Copying taped music to iTune?

[Romain Kang]

On Fri, Feb 28, 2003 at 09:21:56PM +0000, donhinkle at att.net wrote:
> I have some old audio tapes that were never CDs, and I'd like to save them 
> to disk and make my own CDs.
> I'm guessing that if I input the tape to my iBook and turn on iTunes that it 
> will automatically save them to disk as mp3s or whatever that format is.
> Correct? Is it more to it than that? Please elucidate...

A longish description follows.  It's really not too difficult once
you get the hang of it, but if you're only going to do it once or
twice, you may be better off coaxing a teenager from your extended
family/neighborhood to do it for you in return for some suitable
favor.

My own interest is in making concert and interview recordings, so
I haven't done this.  However, iTunes has no analog recording
facility, and the only analog input on post-2001 iceBooks is the
little mono mic, intended mainly for speech input.  Music captured
through this channel would likely be unsatisfying.  If you're
capturing ambient sounds, speech or other stuff, adapt any "song"
terminology below as appropriate.

So, first order of business is to get an analog input.  The popular
choice at this level is the Griffin iMac, which runs about $30 and
has a 1/8" stereo input jack.  Presumably, you have the connectors
needed to get from your tape player to there.

Second, you need some software to convert the analog sound to
something like an AIFF or WAV file.  There's probably something
simple and free/cheap out there which will meet your needs.  I've
been using Spark ME (www.tcworks.de), and have also been looking
at Amadeus, which you can find through VersionTracker.com.  If you
own Roxio Toast, there may be Peak LE bundled in, which will also
do a decent job.

Third, make some short test recordings to iron out any wrinkles.
I suggest recording at CD quality, so that you have the option
of burning a regular audio CD once you've figured out the process.
You can run your tape, or perhaps a CD to save wear on your tape
while you're getting basic capture process ironed out.  For best
use of the digital medium, you want to get the levels as high as
possible without actually clipping.

Fourth, play back your test selections to be sure they sound OK.
I suggest playing back through a full sized stereo to get some idea
what it sounds like.  A lot of audible grunge may become evident
which you might not notice if you were playing just on the computer.
So you should be sure you can live with the way things sound.

Fifth, once you're satisfied you can get the sounds into the iBook
without harm, I suggest recording an entire tape side at a single
go, though you can also do a song at a time, or just the selections
you want to transfer.  At CD quality, you need about 10 MB per
minute of music on your hard drive.  You'll want to chop this into
single songs per file, so that iTunes and other MP3 players can
deal with the songs reasonably.  So you'll probably need about
double the disk space if you keep everything on hard drive (which
I find is the easiest way to go).  Alternatively, your sound editor
may be able to save MP3s directly, which would require less disk
space.

Once you have your music recorded one-song-to-a-file, I believe
iTunes should be able to import it.  Or you also have the option
of burning a regular audio CD from the audio files.

Good luck,
Romain Kang                             Disclaimer: I speak for myself alone,
romain at kzsu.stanford.edu                except when indicated otherwise.