Cassette to Digital transfer?

Norm Apter

Recently while packing things up for a move I stumbled across a number (5 or 6) of bootlegs of old Dave Matthews concerts (circa 1992-94), mostly recorded at small clubs in Virginia, on cassette tapes. I recall that the last time I acquired these was 1995 or so and though I haven't listened to these in over a decade I remember them being excellent (much preferable to anything on their studio albums, thoughthe sound quality varied).

I don't even own a cassette player any more but given that I'd like to listen to these once again I was wondering about options for doing so. Is there technology available to the masses for converting cassette tape to digital files? I'm talking either equipment or even fee-based services (i.e. you hand in a tape and they transfer it to digital files).

Or is my best bet to just look for a used cassette player at Goodwill / Salvation Army or something? The only reason I thought of the digital transfer was that it would guard against the degredation of these (which cassettes seem to do).

If anybody has any ideas (or even experiemented with such a project), please let me know.

audiobliss

I have experimented with it before, and have transferred two tapes, I believe, to my computer just connecting a portable cassette player to an input on my computer and using a free program that started with an 'a' but I can't remember the name at the moment.

It's been quite a while, so I can't elaborate. However, I do have quite a few tapes I would love to convert still, so I will join you in eagerly anticipating further comments!

audiobliss

Audacity is the program I used. HERE's their website.

Norm Apter

audiobliss wrote: »

I have experimented with it before, and have transferred two tapes, I believe, to my computer just connecting a portable cassette player to an input on my computer and using a free program that started with an 'a' but I can't remember the name at the moment.

It's been quite a while, so I can't elaborate. However, I do have quite a few tapes I would love to convert still, so I will join you in eagerly anticipating further comments!

Cool. Thanks for the info. This is a great start.

Allow me to ask two follow up questions. First, do you recall what sort of cord / cable you used to hook the cassette player up to your computer (and which ports you used)?

Second, how was the sound of the digital file when you played it back. Did it sound exactly the same or does Audacity have some tools to help you tinker with it?

audiobliss

Sicne I was just using a portable cassette player, I just used a 1/8" to 1/8" male/male cable to connect it to an audio input on my computer. Nothing fancy there.

From the looks of it Audacity has quite a bit you can do with it from the get go, and a lot of plug-ins you can download to do even more. However, I didn't mess with any of the editing before, I just recorded and then converted some to MP3 (I assume when I did it before it just recorded to .WAV as default).

I don't remember being very critical of the sound quality (it's been quite a while ago), but as I recall it sounded just fine.

Just like you, I'm concerned with my tapes wearing out and me losing some music that I only have on cassette, so even if it's not the greatest SQ, I'd love to be able to 'preserve' them digitially.

audiobliss

Bumpity to the top.

Norm Apter

audiobliss wrote: »

Sicne I was just using a portable cassette player, I just used a 1/8" to 1/8" male/male cable to connect it to an audio input on my computer. Nothing fancy there.

From the looks of it Audacity has quite a bit you can do with it from the get go, and a lot of plug-ins you can download to do even more. However, I didn't mess with any of the editing before, I just recorded and then converted some to MP3 (I assume when I did it before it just recorded to .WAV as default).

I don't remember being very critical of the sound quality (it's been quite a while ago), but as I recall it sounded just fine.

Just like you, I'm concerned with my tapes wearing out and me losing some music that I only have on cassette, so even if it's not the greatest SQ, I'd love to be able to 'preserve' them digitially.

This sounds good. I checked out their website and forum briefly. I'm glad that these resources are available and appreciate your pointing me in the right direction. Now I just need to decide whether I should purchase a portable cassette recorder or just wait until the holidays to do it at my parents house, as they have Sony cassette deck that is in very good shape.

