Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.
I use a stereo CD player which also has a radio and tape player. I plug one end of a 3.5 mm audio cable into the headphone jack on the stereo and the other end into the microphone jack on the computer to record. I use Audacity to record the tapes and fix the sound quality with effects such as Normalize and Noise Removal.
It does take a long time to record tapes though.
So far I have recorded: (in order)

• AC/DC - High Voltage (their 1975 debut album)
  
• Rage Against The Machine (self-titled debut album)
  
• Iron Maiden - Number Of The Beast
  
• Iron Maiden - Powerslave
  
• Queen - Greatest Hits
  

I might do some more on the weekend because I never have much to do on weekends.

Cool! I think professional remasterers use the original master track though.

jji7skyline wrote:

Cool! I think professional remasterers use the original master track though.

Yeah, I think so too. I'm not a professional though.

jji7skyline wrote:

Cool! I think professional remasterers use the original master track though.

Usually, if available. They'll also often use a digital transfer made some years ago. There was one instance on the recent Beatles Past Masters where I believe they didn't have the tape for the original “Love Me Do” or something like that and had to use the cleanest surviving copy of the record? I forget the details.

I transfer audio from tapes and records on occasion; just today I transferred Mindless Self Indulgence's You'll Rebel to Anything. I pretty much just ran it through normalisation, though, because the LP sounds great and there was barely any surface noise (and definitely nowhere near enough to merit the loss in quality).

beatlesmusic wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

jji7skyline wrote:

Cool! I think professional remasterers use the original master track though.

Usually, if available. They'll also often use a digital transfer made some years ago. There was one instance on the recent Beatles Past Masters where I believe they didn't have the tape for the original “Love Me Do” or something like that and had to use the cleanest surviving copy of the record? I forget the details.

I transfer audio from tapes and records on occasion; just today I transferred Mindless Self Indulgence's You'll Rebel to Anything. I pretty much just ran it through normalisation, though, because the LP sounds great and there was barely any surface noise (and definitely nowhere near enough to merit the loss in quality).

That's right, the master tape was re-used or something, that's why there's no real stereo mix of the original Love Me Do record.

Make sure you use a high quality AUX cable for the transfer because I find that low quality cables can reduce quality like nothing else. For example, one AUX cable I had actually monofied the sound (must have been a short somewhere in the cable connector or even the cable itself). Most brand name cables are good such as Belkin.

Do you export all the tracks separately?

Mine are RadioShack and they seem to be of good quality.
I always at the end export each track separately. Usually I'll record a whole side and then split it up, but this time I just recorded each song separately since for some reason the band made the album a double LP, so the sides have 3, 3, 4, and 1 song, respectively, leading to side lengths of 8:28, 8:04, 9:51, and 3:48. It just seemed easier to do it track by track.

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

But then there's the obscure stuff that is harder to find. Recently I've been recording copies of my old audiobooks for my niece (and let's be fair, for me too!). I used to do it your way and then I borrowed my mother's Ion Express USB tape deck whilst visiting my folks. It comes with some software that's not utterly terrible but ultimately I end up just sorting things out in Audacity, just like you.

Vinyl records are a little trickier but it's mostly the same process. I don't do noise removal for those though as it seems needless. For tapes though there's so much inherent background sound. In some ways I miss cassettes but as a normal music medium I'm glad they're gone.

beatlesmusic wrote:

Make sure you use a high quality AUX cable for the transfer because I find that low quality cables can reduce quality like nothing else. For example, one AUX cable I had actually monofied the sound (must have been a short somewhere in the cable connector or even the cable itself). Most brand name cables are good such as Belkin.

Don't worry about brand of the cable, worry about the cable itself (it doesn't know which brand it is after all!). I say this because I've had some nasty experiences with a Belkin mixer recently. A reasonably good quality cable is fine, make sure the contacts are clean, and keep the cable as short as possible. Also ensure phones are either in airplane mode or off nearby. I've lost a few recordings to the accursed things.

As for “monoified” - check the number of channels the cable has:


Make sure if it's a stereo source you're using a stereo cable, and of course, recording in stereo. Not a fun lesson to learn the hard way

I actually used to use a jack to make a mono input stereo. It didn't add audio data but it did make the edit easier!

