Recording From AM/FM Cassette Walkman's To Hard Drives

[MegoMan]

I know this has been covered before, but I need a refresher course. How exactly would I hook an AM/FM cassette walkman up to my computer to transfer recordings from cassettes and to record from AM/FM radio to my hard drive?<P ID="signature">______________
"I look out for me and mine."-Capt. Malcom "Mal" Reynolds in Serenity</P>

 

[MattBAA]

> I know this has been covered before, but I need a refresher
> course. How exactly would I hook an AM/FM cassette walkman
> up to my computer to transfer recordings from cassettes and
> to record from AM/FM radio to my hard drive?
>
It's fairly easy if your computer has a seperate sound card. You'll need a double male patch cord taken from your radio to the input of the sound card.

Then you need a recording program like Audacity, Adobe Audition, Sound Forge or Polderbits. The only one that is free is Audacity.

Adjust your the volume control on your radio, open up the recording program, set up the input level, and hit the record button. (In some programs, you may have to start it and then adjust the input level)

You also may have to choose within the program the input device, such as mic, auxilary or line. Pick LINE)

Good luck and happy recording!<P ID="signature">______________

Co/Moderator: New York,Miami,Airchecks,Classic Radio and Where Are They Now?</P>

 

[WaGaGa]

> I know this has been covered before, but I need a refresher
> course. How exactly would I hook an AM/FM cassette walkman
> up to my computer to transfer recordings from cassettes and
> to record from AM/FM radio to my hard drive?

It's fairly simple. Go to Radio Shack and buy a cord to connect from your "Walkman" headphone jack to the sound card jack in the back of your hard drive.
(You'll have to do some playing around so see which jack is the right one...)
Make sure the line-in in your volume control/sound card software is not muted.
Try differnt jacks in the back until you hear the walkman audio coming out of your PC speakers.

To record the audio coming from the walkman into your PC's soundcard, you'll need sound recorder software. I use Sound Forge but there are plenty of freewares you can use to record to wav or mp3. Can anybody recommend one?
Sound Forge records to (the better quality, but larger) wav file. I then convert to mp3. But to avoid confusion...i'm sure there are softwares that record straight to mp3. Make sure you record them to the best quality possible (128kbps, minimum...personally, i dont like checks under 128). Also...when recording, remember to mute your PC desktop "sounds" (mouse clicking, website sounds etc...) or your aircheck will include many surprises!

Let me know if this was not clear enough...and good luck!

 

[PSAIRCHECKS]

> I use Sound Forge but there are plenty of freewares you can use to
> record to wav or mp3. Can anybody recommend one?

JetAudio works good for me and is free.
http://www.blazeaudio.com/wmp7/

Then to edit. MP3DirectCut is a free program that only edits mp3's but very easy to use, I use it mostly for breaking down long airchecks into normal times such as 79min. for CD and 90 min. for cassette length. Available free here:

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.mpesch3.de/>http://www.mpesch3.de/</a>

Hope this helps and like Matt and WaGaGa said there are other free programs out there.

 

[SteveNYC]

Re: SOFTWARE - Recording From AM/FM Cassette Walkman's To Hard Drives

my .02 on software:

I use Freecorder (free but then $20 for full version) for recording ... I must say that I can do 50 other things on the PC and it doesn't crash/freeze, it just keeps running, and doesnt seem to take away memory for doing anything else. I've pushed it to 16-18 hours of recording w/o problem.
Then, I use Cool MP3 Splitter (14 days free, then 10$), i use it to split or join mp3's.
I have used Audacity and found it to be slow and resource intensive relative to the above. Jet Audio is ok, but I don't find any advantage to OGG vs. MP3. I admit though that I am no purist for sound quality - ogg and mp3 sounded the same to me.

hth,
Steve

 

[Chad]

Re: SOFTWARE - Recording From AM/FM Cassette Walkman's To Hard Drives

> my .02 on software:
>
> I use Freecorder (free but then $20 for full version) for
> recording ... I must say that I can do 50 other things on
> the PC and it doesn't crash/freeze, it just keeps running,
> and doesnt seem to take away memory for doing anything else.
> I've pushed it to 16-18 hours of recording w/o problem.
> Then, I use Cool MP3 Splitter (14 days free, then 10$), i
> use it to split or join mp3's.
> I have used Audacity and found it to be slow and resource
> intensive relative to the above. Jet Audio is ok, but I
> don't find any advantage to OGG vs. MP3. I admit though
> that I am no purist for sound quality - ogg and mp3 sounded
> the same to me.
>
> hth,
> Steve
>
Just a couple more notes. There should be a volume icon in the taskbar on your desktop. If you double click on that, a box called "volume control should pop up. From there, click on the options tab and go to Properties. Another dialog box should pop u. Click on Recording. This will show a list of items you can control. Make sure Line in is checked. Then click OK. The recording volume controls will now show up. From there, check the line in box, not stereo mix or mono mix. This will enable you to record ONLY the line in and no other sounds.

Also, if you have a stereo system with an am/fm tuner and a cassette deck, this may give you better quality than a walkman.