DIGITISE AUDIO RECORDINGS

Perhaps you have audio recordings, containing valuable and irreplaceable material, that are stored on audio cassette tapes. If so, you can use much the same methods we saw for recording and editing live audio to preserve your old recordings digitally. The process is almost identical, except you’ll plug an audio cassette player into your PC’S line audio socket, instead of a microphone into the microphone socket. However, there are a few practicalities to bear in mind before you get started.

First up is the hardware. If you still have an audio cassette player, all you’ll need is an appropriate lead to connect it to your PC. If the cassette player has audio output on a 3.5mm jack socket – so the same as your PC – you need a lead with 3.5mm plugs on both ends. If your cassette player uses RCA phono sockets for audio output, the lead you need has a 3.5mm jack on one end and two RCA phono plugs (for the left and right channels) on the other end. If you don’t have an old cassette player, the solution is to buy a cassette player of the type intended specifically for digitising tapes – these start from about £15. Most now have USB ports, but commonly they have a 3.5mm analogue audio lead too.

An issue with recordings on audio cassettes is that they might be noisy, especially in the case of old cassettes. In this case, you should try out Audacity’s noise reduction feature that you’ll find at Effect>noise Reduction.