The short answer is
yes. There is a program out there that will record
cassette tapes or vinyl records to CD. Today, I will show you how.
If you have the right software and the right cords, getting your
cassettes and Vinyl onto your computer, then onto CDs, is a pretty
easy task. Just follow the steps below and you will be on your way
to bringing your audio into the 21st century!
What
you need: To make the conversion, you will need a (free)
audio recording program, a tape or record player and a cord to
connect the device to your computer. Here's a breakdown:
1.
Audacity. This is the program that will record
your audio to your computer.
2.
LAME-encoder. This is a file that will convert
your audio to MP3.
3.
A
record player or cassette player. Hopefully you already
have one of these.
4.
A
cord to connect the player to your computer.The first
step is to install Audacity and LAME,
Now that we
have the software installed, we can look at connecting your tape
player, or record player, to your computer.
Your player
will have one of two types of outputs. You will either have a
standard 3.5mm headphone jack, or RCA audio output jacks.
If your
device has RCA outputs (left image)to connect to your
computer.
If your
device has a 3.5mm jack (right image)
to connect to your
computer.
The other end
of the cable will connect to the line in jack on your
computer
Now that we
have the software installed and the cassette/record player
connected to the computer, let's record something!
Put a
cassette or LP into your player. Get the player to the place where
you want to start recording and pause or stop the
player.
Now, let's
stop messing with all this hardware and get the computer set up.
First, go to your control panel and open your audio
settings.
In XP, go to
the audio tab and click "volume" under sound recording. Place a
check next to "line in". If you don't see a "line in" option go to
options and click advanced. Place a check next to "line in"
there.
In Vista/7 go
to the recording tab. find your line in, select it then choose "set
default". Click on "properties", go to the levels tab and turn up
the level to 80 or 100. (This varies depending on what you are
recording so you may need to adjust this to get it
right).
As you can
see, Audacity is pretty much a more advanced sound recorder. To
begin recording, press the play button on your record/cassette
player then click the red "record" circle on audacity. You are now
recording to your computer! When you are done, click stop on
audacity and press stop on your player.
After
recording, you can now export your audio as an MP3. Go to the file
menu and click "Export as MP3". You can now choose the name of the
file and save to wherever you want. You are done
recording!
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