One of the less common requests that we get is to take the audio from a cassette tape and convert it to a digital format. This process is completed in Audacity, using the equipment attached to Station 4 at PEPS.
Step-by-step guide
The quick overview
- Insert the tape into the cassette player. It doesn't matter which slot. Just make sure that you know what audio will be on the side that you insert.
- In Audacity, make sure that the input is set to "Built-In Line-In" NOTE: This is different from "Built-In Digital-In"
- Press play on the cassette player, and wait for the audio bars in Audacity to register incoming audio.
- Rewind the tape to a second or so before the audio started to register
- Press record in Audacity and Play on the cassette
- Check on the progress regularly. While this is not necessary, it does reduce the amount of terminating silence that will have to be delete.
- If the client wants the audio split into tracks, select each track (click and drag, shift + arrows) in the recording and copy them to their own projects.
- Export. If there are multiple tracks, export each track individually.
Exporting
- Click File -> Export... or press Shift+Command+E
- Make sure to select "MP3 Files" and press 'options'
- In the MP3 format options, check that the bitrate is set to 320kbps with Stero, not Joint Stero. (Make sure it looks like the picture on the right)
- Make sure that you know where you are saving the file (a folder on the Desktop is a good spot) and what its name is.
Troubleshooting / Common Problems
The exported file isn't where I expected it to be
Common Causes: Forgetting to select the export directory during the first exporting step.
- Open the export dialog again. (Step 1 under Exporting)
- If you forget to set the export directory, just start exporting again, and check where it would b
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