From Audio Cassette to .wav Files

[RSLancastr]

I have some audio cassettes of "Kaz" speaking.

I would like to make audio clips (.wav files, or whatever is most appropriate) of some of the statements she makes.

My PC is an elderly Pentium Pro, and has a Sound Blaster card, which does have a Line In jack.

What is the cheapest reliable method of getting the sound clips onto the PC, and editing them down to the PC, and then editing them into the sound bites I need for including them on a web page?

[malbui]

I've been looking at this over the last few days as I found some rehearsal tapes of my old band and wanted to convert them to mp3.

I've been playing with a piece of freeware called Audiograbber which is very simple to use: a line from the headphone socket of my cassette player into the Line In on my old PC, tweak a couple of settings and you're away. I'm doing all the stop/start stuff manually as there's a whole load of noise and random stuff (mainly me going out of tune) on the tapes, so I don't know how the software works in more automatic mode.

I haven't played with all the settings but I think you record to .wav first and then encode to mp3 if you like, so that should meet your requirements.

This is a suggestion - hope it helps.

[RSLancastr]

Thanks, malbui.

I had tried a few methods after posting the original post, then I tried Soundgrabber at your suggestion, and they all had the same problem:

I connect my cassette deck to the Line In jack of my SoundBlaster card. I press play, and now the cassette's contents can be heard over the PC's speakers. So far so good.

I can use the utilities that came with the Soundblaster card to monkey with the line in volume, balance, etc. So far, so good.

However, when I try to use any utility to capture the audio, I see no activity on the audio meters while recording. And when I play back the resulting .wav file, there is nothing but silence (playing back existing .wav files works fine).

Thoughts?

[alfaniner]

Click on the Volume Icon, and check your Options/Properties. Look for the Recording option. Make sure that you are set to Record from Line In. Also, ensure that you Arm for recording in your recording software (I've forgotten to do that).

[RSLancastr]

Originally posted by alfaniner
Click on the Volume Icon, and check your Options/Properties. Look for the Recording option. Make sure that you are set to Record from Line In.Thanks, 'niner.

When I do this, my recording options are "SB16 Wave In (260)" and " (Use any available device)". It was set to the former. I chaged it to the latter.

I still get a silent .wav file.

Also, ensure that you Arm for recording in your recording software (I've forgotten to do that). Not certain what you mean by "Arm for recording."

Okay, got it! I had to click on the "Mixer" icon, and deselect all other inputs. Works!

Thanks guys!!

[RSLancastr]

The first two fruits of my cassette-to-.wav labors can he listened to here:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=53226

I took the options to lower the quality in order to make the clips smaller for downloading. There are probably other and better ways of doing it, but it was what I found right away.

Thanks again!

[Earthborn]

If you put the original higher quality WAV files on your webspace, I can encode it to MP3 for you with a higher sound quality and probably a smaller file size.

[RSLancastr]

Originally posted by Earthborn
If you put the original higher quality WAV files on your webspace, I can encode it to MP3 for you with a higher sound quality and probably a smaller file size. Thanks, Earthborn! I'm away from home at the moment, but will do so tomorrow. Thanks again!

[Soapy Sam]

RSL.

What's the "Intellectual" property situation here? You may be violating copyright.

[RSLancastr]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
What's the "Intellectual" property situation here? You may be violating copyright. Thanks for your concern Sam, but I believe that quotes such as those I am using are perfectly legal under copyright law under "Fair Usage".

[Earthborn]

Have you put up the original wavs, yet?