Audio Cassette Tape Transfer To MP3
Or Audio CD

Original Audio Cassette Tape

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Click Here For Vinyl Records Converted to Digital

We can create one backup copy of your original purchased audio cassette tape that you own as long as the backup copy corresponds to the original licensed original; the backup copy is on a different media; only one backup copy per licensed original; the backup copy is for personal use and not for replication or resale. We can transfer only one song or track, if that is what you want, but the price is the same as a full tape. Do NOT send us any personal cassette that contains any copyright music. In other words, you can't make a tape of music off your radio or CD or vinyl record and send it to us for conversion to MP3. We won't do it. If you have a tape with your personal music or other material on it, we can digitize that.

 

Audio Cassette Tape Transfer Pricing

Flat rate fee of $8.00 per tape to transfer your Audio Cassette Tapes to MP3. Our $8.00 pricing includes cleaning your tape, transferring both sides of each cassette to digital MP3 format and a CD or DVD data disk to hold the digital files. Each side of the tape will be converted to multiple MP3s based on the tracks. If your tape is jammed or damaged in some way, we will attempt to fix it for you for an additional $5. If we cannot get it un-jammed or, if we cannot splice the tape pieces together, you only pay the $5 for our work to attempt to fix the tape so it will play. During splicing, some parts of audio tracks may be lost. The whole tape will be transferred as multiple MP3 files based on the different tracks on the audio tapes.

 

MP3 Compression

Using MP3 compression, we can convert the music or audio from possibly 25 cassette tapes or more into less than 700MB of files: that would fit on a single CD-R! We use automatic track splitting. We do not name the individual files. They will be named "track 01," track 02" and etc and will be in a folder with the Album Name. If you want your individual tracks named by us, we will do it for an additional $5.00 per album. Minimum order of $18.00 not including return shipping. Return shipping is $5 for the first cassette tape and $1 for each additional cassette. If you don't need the cassettes back, this will reduce your return shipping costs since you would only have to pay first class postage for sending your CD disks.

 

Digitize Your Tape Collection

Besides having your whole collection of music tapes, you might have tape recordings of your kids when they were young that you would want to preserve. Colleges and other schools can enhance language studies by converting analog cassette tapes into long lasting and quality retaining digital files. Through this conversion, students can transfer large quantities of study materials to MP3 players for portable and personal use. Churches may have sermons, bible studies or other sound recordings that they would want to preserve by digitizing. Government offices, museums and libraries may have sound recordings with high preservation value on cassette tapes and we can digitize and permanently preserve their materials.

 

Audio Cassette Tapes Have Limited Lifetime

While an audio tape has a possible life-span of maybe 15-30 years, it also degrades every time it is used. The tape is continually rubbing on something no matter how much you wish it wasn't. Tapes break. Parts of the cassette break. There is a good chance that you will lose everything on the tape. Once you have a digital copy on a CD, copying CDs is an exact copy and easy to do, while copying a tape involves both wear to the tape and degradation of the signal.

 

Considering the prevalence of MP3 players, both standalone and on computers, it is unlikely that the ability to play back these files is going to disappear.

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Click Here For Vinyl Records Converted to Digital

 

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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassette_tapes

 

Features of the cassette
The cassette was a great step forward in convenience from reel-to-reel audio tape recording, though because of the limitations of the cassette's size and speed, it initially compared poorly in quality. Unlike the 4-track stereo open reel format, the two stereo tracks of each side lie adjacent to each other rather than being interleaved with the tracks of the other side. This permitted monaural cassette players to play stereo recordings "summed" as mono tracks and permitted stereo players to play mono recordings through both speakers. The tape is 3.81 mm (0.150 in) wide, with each stereo track 0.6 mm wide and an unrecorded guard band between each track. The tape moves at 4.76 cm/s (1 7/8 in/s) from left to right. For comparison, the typical open reel format in consumer use was ¼ inch (6.35 mm) wide, each stereo track nominally 1/16 inch (1.59 mm) wide, and running at either 9.5 or 19 cm/s (3.75 or 7.5 in/s).