Does anyone else on here have any experience working with Audacity or any other similar software? Any tips or observations for making these transfers?

heiney9

I used Abdobe Audition to transfer about 30-40 Led Zeppelin bootlegs. This was about 6-7 yrs ago. It's a very tedious job if want to edit and add track indexing and splice sides A and B together to use the full capacity cdr's offer, etc. Is there anyway to get these same shows from a bit torrent or fan blog? That would be far easier, but in the end you need a decent audio capture program (assuming you want to edit it for cd, inclduing cue points, length, etc.) a nice soundcard, a cable and a cassette deck. Remember the inital transfer has to be done in real time and WAV files take up a decent amount of space.

H9

P.s. I used a Nakamichi deck with great results. I have since gotten digital versions of all of my Zeppelin bootlegs (300+ in all) but I still have boxes and boxes of cassette bootlegs I can't bring myself to get rid of.

heiney9

Most of the audio capture programs have a myriad of tools for altering or manipulating the sound. Unfortunatley since cassettes are 2 channel (l and r) you are very limited as to what you can do vs. a multi-track source

As far a chord that depends on your sound card. Nicer sound cards will have RCA outputs but most economical SC's will have 1/8" headphone type jack. In that case you need 1/8" jack on one end and RCA's (for the cassette deck output) on the other.

Sound? Mine turned out really, really good because I was using an excellent cassette deck and nice sound card. Sound will be determined by the quality of the sound card and it's A/D conversion capabilities and the cassette deck itself and finally by the recording quality/condition.

Hope this helps

H9

Norm Apter

heiney9 wrote: »

Is there anyway to get these same shows from a bit torrent or fan blog?

This is also a great idea that didn't occur to me. I just found one that lists hundreds if not thousands of torrents of early shows. It will take some wading through them, but perhaps I can first try to locate these same shows and then, if not, pursue the cassette to digital transfer you mentioned.

Heiney, downloading torrents is a new experience for me. I tried to download one just to see how it works but it seems I am missing some software (or maybe just knowledge) and can't find it.

I clicked on a link that reads (for example):
Click here to download 1993-01-26 - Trax, Charlottesville.torrent.

When I did so and saved it, I notice that the file is only 20.4 kb (although the file size is listed as 938.1 mb next to the download link). Now when I try to open the downloaded torrent, I get a message indicating that I don't have the requisite software or something to that effect to open/play it and asking whether I'd like to search the web. I'm operating off of Microsoft Vista so I guess I'm wondering if either there is some step I need to take to extract the files or if I need to download some sort of software before I can convert and extract files.

Any idea what the problem(s) may be?

audiobliss

What you did was download the 'shortcut' so to speak to the file. When you're downloading torrents you have to have a program that will read that shortcut, which directs it to a server online, and then it commences downloading the actual file.

There are several programs but the simplest and maybe most popular is uTorrent.

http://www.utorrent.com/

Download that, then when you click on 'save' for those files you find, utorrent will automatically open and start downloading.

madmax

I have used a stand alone CD recorder to record vinyl, that works pretty nice if someone close by happens to have a recorder. Another tip for cassette decks. If the tape does not sound its best (and they normally don't) you can tweak the play head allignment to match the particular tape exactly by turning the adjustment. You would do this because often times the head was not set exactly when recorded.
madmax

John30_30

I was doing this a year ago quite a bit, and learned some tricks. The actual transfer process is pretty straightforward, the problem with 20 year old magnetic tapes is the quality degrades.
What I found out is this is caused by humidity which seeps into the magnetic resin or powder, or whatever you call it that's bonded on the actual tape.
That craps things up. Decent tape players are pretty cheap these days, so you can play the oldies through once and get an idea how it has held up.

The fix for it is to bake them at a constant temp of 130-135 F, for something like 4 hours or so in a convection oven. 2 things here: you need to go out and get the right kind of thermometer, which is cheap enough at the hardware store.
The other thing is that for mine, the cases were melted like they used to when left out in the car on a hot summer day. If the case is deformed enough, the tape won't play. Obviously.

So you cannibalize a (worthless) tape for its case and be really careful with that itty-bitty phillips and the itty-bitty common screwdriver prying the case apart that it doesn't all fly up in your face.

Migrate the baked tape into the 'new' case, tighten the screws down, and slap it in the player, it's going to be as good as what the restorers do.

