Hi everyone, i hope you can help,
i have been given a present of a ezcap super usb cassette capture tape player . I have a touch screen laptop using windows 8.1 . The system will not recognise the cassette player.
Can anyone advice a way around this?
I have Audacity on the system already as a means of downloading my records.
thanks
Of course if Windows doesn’t see the device, Audacity won’t see it either. Does Windows show any USB devices? …Maybe it shows-up as a generic USB audio device or maybe Windows thinks its’ a USB microphone?
If it’s not seeing it at all, maybe try a different USB cable or try turning it on the Cassette player before you plug it in, or just experiment with things like power-cycling it after plugging it in, etc. …Or, maybe it’s simply defective.
I have Audacity on the system already as a means of downloading my records.
Can you use any of the same equipment for recording from the cassette, or is that a USB turntable?
Assuming the cassette player’s headphone output is OK, you can record/capture the analog output. If your existing setup won’t work, you can get a [u]Behringer UCA202[/u], or another audio interface that has a line-level input, and the appropriate adapter-cable. A headphone-output is a good match for a line-level input, although you may have to adjust the headphone volume.
Or if you have access to a desktop computer, all regular desktop soundcards have a line-input (coded blue).
Note - The mic-input on a laptop is too sensitive, and it would probably end-up noisy and distorted, and it’s probably mono. Also, don’t get a regular “USB soundcard” because they are like laptops with only mic-in and headphone out. Some laptops have an analog audio input that can be re-configured for microphone or line-input, but it’s rare.
Thanks for your input DVD Doug, obviously not explained my problem correctly.
The laptop computer using Windows8:1 will not recognize the cassette player, it says that it is unrecognized and has malfunctioned, please try and connect again. The cassette player is brand new.I don’t get as far as Audacity program.
Even from Audacity program I cannot access the tape player, it is not present.
I am assuming that the player is non compatible with Windows8:1 but usually you can find a download program to get around this.
As Doug explained that is not an Audacity problem. It is a problem with the cassette device.
You can try another USB cable. Try everything in the green box “Detecting USB and Firewire devices” on this page Audacity Manual .
Beyond that, read the manual for the device, but you will probably have to take it back where you got it. Most USB cassette players use Windows USB Audio drivers so don’t have any special drivers that you can download.
Gale