Everybody’s seen those fancypants record players that have the USB cords, wherein you can back up your favorite LPs into inferior-sounding digital files for maximum convenience*. But what of those cassettes that you’ve been stashing in some shoeboxes in that back closet, right behind the Rubbermaid tub of Christmas ornaments that never even makes it out for Christmas because you stopped buying trees a few years ago when you and your wife separated because, I mean, what’s the point of even trying anymore? What about those guys? The cassettes, I mean.
Never fear. Alesis has a solution for you tape hoarders: The Alesis TapeLink USB, which, for a mere $299 (insert surprise-y face emoticon here), can back up your tapes digitally. The idea of converting crappy-sounding cassettes to 192 rip mp3s is a bit laughable from an audiophile perspective, but I have quite the tape collection, seeing as, up until last year, I only drove busters with tape decks in them**. Here are some of the things I wouldn’t mind backing up:
• hilarious four-track projects of mine, which were only mixed down to tape, if only to laugh at them;
• practice sessions from a bunch of bands I’ve been in, if only to laugh at them;
• Jesus and Mary Chain’s Darklands, which I have only ever had on cassette—the tape noise is part of how I hear this record;
• lots of hair metal;
• local band gems—Five-Eight’s first cassingle and Lethal Compulsion, a 1992 or so death metal band made up of fellow students at Auburn High School (sample song title: “Cadaverosity of Chaos”); and
• tapes of my grandparents and parents talking to each other that they sent back and forth while my parents lived in Brazil (my grandmother had a stroke around the time I was born, and I never heard her speak more than one or two words at a time).
How about you out there? What cassettes would you back up? And doesn’t $299 seem a tad pricey? Isn’t there an easier way to do this then a standalone unit?
One Last Gasp for Audio Cassettes, Hooked Up to the Computer [NYT]
* I’ve been meaning to do this since my domicile was caught in a perfect storm of stereo failure, leaving me with no tuner or record player.
** Now I drive a buster with a temperamental CD player in it that doesn’t like two types of discs: CDs with music on them and/or CDs that people might want to hear.
What about this idea - buy the $300 deck, rip all of your cassettes, and then just return the damn thing?
you can actually just use any tape deck anywhere, and get a 1/8 in jack to your computer and go straight into garageband with it. just recorded a bunch of family tapes from ages ago onto my computer this way and they came out sounding great.
• tapes of my grandparents and parents talking to each other that they sent back and forth while my parents lived in Brazil
Aw, our families did that too. Not Brazil, though - Alaska. Still, I want to preserve the cassettes and VHS tapes that my grandparents created - There’s something so comforting about hearing their voices.
So what if you rip at 320, then? :-D
(I shamelessly admit to regarding most audiophile debates from the same perspective as WOPR from WarGames in re: nuclear war: “The only winning move is not to play.”)
you really just need any tape deck, a patch cord to the line in on your computer, and some kinda shareware audio editing program, like Audacity.
There’s also this:
[www.buy.com]
@dippinkind: True dat.
Am I the only one having trouble opening articles in Firefox?
@scheisskopf: what kind of trouble? what version of firefox
Before I really embraced mp3 technology, I threw away or sold off in lots about 2000 tapes. GAH!!!
I actually did this — ripping cassettes to MP3 — a couple of years ago for my wife, who was very attached to a couple of old classical cassettes of particular repertoire/symphonies that would be either impossible or too much trouble to try to find digitally.
I used a Griffin USB adapter, Final Vinyl, and my old tape deck from the basement. Cost me about $50. Which makes this $300 deck laughable.
@Maura Johnston: The home page is all I can get in Firefox. Everything else just opens as a blank page. It’s version 3.0.6, running on Leopard.
Yeah, 300 bucks for this type of deck is crazy. Last year I replaced my worn down cassette deck with one with a USB out and Audacity software to record and edit the files for 99 bucks at J&R. It’s been essential in coverting a bunch of Neil Young bootlegs I collected in the 80s.
@scheisskopf: that happens to me every once and a while. I just neurotically refresh.
This looks like a rebranded Ion deck, which means you’re paying about twice what they charge, which is still twice what it’s worth.
can somebody just start a service where I can ship off my old cassettes?
or can I just illegally download the same albums guilt free if I own the cassette? is there a moral arbiter around here to tell me if I’m in the clear?
I was really disappointed about a year ago, because I wanted to make mp3s out of a bunch of old mixtapes I had collected in high school (yay, Sinister tape-trees!) But most of the tapes had worn out…
@joshgibson:
Through the years, I’ve had the vinyl, cassette, and CD of some of my favorite albums. If it’s a band like U2 who are filthy rich, I say download.
I used a Griffin iMic (about $25 at the time), my boombox, and Audacity. This is an absurd price considering the point of the project is to get rid of the tapes (or at least eliminate all need to ever play them again) and so the $300 player would at that point become worthless.
also: my cassette collection at that point mostly consisted of prince/zappa/faith no more concerts and cassingles that had exclusive-to-that-format remixes/extra tracks as I’d already replaced all my tapes with CDs, total of about 1000 tapes.
Heck, I just bought a $120 Numark turntable, which allows you to plug your tape deck into the back, and dub cassettes straight to the computer using Audacity. Sure, I still invested over a hundred bucks, but I can digitize the 1000s of LPs and tapes I have packed in boxes…provided that I ever find the time to duplicate and edit the music….
I also say…just download. The idea that we have to continue to re-purchase the same garbage over and over and over is ridiculous.
@BARRBARR: point taken, although i have a fair amount of cassette-only stuff that hasn’t been digitized yet as far as i know…
@Maura Johnston: No, there’s plenty of Trixter mp3s out there. I’ve seen them.