Convert Cassette Tapes To CD's

Have you ever wondered what you're going to do with all of those cassette tapes lying around? Turn them into digital music files, perfect for putting onto CD! We teach you how in the easy-to-follow video.

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Closed Caption:

hi everyone thanks for stopping by
my name is Gary and I'm Steve and today
we are going to answer the burning
question what do I do with all these
cassette tapes
do you have a bunch of cassette tapes in
your closet just collecting dust do you
wish there was maybe some way you could
convert to an electronic format so you
can maybe burn a CD or just listening on
your computer
I bet you do and that's why we're going
to show you today we have a great way to
do that all takes a little bit of
software an old tape deck that you have
an accord and it'll it'll be as easy as
that
right and the good news is the software
is not going to cost you a dime in fact
it's called audacity we like it a lot
and we're going to go ahead and jump to
the computer right now we're going to
take a look exactly how to get that for
free on your computer
ok the first thing we're going to want
to do here to get the software installed
that will let us record our cassette
tapes is go to the internet so i'm going
to go ahead and open up firefox here and
instead of trying to find the address
for audacity which is the name of the
program I'm actually just going to go to
the Google box up at the top here and
we're going to type in audacity capacity
and hit enter
it will always be the first result I've
never seen it not be the first result
going to go ahead and click the link and
go to the site as you can see right here
in the yellow box there's two different
versions they offer if you're not using
windows 7 you want to use this version
this is the stable version
this is the beta which supports windows
7 and they both look exactly the same
but if you're using Windows 7 you'll
want to use this one since i am using
windows 7 i'm going to go ahead and
click this link and then we'll come up
with the another screen here and we're
going to want to click on the installer
which is right here and it'll ask me
what I want to do I'm going to save the
file and wait for download here
ok the download is finished here it's
just going to scan it real quick and
once it's finished we'll go ahead and
start the installation will go ahead and
double click on this and it's going to
be what I want to do is going to hit run
on this and it's going to run us through
the installation
and you can choose English and it next
and next Bunch times and install it's
going to run through the installation
which doesn't take very long at all
it actually takes less time to install
it and it just to download it and it
next year and
and I'm not going to launch it right now
so we'll just hit finish
now the next part that you may or may
not need depending on on what you want
to do with this program is this right
here which is called the laaame mp3
encoder
this is the part of the program that
makes it so you can save your music as
an mp3 file if you don't want to save as
mp3 you don't need it but most people
will so i'm going to run through this
you're going to click the link here and
then you're going to go to the download
page and then you're going to click this
link right here and we're going to save
this again
it's going to download this one's a
short download doesn't take very long at
all
ok and then once it's finished and we're
going to go ahead and open up we're
going to run this and this one won't
take very long either accept the
agreement it next next and install and
finish
that's all there is to it now the
program is installed and ready to go if
you want to see it here you can double
click and you'll see that it launches
this is what it looks like
before we get into anything else with
this we're going to go ahead and turn
back and show you how we hook up the
cassette tape player
okay have your software installed now
it's time to deal with the hardware
fortunately it's pretty easy basically
all you're going to need is some kind of
a cassette player that lets you out put
the sound in one way or another
now most of them are going to need
something with a cord that looks like
this
basically you need to be able to plug
into the headphone jack of your cassette
deck if it does not happen to have a
little headphone jack it might have two
little plugs all red and white one those
are for RCA plugs that's what these guys
look like no matter what you end up
having their on your cassette deck for
an output
it's going to need to
and the core other the other end of the
court is going to need to look like this
going to be a headphone jack
because we're going to plug that into
the microphone jack on the computer so
no matter whether you have this end or
and then it looks like this on your
cassette deck
you're going to have to end with an end
that looks like that
that looks a little bit confusing it
sounds a bit confusing take a look at
the site we have both of different
chords there now most of you are going
to end up being the cord just like we
are today
this job right here again this plugs
into the cassette deck this plugs into
your computer and are identical to both
headphone jacks and i'm going to pass
this over to Gary and he's going to show
you how to hook this up
ok the first thing we want to do is find
the headphone jack on our cassette tape
player on this player here you can see
it's just a regular player and the
headphone jack is going to be right here
so the first step is to plug the cord
into the headphone jack on the on the
cassette player and then the second spot
is right here on this computer
you'll see that here there is a pink or
red hole that is the the microphone jack
on the computer for some of you the
computer might be on the back but for us
it's right here on the side
we're going to plug it in there now that
we have this connected
that's really all there is to it for the
for the stereo so we're going to turn to
the computer i'm going to show you how
to record
ok back at the computer as you can see I
already have audacity open from earlier
this program is pretty simple it's just
a blank box and as you can see there's
the different buttons up here
this one is the record button and you
play pause stop fast-forward and rewind
we really don't need to mess around with
this too much it's mostly going to be
already set up
so what we're going to do now is is
we're going to start recording something
when you're recording
you're probably going to want to hit
play on your tape player and record at
the same time just for the purposes of
our use here i'm going to do it a little
bit offset just you can understand
what's going on
first of all i'm going to hit play on
the tape deck and you should be able to
hear it start playing
all right there's a little audio Burma
closed all the now the next up here is
we're going to hit record protest
well Johnny know and this is going to go
ahead and start recording you can see it
recording here jumping across the screen
Johnny 140 nom de i'm not going to
record a really long one here but this
is pretty much all there is
now that we're done we're going to hit
stop and then i'm going to stop the tape
deck now that that's finished the final
step is to to export this
let's say you recorded the whole song
now you want to go to file and go to
export when you choose exports gonna ask
you where you want to i'm going to keep
it here on the desktop and for save as
type i'm going to choose mp3 but as you
can see there's a ton of different
options
so we're going to do mp3 file and I'm
going to go ahead and call this audio
and we're going to hit safe
it's going to ask me here and if you
want to fill this in you can ask you
about artist named track title things
like that if you want to keep it
organized and if you want to let's say
import it into an mp3 program it will
actually organize them by track name and
things but I'm not going to do that
today where it's going to go ahead and
hit ok and it's going to export and
that's really all there is to it now you
can see our audio file here and i'll
double click on this
yes well John and you can see it's
playing that's really all there is to it
now we'll go ahead and close this out
and we're all set
okay there you go now that you have
those mp3's you can take those you can
either listen to him on your computer or
you can burn them to a CD and problem in
your car and drive them that way
now one extra little note that we wanted
to say is that if for some reason you're
recording this in and the audio doesn't
seem to be coming through
check your control panel and go to the
sound settings and make sure your
microphone volume is all the way up
because there might be a issue there
sometimes people have that turn down too
well and then it seems like there's no
audio coming through
well we hope you enjoyed the video today
and as always if you want to check out
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thanks and have a great day