burning a cd from an audio cassette

[Bill Myrick]

I'm sure there must be several approaches but I'd be interested in comments. Cassette will be a 45 minute church service -- I have a resonably new and efficient computer running office XP. I would need to hear the tape as it was going into the computer or would it be more practical to run it through a simple tape player and into my Sony disc recorder ?
It is much faster in copying the cds but was wondering if there is a better and simpler approach ?
Thanks. Bill Myrick

[Randy Reeves]

however you decide to upload your cassette recording and convert to CD, and there are several ways of doing that, experience says it is done in real time. no quick uploads to burn.

I had mini discs (Sony) and copied them onto my PC with Audacity. that free download then can create MP3, WAV, or other formats. a CD can be burned too.

with Audacity I could watch the song(s) being uploaded. the program allows for some editing. I could separate segments so they each could have their own number on the CD. that is handy if your tape runs uninterupted.

there are other ways. this is what I have done.
whatever you find stay with that. running it becomes easier. unlike the first time.

[Jack Stoner]

You dont really want to record directly to a CD on a PC. Any type of PC activity or some type of problem and the CD is a "coaster". Best, if you are going to the PC to record to the hard drive first and then make the CD from the file on the hard drive. The Audacity recording program referenced is a good and free recording program if you don't have one on your PC.

See this article I wrote on audio interfacing, it also has a section on recording to the PC.

http://the-predator.tripod.com/dell/sec7-9.html

[Bill Myrick]

Thanks, guys for the info ! Wow Jack--you went to a lot of trouble to help a whole bunch of us dummies !!! Great work !! I copied it all, now to try to absorb a wee bit of it !!

[Randy Reeves]

Jack. that is a nice load of important information.
I had not seen that before. it would have made my setting up easier.
terminology is the roughest part.
having pictures and words together.
brilliant.

[Joe Harwell]

Hello Bill-

I have recently faced this same situation at our church and here was my solution.

For around 700.00 that included the Roland cd 2 and a 2 gig type I flash card. The CD 2 was an "open box" with full warranty for 625.00 rather that 700.00. The compact flash card was around 70.00.

I record to the flash card via RCA jacks from the sound board and then burn that track over to CD. This is a stand alone unit and the most simple solution I found. One other option caught me eye, I believe it was an Alesis unit that had a regular 40gb hard drive rather than a compact flash card plus a CD burner. Another stand alone solution.

Tho they have a lot of other bells/whistles, I found the Roland CD 2 a simple out of the box set up and use solution for us.

User manuals are available for down load.

The Roland CD 2 has a small footprint, too.

How we did it-
-Joe in LA

[Al Marcus]

Bill-It sounds like you found the right solutions for you. Probably the best too. I thought about that too. My Friend has a Boss 1200 that he likes , has every thing, but they are over $1000.

I am trying to do the same thing, With some software I found that seems to be easy for me. I am recording my tapes to the computer hard drive, then it is easy
to burn them on a CD with the computer or any other.
Good luck with your recording, Bill......al.:)

[Randy Reeves]

Al, it looks too that you have found your way. when I get something working I stick to it. then afterwards it becomes easier and easier.

[Bill Myrick]

Thanks for all the great input guys, I appreciate them all !! I have a little program going now where I tape record the sermons and mail them out to a few shut-ins each week. As time passes, I will have to gear up to using cd's ; many bigger church mailouts already have. I have been using a portable unit that copies and rewinds three cassettes at a time in about 3 minutes, which is fine for my size deal. Sooner or later I am going to have to come up with a similar one to do that with cd's and record the sermons on cd's directly. I'm sure there are or will be units available like that.

[Joe Harwell]

How are you making your cassette copies now?

We had our cassette recorder patched into the soundboard out into the recorder. Then do the tape duplicator thing like you said.

The Roland device referred to in my previous post took the place of the cassette recorder. Just unplugged the RCA jacks and plugged into the Roland CD 2.

The Roland creates the master CD. We purchased a 7 bay CD duplicator that's standalone. Put your master in and if you want one copy or seven, load the tower. Press a button and it duplicates. As simple as you can get.

It cost us a little over 1200.00. We can buy inexpensive cd players and give them to our shut ins and nursing home people and take them the CD of the services.

[Bill Myrick]

Joe--That sounds like something I'll endup with. Right now I'm patching out of the PA system head into a dual tape recorder. Of coarse that will be replaced by the CD recorder, then the copies come back home and are duplicated, labeled and mailed from here. I am looking at using printable cd's and printing the labels on directly here from my computer with a program from Office Depot. I realize the cd's are higher but still less than the cassette tapes have been. I am open for any suggestions. How long does it take your duplicater to cycle ? Thanks, Bill.

[Joe Harwell]

It takes approx. 3-4 minutes for 45 minute recording.
Thats for 1 or 7.

We don't label. Just hand write on the paper sleeve.
And the CD.

The printed labels/CD's look more professional
and we might do that in the future. I've looked at several solutions for that but can't give you any first hand experience.