Tutorial - Copying tapes, LPs or minidiscs to CD

A stereo mini to RCA cable

RCA cable in the back of a cassette tape player

Back of a typical PC

Plug the cable into the blue port

Connecting the equipment

You can connect your computer to various external devices for the purpose of recording cassette tapes, open reel tapes, records and minidiscs.

You need to run an appropriate cable from an "out" jack on the external device (e.g. tape deck or phono amplifier) to the line-in port of the computer. The line-in is normally coloured blue, but check your computer manual. You should not connect to the microphone port of the computer as this port is normally mono and not meant for the stronger signals produced by a tape deck or amplifier.

The most typical setup is to use a cable with a 1/4 inch (6.3 mm) plug one end (for connecting to headphones out of the device), and a 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) plug on the other end (for connecting to line-in on the computer). Generally, the headphones jack is the best "out" jack to choose, as this will allow you to adjust the output volume of the device. But if the player has an "aux" or "record" output you can also connect from those using a cable that has dual red/white plugs on one end (for connecting to the "aux" or "record" jack) and a 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) plug the other end (for connecting to line-in). Normally, the output level from an "aux" or "record" jack can't be varied.

Special note on connecting a standard turntable or record player

If you have a standalone turntable, you must not connect it directly to the computer, but make sure it is connected to an amplifier with a "phono" or turntable input, or to a phono pre-amplifier. This is for two reasons: (1) the audio signals produced by a cartridge are very weak (2) most records from the 1950s onwards are cut with a standard type of equalisation called "RIAA" which emphasises high frequencies and reduces low frequencies. This makes the records sound "tinny" if the equalisation is left uncorrected. An amplifier with a "phono" stage will both boost the signal to line-level so it's suitable for input into the computer, and will reverse the RIAA equalisation so that the records sound "normal" again. If you have an integrated "stack system" or "entertainment centre" into which you plug your speakers, your record deck is already connected to a suitable amplifier.

Special note on connecting a Minidisc player

Some users find that the line-level output of Minidisc players is too strong for recording on a computer and causes distortion. If this affects you, connect from the headphones out of the player instead. On most players this means using the same shared line out/headphones out socket, but choosing the headphones out option in the player's "Sound Out" Preferences menu. As always, headphones out will allow you to control the output level sent to the PC.

Instructions

1) Go to the Audio I/O tab of Preferences and set both the playback and recording devices explicitly to your inbuilt sound or the sound device you want to use. Do not select "Microsoft SoundMapper" on Windows machines.

2) If you want to record in stereo, change the recording channels on the same Audio I/O tab to "2 (stereo)".

3) Select line-in as the recording source on Audacity's Mixer Toolbar dropdown input selector http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_mixer.htm

NOTE 1: No line-in port?

Some MACs and notebook/laptop computers do not have a line-in port. In that case check if your microphone port can be toggled to line-in with a switch, or by changing the recording source in the software. Sometimes this line-level source is called "mix" or "stereo mix", in which case you could select this source in the system sound preferences (or on Windows and Linux you can also do so in Audacity's dropdown input selector as above). If you see a line-in option available, always choose that as your recording source. If you have neither a line-in port nor any way to switch the microphone port to line-in, you need to add a line-in by adding a USB soundcard, or other audio input/output device that connects to the computer via USB. Examples of the latter are

Griffin iMic (which has a standard 1/8 inch input) http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/

Behringer UCA202 (which has left and right RCA inputs) http://www.behringer.com/UCA202/index.cfm?lang=ENG

If using a USB device to record into, you set this as the recording device on the Audio I/O tab of Preferences. Where you use a simple I/O device like the iMic the Mixer Toolbar selector would be greyed out and not be in use. On the iMic you would instead use the switch on the iMic to toggle it to line level. In the case of a full USB soundcard you would select line-in on the Mixer Toolbar selector (or in Apple Audio-Midi Setup if you are on OS X - see note 2 below).

NOTE 2: Cannot choose input source on Mixer Toolbar?

