Dubbing OLD cassettes to CD
Posted by: Dungassin on 15 June 2010
Months ago I agreed to do a favour for "the opposition" (son-in-law's parents - I actually like them, BTW). She had a load of audiobooks she wanted transferring to CD, and I said I'd do it for her.
So, this weekend what arrived but 2 boxes containing about 200 cassettes. These have turned out to be old "Storyteller" (a magazine with cassette attached) and similar items. Needless to say these cheap tapes have not fared well with the years.
I've done about 30 so far, and of these, 5 have jammed or won't play to the end - in spite of rapid wind/rewind to free them up. Not a player problem, as both my Nak CR7 and a couple of RadioCassette players have problems with them. If it had been the odd one I might have transferred the tape to a new housing, but it looks like I'm going to have a high failure rate. Of the remainder, about a quarter exhibit severe speed stability problems, and the bloody tapes are shedding oxide at a high rate! I've had to clean the Nak heads/rollers etc twice already! Daren't use the radiocassette players to transfer them, as one has managed to chew up a tape already.
Luckily enough the tapes contain mainly short fairy tales and short childrens' stories (usually 10 minutes or less), so I'm just losing some individual stories. Bugger putting them on CD - I'm ripping them to 128kps MP3, perfectly adequate for the source material - they can burn the CD versions themselves.
Wonder how these tapes have been stored? My own ones still play fine, even after 30 years or more!
Just having a quiet moan, really ...
So, this weekend what arrived but 2 boxes containing about 200 cassettes. These have turned out to be old "Storyteller" (a magazine with cassette attached) and similar items. Needless to say these cheap tapes have not fared well with the years.
I've done about 30 so far, and of these, 5 have jammed or won't play to the end - in spite of rapid wind/rewind to free them up. Not a player problem, as both my Nak CR7 and a couple of RadioCassette players have problems with them. If it had been the odd one I might have transferred the tape to a new housing, but it looks like I'm going to have a high failure rate. Of the remainder, about a quarter exhibit severe speed stability problems, and the bloody tapes are shedding oxide at a high rate! I've had to clean the Nak heads/rollers etc twice already! Daren't use the radiocassette players to transfer them, as one has managed to chew up a tape already.
Luckily enough the tapes contain mainly short fairy tales and short childrens' stories (usually 10 minutes or less), so I'm just losing some individual stories. Bugger putting them on CD - I'm ripping them to 128kps MP3, perfectly adequate for the source material - they can burn the CD versions themselves.
Wonder how these tapes have been stored? My own ones still play fine, even after 30 years or more!
Just having a quiet moan, really ...