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If you have been a long-time music lover, you must be having a collection of audio cassettes. They are now outdated and cumbersome--take more space cannot be easily shared and are prone to wear and tear. The music on physical tapes can be easily converted into a digital mp3 collection.

What are the equipment required?

1. Stereo cassette player
2. Computer with Audacity installed
3. Two way male 3-pin connector

Preparing the equipment: Before we proceed with recording, the playback head and also the recording heads should be cleaned using liquid (alcohol or water) and lint-free cloth. The pins on the cassette player that hold and rotate tapes should also be cleaned for better performance.

Connecting cassette player and computer: In order to record the music played by the cassette player, we need to send the output to computer system. A two way male 3-pin connector is used to connect the headphone socket of stereo cassette player with the line in or microphone socket of the computer. A male 3-pin jack is the pin is commonly used to connect headphones or speakers to audio devices. You can also make your own connector by connecting two male 3-pins in parallel, that is connecting similar leads. A previous post in the series explains how one can easily make a connector. In case you have different output from your cassette player, use an appropriate connector.

Adjusting recording volume: Once the computer and audio player is connected, you need to play a cassette and try to record it with Audacity by selecting Line In or Microphone as the input device. The mixer and audio volumes need to be adjusted so that the sound in neither inaudible nor distorted due to loudness. Record and then listen to it by playing. This has to be adjusted on a hit-and-trial basis.

Start recording: After adjusting recording level, start the recording in Audacity and then play the cassette. The entire cassette needs to be recorded in live time. If you wish to listen to the music as it gets recorded, go to Edit -> Preferences and choose to play tracks as it is being recorded (software playthrough).

Once all the songs are recorded, you can export it as mp3 using LAME Encoder. For better handling, you can cut the audio recording and separate them into songs--select the entire wave form that has one song, cut or copy. Now go to new and open a new Audacity window and paste. Now go to File -> Export, insert song metadata and export as mp3.

If you are using the stable 1.2.6 version, you will have to go to Project -> Edit ID3 Tags and insert song metadata. The choose to export as mp3 under an option in File menu.

This method can also be used to record output of any audio device that can be connected to the Line In or Microphone socket of the computer. It can be used to record show on air on your favourite radio station.

PS: This is the third in a three-part series on Audacity. The previous two introduced Audacity as a sound recording application that can be used to record streming media, and recording streaming media even if stereo mix option is absent in Audacity installation.

Additional resources:
Copying tapes [Audacity]