If you are on OS X, the Mixer Toolbar will usually be greyed out on "default source". This is normal, but you need to go to Apple Audio-Midi Setup (in OS X 10.2 or later) or System Preferences > Sound (pre – OS X 10.2) and make line-in to be the source for the Audio Input. If you use Audacity 1.3.2 you may be able to choose line-in in the Audacity Mixer Toolbar (or possibly in the Audio I/O tab).

If you are on Windows or Linux and cannot choose your input source on the Audacity Mixer Toolbar, see Mixer Toolbar Issues for an explanation of the problem and ways to resolve it.

4) Next, set the volume level of your recording input. Click on the downward pointing arrow in the right hand (red) VU recording level meters: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_meter.htm

and click "monitor input" (or "start monitoring in 1.3.2). While playing a loud part of your tape, adjust the recording level slider on the Mixer Toolbar so the recording meters are almost reaching "0" at the right (but not far enough to bring the red hold lights on). If the recording level meters are not visible, go to the Interface tab of Preference and check "Enable Meter Toolbar".

5) Decide if you want to "monitor" your recording, that is, hear it played back as you make it. If you do, and you are on Windows or Linux, open the system sound mixer e.g. Sounds and Audio Devices in the Windows Control Panel, and unmute line-in as a playback device, and turn the volume up. If you are on OS X, simply go back to Audacity's Audio I/O tab and enable "hardware playthrough". If this does not work, or if the playback and recording devices on the Audio I/O tab are different, choose "software playthrough" on the same tab, which works on all operating systems.

Note the sound with software playthrough will be heard after a slight delay, and causes some extra load on the computer.

6) Create a new Project by clicking File > Save Project As. Start your recording by pressing the red Record button, then starting the tape player. You can pause and restart the recording between tracks or sides with the blue Pause button, which keeps your recording on one track within Audacity. This is the easiest way to record into Audacity, because having just one track on screen allows you to split the recording up into the different songs or sections on the tape using "labels". See Step 10) below for more on this.

If you do want to start new tracks or sides of the tape on a new track in Audacity, then press the yellow Stop button to stop recording, get the tape to where you want to go to, then press the red Record button in Audacity and start the tape player. The recording will now restart on a new track.

7) When you have finished recording, press the yellow Stop button and save your recording into the Project you started (File > Save Project). Now the data is safe, you can edit it in Audacity if you want to (e.g. cut redundant pieces out), or come back to it later by re-opening the saved Project file (File > Open). See here for explanations of basic editing processes: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorial_ed_beginner2.html http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorial_ed_beginner3.htmli http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorial_ed_beginner4.html

8) When you are happy with the recording, you need to export it as an audio file that you can play on your computer media player (e.g. on iTunes or Windows Media Player). To do this you use the File > Export command. The most common formats for exporting are .WAV, .AIFF and .MP3. .WAV and .AIFF files are of identical quality to the original recording, but take up 10 MB or more of disc space per minute. If you want to burn an "audio CD" that will play on any standalone CD player, export your recording as a 44 100 Hz, 16 bit stereo .WAV or .AIFF file. This page shows you how to do this: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=files&i=burn-cd

9) If you want your exported audio file to be smaller (you'd want to do this for example if you wanted to make it available on the internet), you can export as .MP3, at the expense of losing some of the audio quality of the original. To export as an .MP3, you first need to add the LAME encoder to your system and show Audacity where it is - see: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&i=lame-mp3

10) If the tape you have recorded into Audacity contains multiple tracks or songs which you'd like to export as individual audio files, you can do this with the Project > "Add Label at Selection" command. This will place labels (in a new Label Track underneath the audio track) which both act as split points to divide your recording and can carry the name you want for the track. Using the File > Export Multiple command will then allow you to export your multiple audio files at one go, based on your chosen split points.

Splitting recordings into separate tracks

If you have a vinyl or cassette recording with separate tracks on it, you are most likely going to want to export those tracks as separate audio files for your computer's music library, or so you can burn them to separate tracks on an audio CD. The easiest way to split your recording into multiple tracks is to leave it on one audio track in the Audacity screen. To do this, press the blue Pause button (not the yellow Stop button) in Audacity whenever you want to turn over the record or tape, and press Pause again to restart the recording. Then you use Audacity's "labels" to mark the split points between the LP or cassette tracks.

