Unlike a digital recording, a magnetic tape signal continuously degrades.
Cassette tapes used to dominate the retail music market. They offered a smaller, more secure and portable means of listening to music than vinyl records. The advent of compact disc technology and digital music formats such as MP3 quickly pushed the cassette tape into obscurity. If you have a portable music player like an iPod Touch, also known as the iTouch, and a music collection on outdated audio cassettes, you can transfer your collection using some basic audio-recording techniques.
Instructions
Recording
1. Insert one end of an RCA audio cable into the corresponding free red (right channel) and white (left channel) audio output jacks in a cassette deck. Insert the opposite ends into the corresponding red and white inputs of a mixer.
2. Insert the RCA ends of a 1/8-inch-to-RCA audio cable into their corresponding red and white audio outputs in the mixer. Insert the 1/8-inch end into the "Line In" input of your computer's sound card.
3. Open the audio-recording software of your choice. Click "Record."
4. Insert an audio cassette into the cassette deck and press the "Play" button.
5. Adjust the output of the audio signal by moving the slider on the cassette deck's line and the input slider in the audio recording software up or down.
6. Click "Stop" in the audio-recording software.
7. Press "Stop" on the cassette deck and rewind the audio cassette to the portion you want to record.
8. Click "Record" again in the audio-recording software.
9. Press "Play" on the cassette deck. Press "Stop" when the portion you want to record ends.
10. Click on the "File" menu. Click "Save" to save the audio file to your desktop.
Editing and Updating
11. Open the audio file on your desktop with the audio-recording software.
12. Click and drag the mouse across the timeline to select the first track of the recording.
13. Click "File," "Export." This will open the file-exporting dialog box.
14. Select "MP3" as the export format from the "Format" drop-down menu.
15. Enter a file name for the track. Click "Export" to export the file in MP3 format. Repeat this process with each track on the recording.
16. Click and drag each MP3 track into your iTunes music library folder.
17.Insert a USB cable into the jack at the base of your iPod Touch. Insert the other end into a free USB port on your computer.
18. Open iTunes. You may not have to perform this step if iTunes is set to load automatically when you connect your iPod.
19. Click "Sync." This will update your iPod Touch with files from your iTunes music library folder. You may not have to perform this step if iTunes is set to sync automatically.
20. Click "Eject" when syncing is finished.
21. Disconnect both ends of the USB cable.
Tags: cassette deck, audio-recording software, cable into, iPod Touch, your iPod, your iTunes music