The tape will be really good for a week or two, then it supposedly starts to degrade again, so don't wait too long to do the transfer after baking.

To double-check the info (I've mostly remembered) here, google it. There were 2 sites I found, pro's who do it for a fee, and they provided the details about baking the humidity out.

I'm pretty sure I read that the Beatles Remasters that just recently came out had to have some baking done on some of their old master tapes- obviously not cassettes, but same basic material, same principle.

This has been Baking Fun in The Audio Kitchen with your host, John30_30.
Tune in next week as we discuss deep-fat frying capacitors in machine oil for a more fully, rounded sound!
(cue Theme song.) Fade out.

heiney9

I'm not sure the contents of these cassette tapes is worth all the effort of "baking" as I'm sure Norm will be able to find digital copies somewhere on the internet with a little effort and luck.

Yes, this is extremely effective as it's exactly the process they used with all the masters used to compile the Led Zeppelin DVD. The tapes were baked for days and as JP stated they had one shot to do the digital transfer. Very, very painstaking process used on tapes that sat in a warehouse for 30-40 years with no intention of ever being used; ie; no precautions taken over the years to preserve them.

Norm, working with cassette tape out of the shell is a real **** as it's so tiny and hard to work with. If it was on premium cassette tape like Metal or High Bias TDK or Maxell chances are it's till in good shape. I have some TDK and Maxell tapes close to 20 years old that still sound great.

H9

John30_30

Yup, it's a matter of sentimental value and whether he can find the same thing elsewhere.
The odds were pretty high against for mine, so I went to all that hassle, and learned something along the way.

Norm Apter

A couple of things.

Well, I'm miles away from where I was just 24 hours ago when I first posted about this issue. Believe it or not, I had never even heard of bit torrent then and had no idea of these kinds of websites.

By the way if there are any fans of early DMB stuff like myself, I thought I'd pass along the link to the following website: http://antsmarching.org/

They list all of the old shows available for bit-torrent file sharing by year, beginning with 1991. For the years in which I'm interested (1991-1995), there are about 50 shows per year available. But of course I know that the band played many more than that as they were on the road quite a bit during this period, in a very concious effort to build up a grass-roots fan base slowly over time rather than go the big MTV smash-hit route. And, up until 1995 I've learned, the band not only openly permitted bootleggers /tapers but even allowed people to plug into the soundboard. That ended in 1995 because some douchebag fans began to distribute some bootlegs to pirate CD producers who then sold unofficial /unauthorized CDs on the market.

Anyway, it will take me a little time before I discover if the shows on my tapes can be found here. In the meantime, I'm finding all kinds of other great stuff.

As for my tapes, four of the five are Maxelll XLII 90 and the other one is a Sony Type II (High) Position CD-IT 100. While these are obviously not of the quality of the metal ones you spoke of (I do remember having a few of those) they look to be in pretty good shape and given that they've been here in rather dry southern Cali since 2000 they seem to be and hopefully are still in working order. If there are problems when I test one of these (I need to first borrow a cassette player), then I'll look into your method John.

Most of the files I've been downloading are in FLAC format (up to 1gb per show), but quite a few are in another format called SHN (never heard of it before). I use a program called Winamp for burning FLAC files to CD but it seems that Winamp does not support SHN. So I think I'll have to convert the SHN to FLAC.

heiney9

SHN stands for "shorten" and I use Monkey Audio....a free program to convert SHN to WAV files for cd burning.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

or mkw Audio Compression

http://www.etree.org/mkw.html

I believe they both work but it's been awhile since I've converted SHN files. I am almost positive Winamp should have a plugin by now for SHN files......for awhile amongst bootleg traders SHN was the standard.

