Audacity Forum

Hello: I have a USB cassette to PC recorder. It is set up with two cassette ports and is capable of speed dubbing from one cassette to another, but I purchased the device with intention of transferring my ancient cassette collection to CD, not of duplicating cassettes. It came with Audacity user files, and among them was a discussion of how to hasten recording of LP's. Of course, it the capacity is available, speed dubbing cassettes would save much more time than is saved in the manner described for LP's, but there is no discussion of whether this is possible or how one would go about it. This is the source of my two related questions:

Can one use Audacity to copy cassettes to hard drive at a speed dubbing rate (as one would historically have done to rapidly copy one cassette to another without listening during the recording)?

If so, how would one go about it, both in terms of setting up the recording at the speed dubbing rate and then of returning the recorded audio files to the appropriate speed for listening after the transfer is completed?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Sure, if your cassette deck is capable of playing the tapes at faster speed than normal playback then you can record that speeded up signal into Audacity and then after capture use the Change Speed effect,

Personally I wouldn't do it though as you will lose audio quality - just as audio quality was sacrificed in high-speed tape-to-tape dubbing. I also like to hear properly what I am recording ...

WC

Yes, if you don't care particularly what the quality is and have a bunch of tapes, that's the way to go.

However, High Speed Dubbing is something of an art. If you do have tapes that manage carry clear audio up to about 10 KHz or 15 KHz, then two-times dubbing will present those frequencies at 20 KHz and 30 KHz, right on the edge or beyond the ability of most sound cards to deal with them. If you use 44100 as a digital sample frequency at the sound card (very common), then the maximum undistorted sounds you can perfectly deal with is 18 KHz. Pretty much perfect for times-one dubbing.

Koz

Thanks very much for the responses. Sounds like it's not the greatest idea. Oh, well. I have about one hundred old cassettes I want to transfer to CD. I wouldn't have minded saving half that time, but I don't want to ditch the sound quality. I guess I'll just take it slow. Thanks, again.