Tape to MP3

Found a couple of Hanyu cassette tapes lying around and decided to convert them to mp3, as I'm sure they'll come in handy in the future.

For this operation, I'm making use of my iRiver x20. Converting to mp3 is as easy as connecting a 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable from the cassette player's earphone port to the x20's line in port. Playback from the tape deck is piped to the x20's external stereo speakers so I know exactly when the start the recording on the x20. The recording volume can be controlled either on the tape deck and on the x20's line-in volume control.

The good thing with the x20 is that it can record straight to mp3. No wav-to-mp3 conversion required. High-quality setting produces 44.1kHz 128kbps CBR stereo mp3 files. Approximately 1MB for every minute of audio. Not bad.

For post-processing, I use Audacity. First step is to normalize the whole mp3 file. Simply select the whole file, click on Effect, then Normalize. To eliminate tape hiss, select a small section where there is supposed to be silence, click on Effect, then Noise Removal, then click the Get noise profile button. As a last step, select the whole file again, click on Effect, then Noise Removal, then click on the Remove noise button.