NOTE: the labelling feature should not be used if you already have more than one audio track in the Audacity screen (for example, one track for each side of an LP). If you have two audio tracks open, join them into one thus:

1- Select the second track by clicking in its Track Panel (where the mute/solo buttons are); 2- Choose “Cut” from the Edit menu; 3- Place the cursor anywhere in the first track, then press END on the keyboard; 4- Choose “Paste” from the Edit menu; 5- Close the second track by clicking the [X] top left of its Track Panel.

The labels also allow you to name the individual audio files that you'll export from Audacity which correspond to each LP or cassette track. The labels appear in a new Label Track underneath the audio track 

as you can see in the example track underneath. This happened to be a mono recording but the labels are exactly the same if you have a stereo recording.

Labels

To add labels at your split points, do this:

1- click in the recorded audio track at the start of each LP or cassette track, (starting at the point where the first track starts.

2- click Project > Add Label at Selection (or its hotkey, CTRL + B)

3- start typing the name of the song immediately (notice that what you are typing should now appear in the label to the right of the flag, in the Label Track)

4- when the label is complete, click at the start of the second track, Project > Add label at Selection again, type the second label and so on.

If you make a typing error, press backspace. If you find you cannot type in the label, click in it to give it focus. Each name must be different. Two notes here: First, avoid using system-prohibited characters such as

? : "

in the labels as this may prevent the files exporting. If you want to use quotations in your labels, use two ' characters together. Second, if you're using a 1.2.x version of Audacity, you cannot use either "z" or "Z" in the label due to a bug. This is already fixed in the Beta 1.3.x development version, but in 1.2.x, go to the Keyboard tab of Preferences and change the hotkey for "Find Zero Crossings" from Z to CTRL + Z, or something other than Z.

Automatic labelling based on silences

If you have well defined silences preceding the starts of each track you can use Audacity's "Silence Finder" under the Analyze menu which will attempt to automatically label the track split points based on the silences between the tracks. If Silence Finder is not in Audacity you can obtain it here as a Nyquist plugin: http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~raa110/audacity/SilenceMarker.ny

Simply select and copy the full text from that link and paste it into a new empty text file in Notepad or similar text editor. Ensure WordWrap is off. Then save it as silencemarker.ny, move it into your the Plug-Ins folder inside your Audacity installation folder and restart Audacity. On Windows machines, Audacity's installation folder by default is at:

C:\Program_Files\Audacity

On Mac OS X, it is usually under "Applications."

If there is a long silence after the end of the last track, Silence Finder may well add a superfluous label here. To delete this label and the silence, select the area of audio you want to cut and drag the selection down into the Label Track, then Edit > Silence or Edit > Delete.

Export Multiple

Then you use the File > Export Multiple command which will export all your audio files at one go (one per LP track, each with their own filename), based on your chosen split points. When you click File > Export Multiple, a dialogue box pops up where you choose your Export Format and the Export Location.

Above you can see the default settings of the dialogue once you have chosen the Export Format and Export Location. For Export Format, choose WAV or AIFF if you are going to burn an audio CD.

If you' ve typed the exact name you want for each track in the label, you'll want to leave the "Name Files using Label/Track Name" button selected, then each exported audio file will have exactly the name that you typed. If you did not type in the labels, they'll be named in the form ".wav", "-2.wav" and so on. But you can have slightly more elegant labels if you select the "numbering consecutively" button. If you do this, type something in the "File name Prefix" box underneath the button, then this word or phrase will be the prefix for a numerical sequence. For example, if you type in the box "Serenade", the exported files will be in the form "Serenade-1.wav", "Serenade-2.wav" and so on.

Note that whenever you're exporting as MP3, its Title ID3 tag will be automatically determined by the exported filename, and the Track Number ID3 tag will be automatically determined by the order of the tracks on screen.

