Digitizing both sides of a cassette tape.

bunyabunya wrote on 6/9/2004, 5:59 PM

I just bought Sound Forge and love it! So, now I am can add audio to the WorkPrinter transferred movies I am editing in Vegas. They are from the 1950 and 60s.

The audio I will be using is from using digitized cassette tapes, and open reel tapes.

I can easily digitize both sides of the 1950s open reel tapes simultaneously and then reverse the backward side in Sound Forge.

Does anyone know how to do this for cassette tapes, would cut the time in half, and I have about 500 of them to do.

Comments

jester700 wrote on 6/9/2004, 6:12 PM

You could use a 4 track cassette "portastudio" for this. The tracks don't match up exactly with those on stereo cassettes, but close enough for low quality high speed transfers. For that matter, many portas run at double speed, so a C-90 could be dubbed in 22.5 minutes. The problem is, playback EQ and Dolby tracking would be totally fudged. But again, this would be a quick n' dirty way to do voice tapes. For music I'd stay real time unless audio quality doesn't matter.

bunyabunya wrote on 6/9/2004, 6:34 PM

Jester,

The Tascam 424MKIII 4-Track Cassette Portastudio is pretty amazing looking for someone who has only used simple cassette recorders before.

http://birdlandmusic.net/customer/product.php?productid=1729!!mid=78311

So, with this unit I could simultaneously play both sides of a cassette tape into the sound card in my computer, make a file, and then reverse the backward one with Sound Forge like I've been doing with the open reel tape player? That would make such a difference, save a thousand hours or more of play time!

bunyabunya wrote on 6/10/2004, 10:45 AM

MichaelM, over on the Tascam forum, said he thought it probably would work, if the machine had "direct track outs to keep everything separate", which the Tascam 424MKIII does. Going to give it a try.