Old skewl

[Lowdown3]

Cleaning out some stuff I found a bunch of audiotapes of my old shortwave show. Started listening to them in the car this morning. LOL Hopefully my presentation style has gotten a little better over the last 13 years LOL.

Was supposed to receive a copy of every show from the broadcast network but only ended up with about 30 shows from a 2 year period.... :mad:

I ordered a device that is supposed to help you convert old audiotapes to digital audio format. Has anyone ever worked with something like this?

I know practically NOTHING about podcasts, audio files, etc. I assume this will put the old tapes in an mp3 type format and I'll be able to post them here as a file attachment and then folks will be able to download them and play them via their computer or Ipod?????

Help me out here guys, I can show you how to shoot better, how to choke someone out, how to grow better tomatoes, raise rabbits, build a house, wire a solar system, purify water.... but these technical computer type things are lost on me!!!

I believe I can use Audacity to format these and/or edit them. Anyone use that program before?
TIA

If I can get this figured out and working, I'll be posting some "old skewl" stuff like speaking presentations I did at Preparedness Expos back in the day, a couple dozen old shows from when I had the broadcast radio show, etc.

Might lead into some other things also....

[Spock]

I've used audacity before. you can use a tape player with a headphone out/audio out jack and plug directly into your PC's sound system via the Mic jack. a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male stereo wire from radio shack is all the hard ware you need.

[610Alpha]

I have downloaded Audacity and used it only a couple of times....if memory serves me correctly i believe you can cut/paste audio files into 1 or split them out as you need to. My FIL had a similar device for his VHS video camera...unfortunately he could not get his to work with his system even after throwing more RAM into it.

If it doesn't work take it back and get another brand....all it does is take the analog signal and convert it to digital then most likely you get to choose the output format whether you want mp3 or avi or ____.

Let me know if you have problems and I will do my best to help out.

[Rmplstlskn]

I've used my old, but quality, stereo cassette deck to play the tapes into my computer input jack. It takes some tests to make sure all the connections are right and the levels are good. It saves them as .wma (windows media audio), which is a "loss-less" format and I would edit them as that format. When done, convert to .mp3.

Last month I converted a few of your "old skewl" VHS tapes into DVD format. Wow, video quality and resolution have come a long ways since those days you made your VHS videos... Some things, progress is GOOD!

[eeyore]

There are a lot of products out there that will get you there. Audacity is a good and is a free one. If you have an audio card with the connections that that uses the type of plugs like you have that runs between the tv and dvd (red, white and yellow), that will make it easy. Or you could use like Spock said ear phone plugs, most of them are mono only and not stereo. IF it is stereo it will sound a little better. If you run into any problems with it make use your audio properties is set right on the program you using, make sure it (the program) is looking for the signal that is being record from earphones (or "line in" if your using the other type of plugs), and then make sure you choose what type of format you want to save it in. You should not have any problems.

I really like the early versions of cakewalk and Easy Cd Creator, but it seems the older versions get far to complicated, for very little improvement. The biggest problem is the older versions don't work with the newer operating systems.

If you have any problem with them, and can not get it done locally, you could ship me a copy and i will hook my tape deck back up and do them for you and send you a cd. Just contact me, (but you have shipped me some stuff already from your store), and i will forward an address, would love to hear them.

[Bill Foster]

I can't wait to hear the audio files again. I was a big fan.

[1Admin]

I wish I had all of them. Maybe I can get some of the folks that might have taped them back in the day will come forward and offer any tapes they have for a reward? Just over 2 years at a show a week, figure 100 shows and all I got was just over 1/3 of that number of tapes...