Well, I finally got my act together and decided to rip my cassette tapes into mp3 format.

I have about 249 gigs of mp3's now from CD's, and I have been debating for a year on whether or not to start the cassette tapes. I've got about 3000 cassette tapes on hand. Of course, I won't have to do all of them since I have many of them on CD (already converted to mp3).

My test subject was David Gilmour's 1984 release "About Face." Converted to .wav, cleaned up, split, re-converted to mp3, put in a folder on the external drive, and on the media jukebox. Took me all of about 5 hours to get it just right (mixing and editing the sound to remove tape hiss is a b*tch).

Working on Loggins and Messina's "Best of Friends" tape now. Should be able to complete it in less than an hour.

You have to let the tape play through completely in order to capture the wav file. It'll be something to do on the PC in the background while I'm doing something more important (Smoking, sweet talking some thang, etc). The interactive part is the 15 minutes after the capture to clean up the sound. I'll get faster with time. The best part is that in the next several months I'll be hearing some of my "old" tunes that have been on the shelf for far too long. Somewhere in that huge box is "It's a Beautiful Day," "Blind Faith," and a few others that I haven't heard in a while.

I anticipate about 6 months on this project. Then I need to consider the 8000 plus LP's I have in storage.

Adroomi,

What software and hardware did you use to do this conversion? I used to be a DJ in the 80's and have some old mixes I want to bring back to life. Besides the cassette deck what does one need?

Thanks in advance!

Castlewa

Loggins and Messina came out great.....working on Iron Maiden "Killers" from '81 now.

I use J River's Media Jukebox for all of my mp3 conversions. It's $19.95 for the complete version, but you can get a free 30 day trial. I recommend just buying it. It's an awesome program, and by far the easiest most user friendly out there, regardless of what anyone says. Trust me on that.

I've got a Kenwood tape deck running directly into my PC via the panasonic output jacks into the input on the PC.....simple as that.

It takes some playing around with to get the settings right, but after that it's a breeze.

If you are really interested in doing it, I can give you some more detailed instructions, but it would be more of a talk through. You would at least need the program and the setup first. No worrys though.

That looks like a nice program. It appears to have a lot of great features for the price. Are you streaming the files to other PCs or are you just playing the music from a single PC?

When you store the MP3 files on your hard drive, how do you have them organized in the directories? Are you organizing by Artist\Album\Track.mp3? That is something that I've been pondering for some time. I cant decide on a good format.

Are you backing up the mp3s? If so, how are you doing it? I ended up buying an extra drive. I'm mirroring the files between the 2 drives. I'd freak out if something happened to a drive and I lost all my mp3s. As you know, it takes a while to get them all ripped/converted. So far, I've only ripped the CDs. Havent ventured to the cassettes or LPs yet.

Sorry for all the questions. I've been working on a similar project lately and it is always good to compare notes with someone else. I'm using Globecom Jukebox (http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net). It is free, but does not have all the features of your program. The upside for me is that Globecome is open-source. Being a programmer, I can change or add to it if needed.

I've been streaming all my music. I'm currently gutting a broken DVD player and putting PC parts in it. The PC/DVD player will then be put in the entertainment center so that I can control it from the big-screen TV. It has been a cheap and fun project. It just takes a lot of spare time to get it the way I want it.

I've got two externals that I use, both are identical. One is a backup for the other in case it fails.

On the hard drive I have a folder called Music. In that folder is 4 more titled "a-d" "e-h" and so on to "z" Inside each of those folder is a folder with the name of the artist. Inside the artist folder is the album folder. Inside the album folder is the mp3's set up with the proper track number and details.

On the jukebox program you click the artist from the list of about 6000 different artists (I have them further catagorized by genre, ie rock, country, etc), once you click the artist, you can either just hit play and it will play everything, or you can click on the album title to choose only from that album.

It is the best filing system there is, and not a single mp3 is repeated even once. There are different versions of different songs though (such as live ones versus studio) so those are intact. but for example on a greatest hits album, I have deleted all of the songs off of the album that are covered on other albums, therefore no repeats.

All in all, it's about 49,000 mp3s, and somewhere around 4,900 complete cd's, mostly 70's-80's popular stuff, but a little bit of everything. I am quite diverse in my musical taste.

All of them are mp3 format, so I can take the hard drive to a friends house if I want to, plug in the usb, and they can copy and paste the entire thing. Easy as pie......they work on any computer.

this is something I would like to do in the near future also... I've got all my old Cassette tapes and LP's... last year when we purchased all the entertainment center stuff... I also purchased one of the high tech turntables so I could listen to my old LP's... then I got to thinking it would be nice to put them to CD format... I bought all the plug in **** but haven't ever gotten around to setting it up...