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

I think it would be illegal because it is illegal to upload the music.

nathanprocks wrote:

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

I think it would be illegal because it is illegal to upload the music.

But is it illegal to have a copy of the casette in question? In essence, It would be practically impossible to prove if the music was ripped off the cassete or downloaded off the internet. It is legal to have a local backup of a DVD / CD / Cassette etc etc for personal use. If it is very difficult to prove whether it was done via ripping it off a cassette, or downloaded, the legalities of it become very fine-lined. Thus, while it is essentially “Illegal”, through many problems of proof, “Legality” is turned into whether your “Morals” allow you to do it.

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

You nail it in your next post. You can't “consider” something legal unless you're, like, a judge, and it's been determined illegal I believe. It really boils down to morals, though, because there's such a low chance that you'll get caught.

veggieman001 wrote:

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

You nail it in your next post. You can't “consider” something legal unless you're, like, a judge, and it's been determined illegal I believe. It really boils down to morals, though, because there's such a low chance that you'll get caught.

Aren't I fun with philisophical questions?
On the internet, Morals are more in question then legalities*

*Some cases excluded.

veggieman001 wrote:

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

You nail it in your next post. You can't “consider” something legal unless you're, like, a judge, and it's been determined illegal I believe. It really boils down to morals, though, because there's such a low chance that you'll get caught.

Someone I know (not really a friend) apparently almost got caught. He has a lot of downloaded music and stuff.
A lot of my dad's cassette tapes have been copied, probably from friends.

nathanprocks wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

ssss wrote:

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

Is that legal?

Not unless you pay for it.

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

You nail it in your next post. You can't “consider” something legal unless you're, like, a judge, and it's been determined illegal I believe. It really boils down to morals, though, because there's such a low chance that you'll get caught.

Someone I know (not really a friend) apparently almost got caught. He has a lot of downloaded music and stuff.
A lot of my dad's cassette tapes have been copied, probably from friends.

That is so highly unlikely o.O Anyway, didn't there used to be a rule against discussing piracy on Scratch somewhere? I can't seem to locate it anywhere. This saddens me.

Flamekebab wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Has anyone remastered cassette tapes or records. If so, what software and stuff do you use? Remastering is basically when you record the music on to a computer usually to improve the sound quality by amplifying it and removing noise and clicks.

I totally do this, but rarely for music. It's easier to just redownload stuff, especially if my copy is on a cassette tape.

But then there's the obscure stuff that is harder to find. Recently I've been recording copies of my old audiobooks for my niece (and let's be fair, for me too!). I used to do it your way and then I borrowed my mother's Ion Express USB tape deck whilst visiting my folks. It comes with some software that's not utterly terrible but ultimately I end up just sorting things out in Audacity, just like you.

Vinyl records are a little trickier but it's mostly the same process. I don't do noise removal for those though as it seems needless. For tapes though there's so much inherent background sound. In some ways I miss cassettes but as a normal music medium I'm glad they're gone.

beatlesmusic wrote:

Make sure you use a high quality AUX cable for the transfer because I find that low quality cables can reduce quality like nothing else. For example, one AUX cable I had actually monofied the sound (must have been a short somewhere in the cable connector or even the cable itself). Most brand name cables are good such as Belkin.

Don't worry about brand of the cable, worry about the cable itself (it doesn't know which brand it is after all!). I say this because I've had some nasty experiences with a Belkin mixer recently. A reasonably good quality cable is fine, make sure the contacts are clean, and keep the cable as short as possible. Also ensure phones are either in airplane mode or off nearby. I've lost a few recordings to the accursed things.

As for “monoified” - check the number of channels the cable has:


Make sure if it's a stereo source you're using a stereo cable, and of course, recording in stereo. Not a fun lesson to learn the hard way

I actually used to use a jack to make a mono input stereo. It didn't add audio data but it did make the edit easier!

Lol I'm not that stupid, of course the cable had a stereo plug. Sad to hear of your nasty experiences, but I'm sure that any reputable vendor would usually fix any problems in the form of a replacement or repair.

As for the question of redownloading media that you've already bought, but in a different format, I would think it's ok. How else would services like iTunes Match or Google Play All Access work? They take a list of your music, and give you access to them from the cloud from any compatible device, often in a higher quality than your original file may be in.

