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Transferring Cassette Tape to MP3
Most genealogists have a casette tape or two lying around the house, with interviews, baby's first words, story telling, and more. How do you save those for future generations? Turn them into MP3 files!
You don't need any fancy equipment. Most computers today come with a microphone jack in them, and with basic software to handle sound. Your microphone software is probably under start - programs - accessories - entertainment on a Windows system. That lets you record sound into WAV files.
To get the sound onto your computer, first plug your cassette player's headphone jack into the microphone jack on your PC with a simple cable. Most Radio Shacks and electronic stores have them. Hit PLAY on the cassette player, and hit RECORD on your microphone software. Voila! You can record as one gigantic file or record in smaller files.
There are many WAV to MP3 conversion programs out there if you'd rather have MP3 files, and you can experiment with various levels of quality to see what combination works well for your sound source. I have Cakewalk software, but that's a rather high end solution that I had anyway to do work for my boyfriend's band. You can get very good results with software in the $50 to $100 range without going up to $500 or more for professional quality systems.
So make sure you convert those old cassette tapes to MP3s soon! Tapes don't last forever, and you'd hate to lose those precious voices.
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Note - Lisa Shea wrote this content for the genealogy site at BellaOnline.com - you might still find this content there as well. That's fine :) I gave permission!
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