Audacity Forum

Hi Folks.
I don't even know if I am in the right forum.
Today, on the recommendation of PC World, I purchased an ION Tape2PC unit (Their HELP section I found to be extremely UNHELPFUL in this matter) as I wanted to be able to transfer audio information from either my PC or CD onto C60/90 audio tapes.
I have setup Audacity and (I think) set all the necessary preferences, but can see no way to transfer.
Can anyone help me please as this is definitely not my field and am probably over confused by some of the jargon being used.
All I want is to be able to transfer audio (my copyright not music) either directly to tape, or transfer it first to my PC and then to tape.
I am running a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Vista Home Premium O/S.
Thank you

Ian

I don't think you'eve bought the right device !

The ION Tape2PC is designed to, as its name suggests, transfer cassette tape recordings from tape to PC - not the other way around - i.e. to make digital recordings WAV or MP3 from the old analog stuff.

The "normal" way of doing what you want is to use a cassette dack connected to an amp with suitable sockets that provide for recording and playback and to connect a CD deck to the same - and record in the "traditional" way ...

If you have audio on your PC to transfer to tape - or if you don't have a CD deck and are planning to use your PC from the transfer to tape - then it should be possible to connect the speaker outputs from your PC to the recording inputs of a suitable cassette deck. And all may not be lost with the ION device you have - it's quite possible that the deck has analog inputs on the back to let you use it a a normal tape recording deck, I can't tell from looking at the ION website - but the device looks as though it was originally designed a long while ago as a dual cassette deck to facilitate tape-to-tape transfers in which case it is likely to have the inputs that you need. You would have been able to get a better device for your money though - as you will be wasting much of the ION's functionality.

========================

But all this begs the question: why,oh why, in this digital age, are you trying to convert digital audio back to the antiquated tecknology of cassette tape. I'm deeply puzzled

WC

Oh and yes this is not the right part of the forum (not many folk vist this particular dark corner). The forum is organised by version of Audacity and then by the typoe of computer you are using. I will move this to the 1.2 section under Windows for you - and leave a shadow posting here.

Hi WaxCylinder
What a great help your response was. Perhaps I should have consulted you first instead of PC World?
Do you know of any kit that would have been a better purchase?
Although I shall probably try the ION with the connections as you suggested, longterm I would prefer a proper bit of kit.

Anyway, thank you for your response and advice. It was great.

Ian

PS The reason for this antiquated project is quite simply to reduce storage space of my partners vast range of tapes which have been accumulated over 40 odd years.

IanGreen wrote: PS The reason for this antiquated project is quite simply to reduce storage space of my partners vast range of tapes which have been accumulated over 40 odd years.

Ian,

Now you've confused me even more - this sounds as though you are making digital copies of old tapes - so you can play the stuff on your computer and/or portable player - and possibly make CDs of them too, right?

If that is the case then the ION will certainly do that job for you. You an achieve the same objective with any normal cassette deck plugged to to the line-in of your computer (for which you would likely need a lead qith an RCA pair at one end to plug into the RCA out sockets on the cassette deck and a 3.5mm stereo minijack on the other for plugging into your computer).

When I digitized my tapes I used my existing Nakamichi tape deck (had it professionally serviced prior to the transcription project) and I connected this to an external USB soundcard (I use the Erdirol UA-1EX) and plug this to my PC(s) via the USB plug from the Edirol. Your ION is basically a cassette deck with an inbuilt soundcard (which does the analog to digital conversion) plus some USB services which enable the encoded digital stream to be delivered via USB to yor PC.

I would experiment with the ION before you send it back - it may make perfectly good copies for you - the electronics in the ION seem to be good (I used to have an ION USB turntable - the electronics were fine but the platter was too light). My personal preference would be for a cassette deck with a single tape transport (the ION has two, I believe, for tape to tape copying). I would be wary of buying a secondhand cassette deck.

You may find this article from the Wiki useful: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... uter_or_CD

WC

Hi WC
Sorry but I have confused the situation by not mentioning that, in addition to storing tapes on CD, there are a number of CD's which we need on tape for use in our cars when travelling. Neither of us has a CD player in the car and don't want to spend money on one.
Thanks for the further details, I really appreciate all your input on this and am grateful for the help.

Ian