Good luck

H9

ben62670

Norm be careful when using torrents and other file sharing programs. Lots of viruses are on them. If the file says it is 3.9 megs and it only takes a few seconds to download, and then file properties say it is only 42k there is a good chance that it may be a virus. H9 and MM have given some real solid advice. Also on the computer go into advanced audio volume and set the gain on the line in for the cassette deck. Tape decks tend to have run a lower voltage on them than say a CDP. For the cable make sure you get something decent. Some puters put out a EMI, adn RFI. This is very true especially if you have a wireless card, or a wireless router nearby.
Have fun.
Ben

John30_30

Norm Apter wrote: »

A couple of things.


As for my tapes, four of the five are Maxelll XLII 90 and the other one is a Sony Type II (High) Position CD-IT 100. While these are obviously not of the quality of the metal ones you spoke of (I do remember having a few of those) they look to be in pretty good shape and given that they've been here in rather dry southern Cali since 2000 they seem to be and hopefully are still in working order. If there are problems when I test one of these (I need to first borrow a cassette player), then I'll look into your method John.

Most of the files I've been downloading are in FLAC format (up to 1gb per show), but quite a few are in another format called SHN (never heard of it before). I use a program called Winamp for burning FLAC files to CD but it seems that Winamp does not support SHN. So I think I'll have to convert the SHN to FLAC.

SHN ( shorten) was probably the first working lossless codec out there.
The Grateful Dead, of course, were, and are the standards of a band that's cool about people taping their concerts- there's literally tons of shows out there on the Algorewebs in those lossless 2 codecs, flac and shn.

I was thinking that winamp had a plugin for it also, but I may be wrong.
dbpoweramp plus the shorten plugin will let you convert just about any codec to any other with a r/click option, including wav.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm

Good luck .

heiney9

John30_30 wrote: »

Yup, it's a matter of sentimental value and whether he can find the same thing elsewhere.
The odds were pretty high against for mine, so I went to all that hassle, and learned something along the way.

I agree 100% for irreplaceable material.

H9

Marty913

audiobliss wrote: »

I have experimented with it before, and have transferred two tapes, I believe, to my computer just connecting a portable cassette player to an input on my computer and using a free program that started with an 'a' but I can't remember the name at the moment.

It's been quite a while, so I can't elaborate. However, I do have quite a few tapes I would love to convert still, so I will join you in eagerly anticipating further comments!

Although Audacity is a great program for editing, they one you are probably thinking of is Audiograbber, a free and excellent program for line-level WAV captures. It was very popular in the mid to late 90's but still pretty much the standard for simplicity for captures. Still available. It doesn't do editing so Audacity would work well there although I think WavPad is easier to use and apply effects to. Just an opinion.

heiney9

IMO, in this situation you want a program that can edit. When I was transferring my Led Zep boots a few years ago I was an anal perfectionist about editing, cue stops, fitting the proper length from tape to cd, etc. Nothing worse than an 88 minute single track.

One of the common issues I had with the LZ boots was the fact that the songs Dazed and Confused or How Many More Times or Whole Lotta Love sometimes were in 2 parts on the cassette and they needed to be digitally spliced and edited together. Again my anal perfectionist showing through.

Norm Apter

John30_30 wrote: »

SHN ( shorten) was probably the first working lossless codec out there.
The Grateful Dead, of course, were, and are the standards of a band that's cool about people taping their concerts- there's literally tons of shows out there on the Algorewebs in those lossless 2 codecs, flac and shn.

I was thinking that winamp had a plugin for it also, but I may be wrong.
dbpoweramp plus the shorten plugin will let you convert just about any codec to any other with a r/click option, including wav.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm

Good luck .

Thanks John. I appreciate your assistance on this. After some googling, I did locate a SHN plug-in for Winamp and downloaded the zip file that was available. The site indicated that there was no installer, and that the file would have to be unzipped into the Winamp plug-in directory. I located the plug-in directory but couldn't figure out to get the file in there to unzip it.

Anyway, I just went to the dBpoweramp site you listed and downloaded their tool which seems to include the codec converter. I haven't tried it yet but hopefully this will work. Thanks.

audiobliss

You will likely have to unzip the downloaded file with Windows (or a program such as winrar (a free program) or WinZip (free trial available), and then use the plug-in to play the SHN.