Copying audio tapes to mp3 on audio CDs

I have a bunch of French lessons on audio tape cassettes that I
would like to copy to audio CDs. I would prefer mp3 format with
considerable compression, since the content is speech only.

My PC has an auxiliary input on the sound card, which I can
connect to the output of my cassette player. What software
(preferably free) should I use for this task? I have Nero 5 to
burn the CDs.

--
Fred Blau
(Remove SPAM-STOP from e-mail address)

On 14 Mar 2008, "Fred Blau" <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote in
alt.comp.periphs.cdr:

> I have a bunch of French lessons on audio tape cassettes that I
> would like to copy to audio CDs. I would prefer mp3 format with
> considerable compression, since the content is speech only.
>
> My PC has an auxiliary input on the sound card, which I can
> connect to the output of my cassette player. What software
> (preferably free) should I use for this task? I have Nero 5 to
> burn the CDs.

Nero 5 may include an audio recorder - Nero 6 does, called Wave Editor.
It will record the input from your sound card and you can save in MP3
format. If you don't already have that, consider Audacity, a decent
free digital audio editor, available at
<http://audacity.sourceforge.net/>.

Thank you, Nil. I just downloaded and installed Audacity version
1.2.6 for Windows. It looks like a very nice program, so I will
take some time to read some of the tutorial material in the wiki.

Two quick questions (for anyone):

(1) What is the best way to start recording/digitizing from an
audio tape?
Should I just start the recorder, then start the cassette
player, and
edit out any blank space later?

(2) How do I monitor the end of the tape sound (so that I can
stop recording)?
Can I listen to the digitized audio stream while I am
recording it?




On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 22:06:27 UTC, Nil
<rednoise+news@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> wrote:

> On 14 Mar 2008, "Fred Blau" <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote in
> alt.comp.periphs.cdr:
>
> > I have a bunch of French lessons on audio tape cassettes that I
> > would like to copy to audio CDs. I would prefer mp3 format with
> > considerable compression, since the content is speech only.
> >
> > My PC has an auxiliary input on the sound card, which I can
> > connect to the output of my cassette player. What software
> > (preferably free) should I use for this task? I have Nero 5 to
> > burn the CDs.
>
> Nero 5 may include an audio recorder - Nero 6 does, called Wave Editor.
> It will record the input from your sound card and you can save in MP3
> format. If you don't already have that, consider Audacity, a decent
> free digital audio editor, available at
> <http://audacity.sourceforge.net/>.


--
Fred Blau
(Remove SPAM-STOP from e-mail address)

On 14 Mar 2008, "Fred Blau" <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote
in alt.comp.periphs.cdr:

> (1) What is the best way to start recording/digitizing from an
> audio tape? Should I just start the recorder, then start the
> cassette player, and edit out any blank space later?

I'll assume the lessons tape is divided into chapters and you want
to split each chapter into a separate MP3. A possible method would
be...

- Do some test recordings to find the right level. Record a sample
of the loudest part of the tape. Look at the waveform to make sure
the peaks approach the top and bottom of the display, but that they
never exceed it. If that happens, you may get some nasty-sounding
digital distortion. Listen to your sample to make sure it sounds OK
to you.

- record the whole side of the tape, if possible to WAV format. Keep
in mind that this takes up tons of space on your computer. Stereo
recording takes up about 10 MB per minute. Mono, which might be
appropriate for this purpose, would be half that.

- Then select the first chapter with the mouse. Choose File | Export
Selection from the menu. You can choose to export it as MP3.

- Continue with the remaining chapters. Then do the other side of
the cassette. When you're done burning the MP3s to a data CDR, you
can delete the old WAV and MP3 files.

> (2) How do I monitor the end of the tape sound (so that I can stop
> recording)? Can I listen to the digitized audio stream while I am
> recording it?

It depends on your sound card. The easiest way is to use the headphone
jack on the cassette deck, assuming it has one. If you have to, you can
do without monitoring it, just eyeballing the waveform on screen as it
records.

On 2008-03-14, Fred Blau <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote:
> I have a bunch of French lessons on audio tape cassettes that I
> would like to copy to audio CDs. I would prefer mp3 format with
> considerable compression, since the content is speech only.

Audio CDs do not use MP3 compression. 74 minutes per disk.
On the other hand, there are CD players which can play MP3 data cds
which won't play in your usual car or home CD player (but will play
in your TV's DVD player).

For an MP3 CD simply burn the MP3 files to a data CD.

Watch out for problems with support for all MP3 settings.
I like old time radio (old AM broadcasts, so low bitrate,
low sampling rate, mono to handle a lot of data on one CD).
One of my DVD players chokes on them so I usually use 128Kbps,
stereo, 44.1KHz since any MP3 player should be able to handle
that.

Thanks once more, Nil. This helps.


On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 05:23:30 UTC, Nil
<rednoise+news@REMOVETHIScomcast.net> wrote:

> On 14 Mar 2008, "Fred Blau" <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote
> in alt.comp.periphs.cdr:
>
> > (1) What is the best way to start recording/digitizing from an
> > audio tape? Should I just start the recorder, then start the
> > cassette player, and edit out any blank space later?
>
> I'll assume the lessons tape is divided into chapters and you want
> to split each chapter into a separate MP3. A possible method would
> be...
>
> - Do some test recordings to find the right level. Record a sample
> of the loudest part of the tape. Look at the waveform to make sure
> the peaks approach the top and bottom of the display, but that they
> never exceed it. If that happens, you may get some nasty-sounding
> digital distortion. Listen to your sample to make sure it sounds OK
> to you.
>
> - record the whole side of the tape, if possible to WAV format. Keep
> in mind that this takes up tons of space on your computer. Stereo
> recording takes up about 10 MB per minute. Mono, which might be
> appropriate for this purpose, would be half that.
>
> - Then select the first chapter with the mouse. Choose File | Export
> Selection from the menu. You can choose to export it as MP3.
>
> - Continue with the remaining chapters. Then do the other side of
> the cassette. When you're done burning the MP3s to a data CDR, you
> can delete the old WAV and MP3 files.
>
> > (2) How do I monitor the end of the tape sound (so that I can stop
> > recording)? Can I listen to the digitized audio stream while I am
> > recording it?
>
> It depends on your sound card. The easiest way is to use the headphone
> jack on the cassette deck, assuming it has one. If you have to, you can
> do without monitoring it, just eyeballing the waveform on screen as it
> records.


--
Fred Blau
(Remove SPAM-STOP from e-mail address)

Thanks for the tips and the clarification about audio CDs.

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:53:36 UTC, Spamless <Spamless@Nil.nil>
wrote:

> On 2008-03-14, Fred Blau <systematicsSPAM-STOP@verizon.net> wrote:
> > I have a bunch of French lessons on audio tape cassettes that I
> > would like to copy to audio CDs. I would prefer mp3 format with
> > considerable compression, since the content is speech only.
>
> Audio CDs do not use MP3 compression. 74 minutes per disk.
> On the other hand, there are CD players which can play MP3 data cds
> which won't play in your usual car or home CD player (but will play
> in your TV's DVD player).
>
> For an MP3 CD simply burn the MP3 files to a data CD.
>
> Watch out for problems with support for all MP3 settings.
> I like old time radio (old AM broadcasts, so low bitrate,
> low sampling rate, mono to handle a lot of data on one CD).
> One of my DVD players chokes on them so I usually use 128Kbps,
> stereo, 44.1KHz since any MP3 player should be able to handle
> that.


--
Fred Blau
(Remove SPAM-STOP from e-mail address)