Remember these?





I've got multiple (15-20) cassette tapes of recordings that aren't downloadable or available on CD. I want to transfer them on to ipod. I have everything I need except a tape player. My old walkman has stopped working.

Any ideas on where I go from here?

Do I buy a portable cassette player like my old walkman?
Or would it be better to buy one of those old shoebox players?

SQ is important as the recordings aren't particularly high quality in the first place.

I'd just keep an eye on eBay and get the best you can justify. There are hundreds on there, many for less than £5.

Clean the heads, and adjust the azimuth to match each cassette you want to copy.

I've kept my 1980's Sony Walkman for the job. Being battery powered, it reduces the risk of earth-loops and hum. It only has a headphone socket, but it's class-A and the low impedance again reduces the risk of interference when feeding an electrically noisy PC. The levels were more than high enough for the line-in on my old Yamaha sound card, but I confess I've not done it for a few years! What's your sound card? Even on-board is likely to be much better than K7.

It's pretty reasonable quality, but I did the Dolby processing and chrome EQ in software. Old tapes tend to have a lower level so unless you have a Dolby level trimmer on the player, it muffles it.

Forward and rewind the tape before you start copying, since I guess you haven't played them for a while. It slightly reduces the risk of them getting eaten. Watch it like a hawk in case it does. Find the loudest part of the tape to set the levels before recording the whole thing, or do each track at a time and start again if it clips.

This does the job easily

I saw that but given I've only a handful of tapes, it didn't make much sense. Far better to get a new walkman, which is what I'll do.

Six years on and I've finally got round to doing this. I'm using my old JVC "boom box" stereo. Back in the early Noughties it served me reasonably well (the store didn't have the model I wanted in stock so I bought this one). No line out though, just headphones. Using the line in on my laptop's sound card.

I've adjusted the volume of the stereo to 25/40 to avoid clipping. I gave everything I could see a wipe with IPA and cotton buds inside the tape deck. I plan to filter it later. The only thing I forgot to do was ensure recording was to E: drive and not C: drive.

I saw tape to MP3 units on Amazon yesterday. It wasn't this specific one but something like this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TechCode%C2%AE-Portable-Cassette-Converter-Capture/dp/B00WJGMFYW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448012069&sr=8-1&keywords=tape+to+mp3

Cassettes are making a bit of a comeback as a novelty format for bands.

We released our MonsterPussy Sessions EP on cassette last year as the only physical format (you could also get it as a digital download), and it has sold pretty well as well as attracting a lot more press attention than our previous CD and vinyl releases managed.

For low volume releases (under 300 units) it actually works out cheaper than CD or vinyl. Plus ours was duplicated by a company called "Tape That"!

I always like tapes, despite their fragility. Nice and portable. When I moved to MiniDisc I was really pleased by the way it worked like my tape players did. You stopped, and when you started again it would carry on where you left off.

Cassette memories: having a cassette player in the car (not not one built into the car) on holidays with my parents, and stopping every now and then in bizarre places so my mum could jump out and get more HP2 batteries for it. All so we could listen to various tapes of LPs we had, including the Rolf Harris album. How little we knew....

This thread makes me sad.

I miss JJ

Me too. I remembered all his help and posts when I looked for this thread to update it.

I saw a cassette player speaker for the iPhone 4/4S - I almost bought it. If I had a car that suited it, it would have been a done deal. Sadly, no updated unit for the bigger iPhones.

I know it's a bit late...

TechCode® Portable USB Tape Cassette to PC: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Portable-Casset ... 3531344-21