Sounds like you've got some work ahead of you Adroomi... but in the end it will be well worth it...

Hog

Seems I have everything I need lying around! I am going to have to try this. I will see how it goes. Thanks for the info and offer Adroomi. I just might take you up on it.

Cheers,

Castlewa

Holy crap!!!! 8000 LP's!!!! Wow! I trashed about 5 large boxes of LP's about two years ago after moving them about 5 times and I know I'll regret it forever. All from the 70's, 80's, 90's era.

Loggins and Messina, true musicians. I have the "Best of Friends" on CD but I can't remember if "Vahevalla"(sp?) is on there, great tune. Listening to Kenny right now. "Conviction of the Heart" live. Good Stuff!

Sorry, threadjack off. 🙂

Oh, and "Angry Eyes", another classic.

O.K., then. As you were.

Rog

It's on the album, yes.

Adroomi,

Does that software handle taking out the pop/hiss of old LP's?

I have an old stack of 60's/70's/80's LPs. I'd rather try to import them (assuming I can actually find a turntable) rather than re-buy them on CD or online.

Thanks

Yes, there are several programs that can do this for you, depending on the level of "perfectness" you want.

The easier ones that require little or now intervention will remove tape hiss and lp pops. Some of the more serious programs that require some user intervention can clean up an lp to sound like it's brand new. The serious programs give you sound displays, where you manually go in and remove the pops and cracks yourself. The easy programs remove them on their own, but aren't as accurate.

To get the best fidelity out of "old" lps, it is critical that they are properly cleaned.

That usually means with a record cleaning machine that has a vacuum to suck up the dirty solution. It does not mean one of those felt pads that end up sorta grinding the grit into the microgroove. The difference can be amazing.

I agree that one may often need to use a program to eliminate the pops, ticks and the like that were often present in Lps made from the early 70's on, when the quality of the vinyl was junk to start with.

But the great news is while vinyl is a fraction of the current music business, it has been the last few years the fastest growing.

I am constantly astounded by what rarities are currently being realeased on new, 200 gram vinyl. Unless you are a "collector", that needs an original release...this may be a solution for those who are looking for the fidelity that analogue provides.

Another solution for ripping from analogue are some of the new hard drive jukebox portables, ( I have an iriver),that provide the way to convert analogue recordings and even live recording into various mp3 files...

And Adroomi...those 8000 lps...may I suggest that if you haven't, to make sure that you store them very carefully...which means removing the Lp from the album, putting it into a separate new sleeve to prevent the ringwear that effects the album cover, and the value. And of course, always store vertical..JMHO

....ah, so I'm not the only audiophile in town after all.

Whoops, My secret is out.

Actually I am even worse.

I'm a tube guy.

New tube amp, with a tube cd player...but with a real preference for analogue/tubes.

Those who have never experienced it don't know what you are missing....

And Adroomi...if you are in Japan(?)...you know how much many Japanese appreciate great music, and music reproduction....

Turntables and tubes are the rage here. All of the bars still have DJ's and all the DJ's know how to spin a good record. What I mean is that even just a standard pub with a bar and three or four tables, will have a turntable on the bar with a wall full of albums. The bartender will spin what the customers feel like listening to. They learn their customers, and remember them. When you walk into a joint, you can be certain that within 5-10 minutes, you'll be hearing your song. Tom Waits gets played at just about every bar I step into.

There are record stores everywhere, and yes, they sell records (lp's). It's like going to the import section in the record shop as a kid and finding all of the cool "not released in the USA" stuff on a daily basis.

In the gigantic electronics section of town called Akihabara (world famous place for cutting edge technology...you want to find it? Go there.), you can pick up the latest mp3 player or cell phone that is 4 years from being released in the states (if ever) or at the next store over buy a $2000 Denon turntable that you thought went out of production 20 years ago, and is still being made. Amps for days I tell you.

Japanese love music, and they pass it on to their kids as well. It's really groovy going into an HMV or Virgin records, and the hip hop section is empty, because the 13 year olds are busy buying all of the Rainbow and Ten Years After CD's off the shelves.

Stop!

I'll get there sometime soon, I'm sure, just to browse the record shops.

AND Let me guess, you can smoke cigars in those bars as well...without the smoking police coming after you .

Very interesting about the "kids", and turntables,and such in a Country that also has the latest tech.

Especially compared to the States where must people prefer "lo-fi" and portability, and low cost, over fidelity.

I've been in many homes here that only have a boombox or some cheap "Home Theater" system...in houses well into $750,000 and up....no appreciation or education,is my guess..

But things are stirring....McIntosh now makes their first tube equiptment in over 20 years, Thorens is making turntables again....and it's not only FOGs that are buying them...