Cassette types
The original magnetic material was based on gamma ferric oxide (Fe2O3). Circa 1970, 3M Company developed a cobalt volume-doping process combined with a double-coating technique to enhance overall tape output levels. This product was marketed as "High Energy" under its Scotch brand of recording tapes. Inexpensive cassettes are commonly labeled "low-noise", but typically are not optimized for high frequency response.

At about the same time chromium dioxide (CrO2) was introduced by BASF, and then coatings using magnetite (Fe3O4) such as TDK's Audua were produced in an attempt to approach the sound quality of vinyl records. Cobalt-adsorbed iron oxide (Avilyn) was introduced by TDK in 1974 and proved very successful. Finally pure metal particles (as opposed to oxide formulations) were introduced in 1979 by 3M under the trade name Metafine. The tape coating on most Cassettes sold today as either "Normal" or "Chrome" consists of Ferric Oxide and Cobalt mixed in varying ratios (and using various processes); there are very few cassettes on the market that use a pure (CrO2) coating.

 

Simple voice recorders are designed to work with standard ferric formulations. High fidelity tape decks are usually built with switches or detectors for the different bias and equalization requirements for high performance tapes. The most common, iron oxide tapes (defined by an IEC standard as "Type I"), use 120 µs playback equalization, while chrome and cobalt-absorbed tapes (IEC Type II) require 70 µs playback equalization. The recording "bias" equalizations were also different (and had a much longer time constant). Sony tried a dual layer tape with both ferric oxide and chrome dioxide known as 'ferrichrome' (FeCr) (IEC Type III) but these were only available for a short time in the 1970s. Metal Cassettes (IEC Type IV), also use 70 µs playback equalization, and provide still further improvements in sound quality, as well as improved resistance to wear. The quality is normally reflected in the price; Type I cassettes are generally cheapest, and Type IV usually the most expensive. BASF developed a chrome cassette designed for use with 120 µs (type I) playback equalization but this idea only caught on for commercially pre-recorded cassettes.

 

Notches on top of the cassette shell indicate the type of tape within. Type I cassettes only have write-protect notches, Type II have an additional pair next to the write protection ones, and Type IV (metal) have a third set in the middle of the cassette shell. These allow cassette decks to automatically detect the tape type and select the proper bias and equalization. Many inexpensive models (and the majority of those manufactured recently) may lack this feature. Playback of Type II and IV tapes on such a player will produce exaggerated treble, but it may not be noticeable because typically such devices have amplifiers that lack extended high frequency output. Recording on these units however results in very low sound reproduction and sometimes distortion and hiss is heard. Also, these cheaper units cannot erase high bias or metal bias tapes. Attempting to do so will result in "print-through".

Playback length

Tape length is usually measured in minutes of total playing time. The most popular varieties are C46 (23 minutes per side), C60 (30 minutes per side), C90, and C120. The C46 and C60 lengths are typically 15–16 µm thick, but C90s are 10–11 µm and C120s are just 9 µm thick, rendering them more susceptible to stretching or breakage. Some vendors are more generous than others, providing 132 meters or 135 meters rather than 129 meters of tape for a C90 cassette. C180 and even C240 tapes were available at one time, but these were extremely thin and fragile and suffered badly from effects such as print-through, which made them unsuitable for general use. Other lengths are (or were) also available from some vendors, including C10 and C15 (useful for saving data from early home computers), C30, C50, C54, C64, C70, C74, C80, C84, C100, C105, and C110.

 

Some companies included a complimentary blank cassette with their portable cassette recorders in the early 1980s. Panasonic's was a C14 and came with a song recorded on side one, and a blank side two. Except for C74 and C100, such non-standard lengths have always been hard to find, and tend to be more expensive than the more popular lengths. Home taping enthusiasts may have found certain lengths useful for fitting an album neatly on one or both sides of a tape. For instance, the initial maximum playback time of Compact Discs was 74 minutes, explaining the relative popularity of C74 cassettes.