Burning 14 years worth of CDs is not fun.

[SarahB]

I finally started the task. I have temporary custody of the CDs and I'm burning most of them. I didn't realize there were so many. Unfortunately, my favorite Pink Floyd's are conveniently missing. :grr:

P.S. Technical question.
Is there anything you can do to transfer old cassettes into your computer to burn them onto CD. I know there is, but I'm not exactly sure as to exactly "how" it's done. Thanks.

[ET Awful]

1. It can be done, but the audio quality is pretty lousy.

You can run a line from the line-out on a tape deck to the line-in on your computers sound card and record from there.

[SarahB]

2. Poop.

Maybe I'll try one and then see how it goes. Thanks, man. :hi:

[Shrubhater]

15. I have a question regarding this subject.

How would you burn a song you composed on your computer onto a recordable CD in the computer? :shrug:

[ET Awful]

17. Convert it to .wav file if you haven't already

Then use any CD burning software (I use Nero) to burn it as an audio CD.

CD files are .wav files under a different name for the most part.

[ghostsofgiants]

3. There's always this for encoding cassettes...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/6908/

A little pricey though, haha.

[ET Awful]

4. Those don't work too badly, but much like any time you try to convert

analog tape to digital audio, you keep all the problems with the original analog source such as the hiss, degradation of the tape over time, etc.

This isn't so noticeable if you just make an analog copy of the analog source because it's not as accurate a reproduction when you play it back.

The audio problems become apparent when you play the analog that's been converted because a digital player will reproduce every flaw and make it audible. So problems you never heard in the analog source being reproduced by an analog player become loud and obnoxious :)

[ghostsofgiants]

5. Oh, I'm very familiar with the problems

I'm just saying that if she really wanted, it was an option.

[sam sarrha]

6. there is some comercial software that epecifically does that well

actually lots of it

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

7. Some software will rip more quickly than others... what are you using?

If you are looking for software, the process of going from CD to your hard drive is 'ripping'... 'burning' is the other way (to a CD).

How are you, BTW?? :hi: I got my senior pic scanned... 80's bangs and all :blush:... eek

[SarahB]

8. I'm good.

Life is always full of busyness and interesting possibilities to say the least. Well, the CDs are getting burned. It's just the cassettes I'm less sure about. :crazy:

I think I saw that pic. You were a cutie! :D

[Cyndee_Lou_Who]

12. I hope you find a way to get your slow-jam mix tapes done...

whadda shame it'd be otherwise! If you are in need of any specific Floyd ... or 80's tunes, lemme know, I have an EXTENSIVE mp3 collection that I could find a way to share with you!

[Guy Fawkes]

9. It can be done with good audio quality!

You need to get a cassette drive for your computer. The best one out there (IMHO) can be bought at Think Geek. It is a bit expensive, but if you only buy tapes from now on, you can rip at cd quality and only spend a buck or two when your favorite group comes out with a new album.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/6908/

[Guy Fawkes]

11. Oh, and ripping CDs...

I'd have to recommend EAC (Exact Audio Copy) with LAME configured for high quality MP3s. Fyrth has a great FAQ, and you can either google for it or go here: http://www.fryth.com/eacfaq/

[ghostsofgiants]

16. I could never get EAC to work (always crashed, I tried everything)

Now I use CDex. Instead of MP3, I encode all my cds to OGG-Vorbis. It's open source (I like to support open source technology whenever possible) and it gets better quality at the same bitrate. Unfortunately it's still sort of an obscure format, so most DAPs don't support them (a few do, but not many).

[SarahB]

13. It looks like that's just for PCs though.

I now have a Mac. :(

[progmom]

10. ack.

i could never split with progdad.
i don't have enough time left on this earth to listen to all of our CDs, let alone burn them. i think we have well over 10,000... :scared:

good luck!

[SarahB]

14. Wow!

:wow:
We just have a couple hundred. That's bad enough.