10-RES-Digitizing audio tapes

Resources > Digitising Audio Tapes with Audacity

Download Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/.

Download of the LAME encoder: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3

You need:

- a tape recorder with a port to plug in headphones

- a computer with a microphone input

- an audio cable to connect both devices

- the freeware Audacity

Step 1: Connect the computer and tape recorder with the audio cable, plugging one end into the headphone socket on the tape recorder; the other in the computer’s pink or red microphone input. (The PCs in the Language Space have a red front connection for microphone input, so use that.) With most tape recorders when you plug in headphones, you can’t hear anything anymore through the main loudspeakers, so you have to ascertain before connecting where your starting point for digitising is (that is of course unless you are going to digitise the complete tape).

Step 2: Open the software Audacity on the computer. The recording process in Audacity is described in more detail on a separate worksheet.

Step 3: Make sure that Microphone is selected on Audacity’s Mixer Toolbar. Continues next page

Step 4: Start recording in Audacity.

Step 5: Start playing the tape in the tape recorder. You should now see a sonogram appearing in Audacity that indicates that the software is ‘hearing’ and recording sound. If the sonogram’s amplitude exceeds its upper and lower limits all the time, reduce the tape recorder’s volume. If the sonogram is hardly visible, increase the tape recorder’s volume. If there is no response, change the computer’s input level by double (!)- byclicking on the little headphone icon in the taskbar, bottom right. In the window that appears click Options > Properties > Recording > OK. Increase the input volume of the Microphone slide. This slide must also NOT be in the bottom position, at zero input volume.

Step 6: When the tape has finished or when you decide you have digitised enough, stop the recording in Audacity and then stop the tape playing.

Step 7: To create a file you can play using a media player, you have to click on File > Export As MP