Looking for a Way In

David Shamah, The Jerusalem Post July 26, 2005

My iMic was all revved up and ready to go, if you'll recall from last time = but I couldn't find anything to connect it to! The best way to connect a stereo tape player to a computer is via the player's line out - so a number of Web sites recommended and so I quickly discovered when trying to connect my iMic to the boombox's headphone jack.

In truth, one could be forgiven for believing that this connection could be made through the headphone jack - if listening to music through the headphones works, why would recording from the headphones be bad? Apparently, there are ways to clean up the sound delivery from the headphones and make it more clear, but none of the methods (like playing with the bass) did not seem to make any difference. And using other players yielded the same poor results. Among the problems with using the headphones to connect is that there is no way to separate the stereo signal on the computer; the single connection means that you in essence get a monaural signal, and when the stereo-oriented recording software tries to re-seperate the signal, the distortion is noticeable, to say the least.

Although I was trying to spend as little as possible on this project, I realized I wasn't going to make much progress until I could get my hands on a tape player that had a stereo line out connection. Figuring I could probably get a good deal on a used one and keep costs down, I advertised my need on a local community e-list - and did indeed get a number of replies.

But it seemed that none of the models had a line out connection. Chalk it up to coincidence - there just weren't any used units available when I was looking. It was annoying, but I figured I could shop around and maybe get a good deal.

But my local electronics store was no help - and neither were the big home and do it yourself chain stores (which carry these tape players), electronic chain stores, or even super discount centers (the super-mega places that sell everything from herring to PCs). Not that there weren't such units for sale - there were, but the cheapest started at NIS 800, meaning that we were talking about a high-end stereo unit (the next price level was NIS 1,600).

On all of the cheaper models, you could see the space where the for the line out connection was - but there were just no jacks there. Even big name brand players at the lower range of prices are absent this feature. Which is strange, because at one time even Walkman-type personals stereos came equipped with line-out.

Which means that someone, somehow, somewhere along the line changed something. To make a long story short, I finally did locate a cassette/CD/MP3/radio player with line-out (under the brand name Artech) for NIS 350. But it took literally weeks of searching, and then the guy in the store had to special order it. Could it be that the record companies, wanting to prevent mass implementation of cassette to MP3 recording schemes with the introduction of products like the iMic began "leaning" on the manufacturers of lower-end players to get rid of the line-out? Hmmm...

But now that I got hold of a unit I could use, it was time to connect the iMic to the Mac Mini and start recording. If you'll recall, in my introduction to this subject, I decried the excessive cost of converting your music collection to CD or MP3 format- if you already own the cassette or record, why pay a second or third time for the same music? Other than the investment in the iMic itself, I was hoping to avoid having to shell out even more money - which is why the idea of having to buy a cassette player unit bothered me.

Now it was time to search out software to do the actual recording and conversion. Here there were a plethora of choices that promised all sorts of easy conversion routines to do the work. I, of course, am going to concentrate on the free method of doing this, because of my stated desire to keep things as cheap as possible. There are all sorts of programs you can buy that will take care of many of the tasks involved, for not too much money - between $35 and $100, in most cases. I'll list some of them later on, but before spending any more money on this project than you have to, it would be worthwhile to try to use the free method to see how comfortable you are with the conversion process altogether.

As mentioned, you need software to record, software to convert to MP3 format, and software to "clean up" the recording, whether from scratches (in the case of records) or audio "hiss" (in the case of cassettes), as well shaving off seconds between songs, if you so wish.

For free audio recording, there really is only one choice, and that's Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net), which has almost all the tools you'll need in one program. Audacity imports and records any sound that you play through your computer's sound card, whether a CD or external device, like a record or tape player. If can import and save music in WAV, aiff, Ogg Vorbis, or MP3 format (you have to download a separate MP3 encoder for Audacity to use in order to encode directly to MP3). The program's interface is actually very easy to use, reminiscent of a cassette recorder's control panel - and you get to see the "waveform," those cool red and green lines that bounce up and down in response to the loudness and power of what the program is hearing. Basically, all you have to do is start the recording process, play your music, watch the red and green lines, and save your recording in any of the formats (including Audacity's own format, which will let you edit the file afterwards). Next time we'll look at some of Audacity's abilities when it comes to noise reduction, splitting tracks, removing vocals for remixes, and even MP3 ID tagging.

ds@newzgeek.com

By now, you've got your iMic and you're salivating to hear Bruce in crystal clear full MP3 stereo sound (hey, I know who my reader demographic is!). Maybe you've even made basic recordings with Audacity, just to try it out.

Audacity has a bit of a learning curve, but it's worth learning, because it really is well suited to recording from analog sources. That's not to say that other programs are available for this kind of project as well; with a little work, you could get GarageBand, which comes with the Mac's iLife suite, to so similar work. But with Audacity, most of the basic work you need to do to transform your tapes and records into MP3s is right on the main screen.

As mentioned last time, you just hook up your line-out tape or record player to your computer and start recording. Audacity's recording button looks just like the one on your tape recorder, and you just click it on or off to record.

Once you're done, you'll "see" your music in Audacity's waveform display window, which contains the squiggly lines that represents the digital audio bits of your music. You can highlight any portion and use the program's Edit menu or toolbar tools to copy, cut, or paste any part of the audio you want to save. The idea is you use the Edit tools to hone your music into the "shape" - i.e. sound - of what you want it to sound like.

A couple of other tools on the Edit menu will also help