I am a member of The Danish Free Mason Society and we have quit a lot of recordings made on tape - some of these are very old - but we would like to make a copy to CD’s via a computer because of the historical meaning. I am the owner of a Numark USB turntable, which have the possibility of connecting the Tape recorder via a mini Jack plug through the turntable to the computer.
Kind regards
Hans Pirmo
hans@pirmo.dk
Stereo of mono shouldn’t be a problem. Your CD burning software should burn a mono file to both channels (and take care of any other necessary conversions).
Or in Audacity’s Export window you can choose stereo or mono to easily convert.
If you have a stereo file with one silent side, You can click the 3 little dots to the left of the waveform to show a drop-down window. Select Split Stereo to Mono and that will allow the left & right channels to be edited separately. Then you can click the little “x” further to the left to delete the silent channel.
BTW - Audio CDs are about the only thing that’s always 2-channels.
Virtually everything is mono-stereo compatible. If you play a mono record on a stereo player it comes-out of both speakers. If you play a stereo record on a mono record player both channels are mixed to mono. It’s the same with MP3s and other computer files.
To work properly, you need a line-input which is usually color-coded blue on a regular soundcard. Most laptops only have microphone-in and headphone-out. The mic input is too sensitive and it’s usually mono. It can “work” but you won’t get the best quality and if your laptop has a mic/headphone connector you need a special TRRS connector to make the mic contact.
The “RCA” outputs on a CD/DVD player or TV, etc., are line level. A headphone-output will also work (and a headphone output always has a volume control which can be handy). But you can’t drive a headphone with a line-output.
If you have a laptop with no line input you can get an audio interface with line inputs. The Behringer UCA202 or UCA222 is popular an relatively inexpensive. Don’t buy a regular “little USB soundcard”. They are like laptops with only mic-in and headphone-out.
P.S.
CDs seem to be going out-of-style 
so it would be a good idea to make and save a WAV or FLAC archive file, or at least MP3s. As you may know MP3 is lossy compression so it can be “nice” to make a lossy archive (and backups) so you don’t have to go-back and re-digitize.
Thank you for your help so fare.
I did not solve my problem.
But firstly:
I am working on a stand-a-lone (not a laptop) Windows 11 HP computer using an AKAI wheel Tape recorder model GX-635D.
I have now tried to record from tape recorder through a Numark turntable player through the cable with 2 phonos in the Tape recorder and 1 mini-jack in the turntable.
Result: When I play on the Tape recorder I can here the music in the earphone, but when I try to make a playback, there is only noise. I just do not understand.
Please remember you are writing with a man of 80 year, so I need the answer a little slow.
Kindly regards
Hans Pirmo
The computer may have a “line-in” socket …
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_4315149-4208232-16
If so connect that to the “line-out” from the tape machine.
Then set Audacity to record from “line-in” …
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_selecting_your_recording_device.html
This topic was automatically closed after 30 days. New replies are no longer allowed.