Audio Cassette to CD (Win 98 or Win XP)

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I need assistance and advice on the following:

I would like to copy a audio cassette to a CD. What I’m planning to do is to buy an audio cable and use it between the casette player and my sound card. Then record .wav files and then copy those to the audio cd. Are there maybe compression software to take it from .wav to ?.

Thanks for the help/advice

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I’ve been using wav to mp3 Encoder, its free & works fine. Go to http://www.mthreedev.com/%5B/url%5D

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Hi Mario,

This is a project I too am working on at the moment. Transferring 350+ cassettes onto PC while I still can. Some of the recordings go back 10 years and have been shipped around the world with me on my travels, including being stored in high humidity conditions in Hong Kong for a couple of years. With some of them I’m finding that the next time I play them is the last. Anyway, I digress.

Personally I use SoundForge to monitor and record onto my P.C. This allows me to tweak the quality, cut out blank spaces, fade in/out and save in a variety of file formats (WAV/MP3 etc). I’m quite sure the latest version of Nero includes an audio editor too.

In order to listen to the CD on a regular CD player, you’ll need to create WAV files. Again, Nero is perfect for creating Audio CDs. Once recorded, I usually convert my WAV into MP3 to save space. If ever I needed to re-record something, I’d use StreamBoxRipper to bring them back into WAV again, but there are many programs out there that do the same thing. A bit clunky, but space is at a premium.

Post back if I (we) can be of any further help.

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A question for you…I’ve copied some of my audio cd’s to cd’s using nero and wasn’t all that happy with the results. Playing the mp3 files from my desktop, however is great. What would be the weak link in getting good quality cd’s out of this? Obviously I want to make my own “cornecopia’ compilations. Thanks~

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Weak link? The source itself, the MP3 file. Since it compresses by tossing out audio that you “can’t hear” (based on a mathematical algorithm) some MP3s suffer from quality. If they sound decent to you, you can burn an audio CD directly from MP3 format using Nero (and most other burning software). Quality loss is a subjective thing though, sometimes I can hear the difference between the MP3 and the original, and sometimes I can’t. Thus, if it sounds good to you on the computer, the CD probably will too.

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Ok, thanks for the response.

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…and while you’re doing the conversions from the original CD to mp3 files, you may as well opt for the higher quality setting. I believe that 128kbps is considered “near CD Quality”. To me, that’s like saying Seattle is “near” New York! Yeah…it’s in the same country, but…

Any mp3 is a compressed form of the original track. There is always some “loss” from the original. But if you ever plan on turning those mp3s back to wav or cda files, there’s nothing like having access to mp3s that were ripped at 320kbps or better.

Naturally, a 320kbps mp3 takes more harddrive space than one of lesser quality, but it still takes less space than a wav file of the same tune. There are other methods of storage, compression and mp3 settings that I am less familair with that may provide superior quality, i.e., wma, mp3Pro, vbr, etc.

One more thing, the quality of the CD Burner is a significant factor. Speed is very nice but, just because the spec sheet for the drive says it can burn a disc in 27 seconds [exageration] doesn’t mean the finished disc will be of superior quality. I have two CDRW’s on my machine and the one with the largest buffer size always produces a betterCD (and it is not the fastest!).

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I’ve found that encoding at 190K for MP3 format is a good compromise on space and quality. I use variable bitrate MP3 encoding, which makes a big difference – setting 190 as the baseline and allowing it to go as high as 320.

WMA format takes less space and sounds as good, and it’s a better format – if you’re not into file sharing, that’s the preferred method in my book. XP systems offer lossless encoding into the WMA format, but the files are kinda big, although less than the WAV file would be.

Just my .

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Is Windows Media Player the only player to recognize the wma format or are the other players already starting to come onboard? I prefer the playback quality from WinAmp but I don’t believe it will do wma files…could be wrong.

I haven’t tried ripping with vbr switched on, but I will after reading your suggestion.

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Winamp will indeed play back WMA files – I use Winamp 2.x, and it’s an option when you install it (WMA support). Like you, I prefer Winamp for playback. Old habits die hard…I’ve been using it for a long time!

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THanks for all the info. Now I’d like to hear a discussion about the comparisons of WinAmp and Nero…anyone?

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Well, they’re not really comparable. Winamp is a media player, and Nero is for mastering all manner of CDs and DVDs. Winamp can’t burn CDs and Nero has limited facilities for listening to stored music. Winamp vs. MusicMatch JukeBox/Realplayer/Windows Media Player would be a better comparison, and Nero’s closest competitiion would likely be Easy CD Creator.

It might be better to start separate threads for media players and burning software – and if you ask for opinions, get ready to be slammed with them! It’s like a religious debate for some folks.

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Great, thanks Ricky.

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