Audacity Forum

Hi, I am totally new to Audacity and this forum. I have some old cassette tapes of family members’ voices I would like to preserve and duplicate on CDs. I am playing back these audio cassettes on a Panasonic “SlimLine” Dual Voltage tape recorder, which is probably about 30+ years old but still works great. I have a 1/8” jack that I have plugged into the “monitor” socket on this recorder. The other 1/8” end of the jack I have plugged into the “line in” socket on the front of my Dell Inspiron 15 laptop. I am using Audacity 1.3 Beta. The sound is being recorded but is garbled. I have chosen the option to be able to hear what the recording sounds like while Audacity is recording the sound, and that sound itself is garbled. Does anyone know if Audacity can record from an old Panasonic tape recorder? If it can be done, what step-by-step instructions can you offer me? Or do I need to go buy a UCB microphone to use instead to record my old cassettes? Thank you very much!

See this set of tutorials in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tuto ... iscs_to_CD

WC

You probably can't do that. If for no other good reason, the player is stereo and the computer is mono -- and there are other serious problems.

We've been recommending the UCA-202 as a cheap way out.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/UCA202.jpg

You also need to know that the old music tapes may outlast the music CDs. Home Music CDs use the same basic technology as color photographs. Do you have any old photos that are faded and color shifted? That's what happens to home Music CDs -- eventually, they stop playing.

You can transfer all you want, but don't throw out the tapes.

Koz

waxcylinder wrote:See this set of tutorials in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tuto ... iscs_to_CD

WC

Thank you! After several trial and errors using this tutorial, I think I've got it. It helped greatly to turn the input volume down to the lowest setting. I will post again if I have any further problems recording.

kozikowski wrote:You probably can't do that. If for no other good reason, the player is stereo and the computer is mono -- and there are other serious problems.

We've been recommending the UCA-202 as a cheap way out.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/UCA202.jpg

You also need to know that the old music tapes may outlast the music CDs. Home Music CDs use the same basic technology as color photographs. Do you have any old photos that are faded and color shifted? That's what happens to home Music CDs -- eventually, they stop playing.

You can transfer all you want, but don't throw out the tapes.

Koz

Thank you very much for the heads up on this additional information! I will definitely be keeping the audio cassettes.

Hi again,

I am at the point where I have successfully exported my project into iTunes and can play it satisfactory on my computer in iTunes. However, when I burn the project to a CDR, making sure on the Burn menu to select Audio CD for disc format and preferred speed as Maximum Possible, I cannot play the resulting CD on a portable CD player. It gives me an "err" message.

In the audacity file itself I made sure to select 44100 as the project rate; saved it as "Other uncompressed files" type; and under Options, set header as AIFF and encoding as signed 16 bit.

Other settings I chose while making the recording were:
Windows Direct
Primary Sound Driver
Microphone/Line In (I plugged the jack on the Panasonic Recorder into the "Monitor" socket, not the microphone socket; on my laptop, I plugged the jack into the line-in socket)
1 (Mono) Input channel

I followed the instruction I read somewhere to Normalize the recording before doing the export.

Since the whole recording is 27 minutes long of my parents just talking, I did not save it as separate tracks.

Can any of you techie aces out there figure out what it wrong? Thanks a million!!!

I suspect that you are burning a "Data CD" and not a "Music CD, you need to make a "Music CD".

Did you see this tutorial in the link I sent you before: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Burn ... es_to_a_CD ?

WC

kozikowski wrote:You also need to know that the old music tapes may outlast the music CDs. ... You can transfer all you want, but don't throw out the tapes.

The deadly irony is though, Koz, that we will all end up with boxes of tapes and eventually no functioning tape decks to play them on, and no manufacturer to buy a new one from

WC

waxcylinder wrote:I suspect that you are burning a "Data CD" and not a "Music CD, you need to make a "Music CD".

Did you see this tutorial in the link I sent you before: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Burn ... es_to_a_CD ?

WC

Thank you again for giving your attention to my little matter! Yes, I did follow the tutorial instructions.

Here is what I am doing in iTunes: Per their instructions, under "Playlists" to the left on the screen, I selected my Audacity recording (by left clicking on it to highlight it). I then clicked on File, then on "Burn Playlist to Disc". In the "Burn Settings" window that appears, I have checked only the "Audio CD" circle under Disc Format and left blank the boxes for "Use Sound Check" and "Include CD Text." (The two other Disc Format choices which I left blank are "MP3 CD" and "Data CD or DVD".)

After clicking on "Burn" I saw the message at the top of the iTunes screen "Writing .... [my recording name]"

When it was finished, under "Devices" on the left of the screen, I clicked on the up arrow that's to the right of the name of my recording and the CD ejected.

I took the CD and, after making sure my CD player worked fine by playing a music CD on it first, inserted it into the CD player. After pushing the play button, the CD whirled around for about 15 seconds and then stopped, displaying "Er" on the little LCD screen.

There must be some step I am either omitting or doing wrong.... This is disappointing, but I would love to figure it out, if you can discern what could possibly be going wrong in my effort. Thank you very much!!!

waxcylinder wrote:I suspect that you are burning a "Data CD" and not a "Music CD, you need to make a "Music CD".

Did you see this tutorial in the link I sent you before: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Burn ... es_to_a_CD ?

WC

Quick addition to my last post: The blank CD I am using to record on says "CD-R" on it (80 min). Thanks!