The exception would be for games, where you have to buy it for each format separately, for example if you have a PS3 version of a game, it'd still be illegal to download a PC version of it.

There's also the question of whether you are making the file accessible to other people, usually in the form of seeding torrents.

nathanprocks wrote:

Is that legal?

Downloading music? Certainly.

Illegally downloading it wouldn't be, on account of, you know, being illegal! XD

veggieman001 wrote:

Not unless you pay for it.

Depends on the country. It's not definitively illegal but it may well be illegal where you are.

ssss wrote:

Some people do consider it legal, as you have already paid for the product. Wasn't there a push about this sort of thing recently? Something due to copyright laws on the internet not quite cutting it?

As stated, opinion doesn't really matter, but I'm not sure what the state of transferring between mediums is in the UK (or the US for that matter). I know it used to be illegal to rip CDs that one owned.

nathanprocks wrote:

Someone I know (not really a friend) apparently almost got caught. He has a lot of downloaded music and stuff.
A lot of my dad's cassette tapes have been copied, probably from friends.

“Almost got caught”? That doesn't seem shady at all XD

I know one of the tapes I ripped was a backup copy I made. Sadly the original is long gone, although I still have the original case and artwork. It was lost around 1999. I know who lost it, I know where, but I was never able to retrieve it. Years later I stumbled across my backup and was overjoyed!

Digitising it might not be strictly legal but as it's a backup it might be. I'm really unsure of the current laws. The band got paid for their work though

jji7skyline wrote:

Lol I'm not that stupid, of course the cable had a stereo plug.

I was explaining for anyone else reading. I figured that in a topic on the subject it might be nice to have a little explanation of what all this “mono” and “stereo” stuff was about

jji7skyline wrote:

Sad to hear of your nasty experiences, but I'm sure that any reputable vendor would usually fix any problems in the form of a replacement or repair.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? Belkin even still list the device on their site with a price. I've posted it back to their head office. I should really send them a note with my new address.

Either way, I do not recommend Belkin!

jji7skyline wrote:

As for the question of redownloading media that you've already bought, but in a different format, I would think it's ok. How else would services like iTunes Match or Google Play All Access work? They take a list of your music, and give you access to them from the cloud from any compatible device, often in a higher quality than your original file may be in.

The exception would be for games, where you have to buy it for each format separately, for example if you have a PS3 version of a game, it'd still be illegal to download a PC version of it.

There's also the question of whether you are making the file accessible to other people, usually in the form of seeding torrents.

It's all rather complicated and varies significantly between countries (Lots of Scratchers need to remember that not everyone is in the US - laws aren't the same worldwide). If anyone is wondering look it up for yourself - don't take the word of some random forumite. We're not lawyers!

Does anyone know how I can use a stereo cable like the one in the image previously posted for sound input on my MacBook Pro (13" mid 2012)? I know Mac works with cables that have 4 ‘poles’ like this, but I don't have a cable or adapter or anything like that. I have been using the old desktop computer for recording because it has a microphone input but it takes about 5-10 minutes to apple effects and save projects.

nathanprocks wrote:

Does anyone know how I can use a stereo cable like the one in the image previously posted for sound input on my MacBook Pro (13" mid 2012)? I know Mac works with cables that have 4 ‘poles’ like this, but I don't have a cable or adapter or anything like that. I have been using the old desktop computer for recording because it has a microphone input but it takes about 5-10 minutes to apple effects and save projects.

It appears that, after reading the specs, it does not have a line-in jack or a microphone jack so you can't unless you have some sort of USB converter, I think.

veggieman001 wrote:

nathanprocks wrote:

Does anyone know how I can use a stereo cable like the one in the image previously posted for sound input on my MacBook Pro (13" mid 2012)? I know Mac works with cables that have 4 ‘poles’ like this, but I don't have a cable or adapter or anything like that. I have been using the old desktop computer for recording because it has a microphone input but it takes about 5-10 minutes to apple effects and save projects.

It appears that, after reading the specs, it does not have a line-in jack or a microphone jack so you can't unless you have some sort of USB converter, I think.

I remember reading somewhere that there is an option in System Preferences to allow microphone input, but I also read a lot of forums and discussions that a firmware update remove the option.