I know this has been mentioned a few times before but I can't be bothered to find the threads to post on!

Just come across a device on amazon called the iMic by Griffin. It basically adds a stereo in to any PC, laptop or Mac with USB. Obviously this will allow for easy conversion old formats(e.g vinyl) in decent quality.

Anyone had any experience with this?

No but it sounds like just the ticket. I've been dieing to get some of my old cassettes onto my iPod. I do wonder what the quality would be like though...... its likely to be pretty poor isn't it?

Well only as poor as the quality of the cassette you are recording from, the conversion through the iMic itself should be of a pretty good quality. Problem with my old cassette's is they've lost alot of their sharpness, don't suppose there's anyway around this, to 'clean' them up?

A friend of mine suggested that it is sometimes the cassette case itself that causes the 'flutter' heard on old tapes. If you unscrew the cassette case and put the tape into a TDK MA case (or another good case)it can improve sound. Quite a lot of effort I know, but if it's something reallt precious....

Another option is of course to search for the songs from your cassette on filesharing programs, and then recreate your tape as an MP3 playlist.... if you don't mind bending the law of course!

Thats interesting will I might give that a dummy run on a cassette I'm not too bothered about to see if it works.

The problem with trying to get replacements from file sharing programs is that alot of the stuff is old DJ mixtapes which would be very unlikely to be on P2P networks.

Just thinking, is it still illegal to download mp3's of copyrighted material if you own that material in another form and just, for example, want a better quality version?

Interesting thought, might be a loophole there, but I seriously doubt it. We really need some kind of music lawyer on this site to consult about our legal issues don't we....

Yeah I think you're right Will. The problem is, I don't think even an experienced lawyer will be able to to decipher the mess of legal issues that surrounds the music industry!

G'day Brucie,
I am currently in the process of converting vinyl to cd. I have hooked the turntable to my old amp, and sent the analogue signal from the tape out via RCA plugs to the line in socket on my soundcard via a 3.5mm stereo jack. The signal is captured as a wav file by Blaze Audio and stored as a wav file. I go on to use depopper to take out the crackles/hiss/clicks and then use cd wave editor to split up the track into its separate songs. Then record to cd as a music cd using nero or similar. For you, once the files had been depopped and split, you could rip them from wav to mp3 using a program called audiograbber, available here:
http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

I was really surprised at the quality of the recordings, they are quite good.

Cheers John

G'day John,

Cheers for the advice I'll give it a go when I've got some time (ALOT of time!). It's pain these thing are always so complicated and time consuming but there literally isn't an easier way.

Caveat - I use a Mac so although the general principles will apply, the specifics (applications) won't necessarily.
I have a Pioneer PDR 609 audio CD deck hooked up to my stereo. I record albums/cassettes on to CD RW audio discs (the Pioneer will not record on to data CDs) - one track per side. I then transfer these recordings on to the Mac where I use Click Repair
http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/%7ebriand/sound/
(available for both Macs and pee seas) to get rid of the clicks, DeNoise LF (same URL) to get rid of vinyl roar and lathe rumble and in the case of cassettes, DeNoise (same URL again) to get rid of tape hiss. DeNoise LF can also get rid of hum.
Then, using Sound Studio (I think this is a Mac-only application but there's bound to be something similar for pee sea - to delineate the start and end of each track and to add fade outs at the end. Sound Studio can split the side-long track into the individual songs, each of which is saved as a separate file.
I then use Roxio Toast to burn the CD using a regular data disc.
The end result is often superior to commercial CD releases - but then the turntable is a Linn LP12/Ekos/Arkiva...
Assuming a dull-sounding cassette was encoded using Dolby B, I play it without Dolby and use DeNoise to get rid of the hiss and Sound Studio to expand the dynamic range. Not much one can do about Dolby C or DBX encoded cassettes apart from add a little presence and top end using Sound Studio.
Click Repair can also get rid of clicks on cassettes which were recorded from vinyl and this should be done before applying any noise reduction.
Finally, to create MP3 files for my iPod, I use iTunes which is also available for pee sea.