Trying to record from a cassette player

Software & Apps
#1

Hi. I have a piece of audio on cassette tape that I want to email to someone. So I want to record it using my PC - nothing fancy, doesn’t need to be high-end hi-fi quality. I plan to use the cable connecting my PC to the ‘line in’ socket of my monitor. I’ve switched the jack from the green socket of the PC to the blue socket (which should be ‘line in’ right?). And I’ve taken the jack from my monitor and plugged it into the headphone socket of my portable cassette player.

As far as I know, there should now be a signal going from the cassette player into the sound card? Unfortunately, the two sound recorders I’ve tried (Audacity and Arial) have completely blank spaces when I click on ‘select input device’.

Can anyone tell me where I’m going wrong? Thanks in advance.

#2

[QUOTE=pooksahib;2489977]Hi. I have a piece of audio on cassette tape that I want to email to someone. So I want to record it using my PC - nothing fancy, doesn’t need to be high-end hi-fi quality. I plan to use the cable connecting my PC to the ‘line in’ socket of my monitor. I’ve switched the jack from the green socket of the PC to the blue socket (which should be ‘line in’ right?). And I’ve taken the jack from my monitor and plugged it into the headphone socket of my portable cassette player.

As far as I know, there should now be a signal going from the cassette player into the sound card? Unfortunately, the two sound recorders I’ve tried (Audacity and Arial) have completely blank spaces when I click on ‘select input device’.

Can anyone tell me where I’m going wrong? Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]
You probably need to plug into the ‘line in’ on your PC (if it has one). Line in on the monitor is likely for sending audio to the internal speakers in the monitor. If line in doesn’t appear as an input option, you can enable it in Volume Control -> Options -> Properties -> Recording. (on Win XP, anyway)

#3

I’m not inputting the signal at the monitor. I just thought I’d mention that I’m trying to use the cable which ordinarily feeds sound to my monitor. I have three sockets on the back of my PC - pink, green and blue. The cable jack is normally in the green with the other jack in my monitor. I’ve taken the monitor jack out and plugged it into the headphone socket of a portable cassette player. I’ve then (on the back of the PC) taken the other jack put of the green and plugged it into the blue. I had hoped that this would allow me to record from the cassette player. As mentioned above, 2 pieces of recording software can’t find an input device. (I’ve also tried using the pink (microphone in) socket on the back of the PC - no luck.

As for Control Panel, I do not have ‘Hardware and Sounds/Sound Panel’. All I have is ‘Sound’ which has four tabs - Playback, Recording, Sounds and Communications. Under ‘Recording’ it says ‘no audio devices are installed’. Any idea what this means? I must have some kind of audio device if I can play music and video files on my PC…

Once again, any suggestions as to how I make a recording from this cassette tape would be greatly appreciated.

#4

Hi,

the wiring seems to be correct.
You may need to play with the settings of your audio driver. The connectors of modern audio devices can be configured via software, so it might be necessary to assign the “Line-In” function to the blue connector manually. If the drivers of your audio chip are properly installed, then there should be an entry in Control Panel.

Michael

#5

Hi Michael. Thanks, but I don’t see a way of playing with the settings for the driver. I’ve just tried a third piece of recording software - VinylStudio. It’s error message is “There are no audio drivers installed on this machine or all audio devices are disabled”. I’ve gone into System Information and for Sound Device it says:
Name - High Definition Audio Device (Digital Audio S/PDIF)
Manufacturer - Microsoft
Status - OK
PNP Device ID - HDAUDIO\FUNC_ blah blah blah
Driver - c:\windows\system32\drivers blah blah blah

I’m really confused by all this. My PC plays sounds so what do I need to be able to record sounds? Thanks again.

#6

You problem is not software related, so no recording software does work on your system at the moment.

From that information, you may have only some generic driver installed, that provides only minimum functionality.

Please check device manager, section “Audio, Video, Game Controller”.

You can try this:

  • go to Windows Update website - they often have drivers.
  • read the manual of your computer in order to find out, what audio system is integrated. Then get drivers for that.

Michael

#7

I think I see the issue. I’d given up for the night and plugged my monitor back in as normal. Suddenly, I have recording options. So it appears I won’t be able to record unless my ‘sound in’ and ‘sound out’ are both wired up (if that makes sense). Looks like I’ll have to acquire another cable with mini-jacks either end…

#8

I´m not sure why the set-up doesn´t work.

I do this quite often, so if you don´t mind, I´d like to just go through how I do it , in case we have missed something.

Cassette player is on…and everything is the right way around (tape recording is able to be heard when you push play etc)
Audacity is running on the PC
You have connected the headphone output of the cassette player to the microphone input of your PC, with a double ended 3.5mm plug/cable connector.
You have selected microphone as the source in the Audacity window
You have adjusted levels of the cassette player output (around 3 on a scale of 10)
You have adjusted levels of the microphone and speaker controls on the Audacity interface (Mic at about 2, and speakers at 5)
The audio should be visible in the level meters…adjust to avoid going too high (don´t go into the red)
Click the big red record button on Audacity

That´s about how it should work.
If you have checked every aspect carefully…and it still doesn´t work, then the quickest and easiest solution is to try this on another computer. Perhaps a friend will let you try it.

Try it all again and let us know what happens.

#9

Hi deanimator and thanks for the trouble you’ve gone to. I’m using Audacity 1.3 Beta (since I have Windows 7). Using your steps, the first hurdle I have is “You have selected microphone as the source in the Audacity window”. The only option in the drop down box is ‘Master’ (whatever that means). But I can click on Edit/Preferences/Devices and choose either ‘Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input’ or ‘Aux (High definition Audio Device)’. I’ve tried both. When the tape is playing, there’s nothing happening in the level meters and that applies whether I plug into the pink or blue socket on the sound card. Pressing record just shows a steady blue line at ‘0’.

No luck either with the two other recording programs I have. I think I’m gonna have to concede defeat here…

#10

I´m digging deeper into this…

[EDIT: seems also that I had a double post…sorry about that…see above]

#11

I´m digging deeper into this

Some are claiming that Microsoft has disabled something! :a
Here´s a quote…

Yes they give you that little recorder than they completely disable all recording in your driver software to somehow make up for it. All the recording features on my Asus XonarD2 driver software does not show up anymore. Another one of Windows famous were not gunna let you record anything unless it’s through the OP system deals.

BUT, this guy says it´s not true. Read more here: http://w7info.com/articles/2009/02/windows-7-audio-capture-not-disabled/

#12

Interesting, if all a bit technical for me. In ‘Sound’ I am definitely showing Disabled and Disconnected devices but there’s just one thing in the Recording list and that’s “Aux (High Definition Audio Device)”. I’ve just installed Realtek High Definition Audio Driver for Windows 7 64 bit but nothing has changed. But why would it as the “Aux…” is manufactured by Microsoft. Although the Realtek driver installed itself nicely I’ve no idea what, if anything, it’s doing… Thanks for your continued interest, deanimator.

#13

Matter resolved. All it took was to download the appropriate Sound Driver from Asus, the maker of my mobo.