If you really don't want to buy another piece of kit, and you're happy to entrust this to a MeFite, I'll gladly do the job for ya. I'm currently digitizing a cassette archive of ~1,200 tapes for a major public radio project, so what's one more in my day? Send me a MeMail if ya like.
posted by mykescipark at 12:44 PM on December 28, 2020 [11 favorites]

A lot of cassette releases these days are sold through bandcamp and include a digital download. You can often buy the digital download separately as well.

You didn't say what the release was so I couldn't dig myself but googling artist albumtitle bandcamp is worth a shot.
posted by noloveforned at 1:05 PM on December 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

There are absolutely services that do this for you. George Blood is one such.
posted by knile at 1:38 PM on December 28, 2020

Thrift stores by me are full of old portable tape players (Walkmans) for less than $10.
That plugged into the mic input with a headphone to headphone cord, recorded with audacity, will get you pretty decent quality .mp3 for probably less than $15.

You can play around with the noise reduction if you want to improve the final product.

Honestly, I bet if you asked a couple of older friends, someone would have a Walkman you could borrow (or have).
posted by madajb at 1:55 PM on December 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

If you have access to a library that remains open, you might try calling the library to ask if there is a cassette player you can use, either to borrow (if you have a portable computer) or use on site.

You will probably also need:

• a cable to connect the cassette player's output to your computer's input [probably 1/8" stereo (male) to 1/8" stereo (male), but possibly RCA (male) to 1/8" stereo]
• audio recording and editing software, such as the previously mentioned Audacity (which works on nearly every platform and can be downloaded for free.)

You'll want to set up the connection between the player and your computer, configure the recording software to use a decent quality level and encouding, then play a typical section of the recording and check the levels to make sure that the input level is neither too low or too high.

Once you have that settled, you can rewind to the beginning, press "play" on the player and "record" on the recorder, and sit back and wait for 20-45 minutes (depending on the length of one side of the tape you have been given), then stop, flip the tape over, and repeat the process.

Once you have a complete recording of each side in WAV format it'll be easy to edit them into separate tracks and export the results as MP3 files.
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:13 PM on December 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

Just noting that someone asked a very similar question recently and got a few satisfactory answers - maybe these will help.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 8:47 PM on December 28, 2020

Response by poster: So yeah, this one turns out to be kind of embarrassing: after reading noloveforned's comment, I googled and yep, this set is available on a couple of streaming services. (It's Tim Barry -- Live 2018, if you're dying to know.) So I can listen to it online; the cassettes have sparkles in them so they're fun to look at even if I can't actually use them (and anyway they're a reminder of my friend, of whom I'm inordinately fond).

mykescipark, thanks so much for the offer -- I would have taken you up on it if I had needed to.
posted by holborne at 1:20 PM on January 2, 2021