As an option, you can check the box "include audio before first label" where it says "Split files based on labels" - this will enable you to place your first label at the start of the second song instead of at the start of the first song, which is one less label to place. Type the name you want for this first file name in the "First file name" box.

You can read more about Label Tracks here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/track_label.htm

Extra notes about burning to CDs

Before you Export Multiple for real there are three things you must do:

1- Most users want to burn an "audio CD" that will play on standalone CD players (not just in their computer). To do this you must configure Audacity to export 44 100 Hz, 16 bit stereo WAV or AIFF files, so that the files are compatible for burning as an audio CD. This page shows you how to do this: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=files&i=burn-cd

As it says on that page, don't forget that you need to specifically tell your burning software to burn an "audio" or "music" CD, not a "data CD".

2- Make sure your Project Rate (Hz), as shown in the Project Rate button bottom left of the Audacity screen, matches the rate showing in the Track Panel (where the mute/solo buttons are). If you don't do this, silences may be added at the end of tracks and the labels may not export in the correct position. This is due to a bug when resampling is done between the Project and Track Rate upon export. If necessary you can select your track by clicking in the Track Panel then Project > Quick Mix, which will resample the track to the Project Rate. Then simply delete the excess silence generated at the end of the track and the export will have no added silence. In 1.3.2, simply click Tracks > Resample, and in the box that pops up, enter the rate showing in the Project Rate button.

3- Set Audacity to make your track splits at the 1/75th second frames that CDs use. This will ensure that you will not get clicks between tracks, and that CD burning programs should be able to burn without pauses if you don't want to add gaps between the tracks in the burning software. To enable splits at CD frames in Audacity 1.2.6:

- Click View > Set Selection format, and select "CDDA min:secs:frames 75 fps" - Then click Edit > "Snap to" and choose "On".

In 1.3.2 instead of step 1) above, you click on one of the downward pointing arrows in any of the three fields in the Selection Bar http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/features-1.3-d.php

in order to choose the selection format.

Disc-At-Once (gapless) burning

By default, many CD burning programs will add a 2 second gap between CD tracks, so be aware of this when placing your labels, and consider deleting excess silences between tracks. While most programs will optionally let you burn the CD with no gaps between the tracks, some including Windows Media Player, have no such option[1].

Unfortunately, the "no gap" option in some burning software still leaves a momentary but perceptible gap between tracks, which is an irritation if your audio track is a continuous piece of music. While you can solve this problem by exporting your track as a single audio file, so you only have one CD track, you then have no means of navigating around the CD. There are two solutions. The first is to use CD burning software and a burner that supports "disc at once" (DAO), in which the tracks are burned without turning off the laser. Sometimes, "no gap" is equivalent to "DAO", but sometimes it isn't. So check the manual for your burner and software - the vital thing is that the laser runs across the tracks without interruption.

An alternative and recommended solution is to not split the track up at all in Audacity. Instead, export it as one long WAV or AIFF file, and burn that file with DAO and a "cue sheet" that marks the starting times of each CD track. Cue sheets can be created as simple plain text files. Audacity currently has no direct means of creating a cue sheet from the track labels, however if you use Audacity's File > Export Labels command, you can export track starting times and label name data as a text file. This file could then be edited to make a cue sheet.

Each track in a Cue Sheet is of this format:

• TRACK (number) AUDIO
• TITLE "(name)"
• PERFORMER "(name)"
• INDEX 01 (start time) with the first track always being 00:00:00

You can read more about cue sheets here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cue_sheet

Note you may still hear hear the most momentary gaps between tracks even on DAO burned CDs, unless the CD player supports true gapless playback! Many CD players do not, but quite a few computer-based media players can use DSP effects when playing back audio to give gapless playback, even of CDs not burned with DAO. An example of such a player is Apple's iTunes 7.

[1] There is a plugin for Windows Media Player 9: http://www.wmplugins.com/itemdetail.aspx?itemid=228

that adds a "no-gap" burning option for the program. The plugin only works with Windows Media Player 9.