Learn How To Convert Audio Tape To Mp3 And Create MP3 Files from Analog Sources
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Converting CDs into MP3 files is an easy process because the audio stays in the digital domain. But what about old analog recordings like cassettes and records? Although the procedure is slightly more complicated, learning how to convert audio tape to mp3files is a do-able task.
Almost every computer has a soundcard that accepts inputs from various sources. A typical sound card will have one microphone input and one auxiliary input that can be used for sound sources such as cassette players or radios.
These external sound sources are analog, meaning that the sound is a continuous wave form. Digital audio attempts to reproduce analog sound by slicing the waveform into discrete steps - each of which is represented by a number. In order to get an analog sound into a digital computer, it must pass through an analog to digital (A/D) converter.
The biggest limitation with budget sound cards is the A/D converter. A cheap sound card has a cheap converter, so will not give you the same results as a professional level card. However, considering that the sound source is likely to be old analog cassettes of questionable audio fidelity, the built-in sound card of most computers is sufficient.
Although most sound sources can be plugged into the sound card’s auxiliary input, record players are a different matter. The output level of most record players is too low, so for best results it should pass through a preamplifier before being plugged into the computer.
Once you have your external sound source connected to your computer, you need a sound recording program to capture the audio. Microsoft Windows has a built-in sound recorder but its editing features are limited. You are better off using a dedicated audio program. There are plenty of commercial and freeware titles.
Now your audio software is up and running and your sound source is connected to the computer. Simply hit the play button (in the case of a cassette) or put the needle on the record and sit back and wait. This is not ripping - recording has to be done in real time.
Some recording software will automatically split the tracks into individual files, but most likely you’ll end up with one big file. That’s okay - it is relatively easy to split the file if your recording software has decent editing features. You should see a visual representation of the audio signal - this makes it easy to identify where each track begins and ends. Simply highlight that section and save it as an individual file.
If you are recording albums or cassettes, you may be disappointed in the sound quality once it is transferred to your computer. Records can be scratched, and cassettes can have an annoying hissing sound. A lot of this noise can be removed with special filters, so look for this feature when you are shopping for audio software.
After you have learned how to convert audio tape to mp3 and the audio has been captured and stored on your computer it will be in an uncompressed format such as WAV. Now you have two options - burn the WAV files to CD or convert them to a compressed format like MP3. For archival purposes it’s a good idea to burn a CD so that your original cassette or record will not suffer any more degradation.
Compressing the audio is a good idea if you want to listen to it on a portable audio player or simply to save space on your computer hard drive. The most popular audio compression scheme is MP3, but newer formats such as WMA and AAC (used by the Apple iPod) offer similar sound quality with smaller file sizes.
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