Playing cassette tapes through the sound card

Hi all,

Wanting to record my cassette collection onto CDs, I tried connecting a walkman to my sound card using a stereo wire. I was hoping to simply hear the tape through my computer by playing the walkman ... but that didn't happen. Do I need to change any settings or use any software to hear the tapes?

I did hear a hum through my computer speakers every time I pressed 'Play' on the walkman, telling me that the connection was 'live'. I tried some basic troubleshooting -- audio settings on the computer and the walkman -- but that didn't help.

I have an HP Pavilion 6635 Desktop with Windows 98SE.

Thanks,
123champ

 

By stereo wire you mean a regular audio cable, right? One that looks like a headphone cable but with plugs on both ends? Just checking. And the other end of the plug would go into the "line in" port on your sound card. Double click the volume icon, and make sure "line in" volume is at the appropiate level. That should be enough to let you hear the cassette through your computer's speakers. To record this on your computer, you will need a program such as MusicMatch Jukebox. In MusicMatch, set the source to line in.

 

I can understand where you are in this. I think the first thing you should do is start to research the difference between analog and digital recordings. As you progress through this you automatically start to find more resourses to answer the question you stated! Here's a first jump: http://www.howstuffworks.com/analog-digital.htm
I'm cooking dinner, but this looks like a fun project to research and I will get back to you with more info. Cool project, that's where it all begins. Steve- Seattle WA

 

Here's a quote from a site that will not answer your question but will I would bet be very handy once you get where you want to go. It is a free digital editor. Here's the page, navigate to "home" for more info.

Web addy: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorial_basics_1.html

quote:
Your computer has a soundcard - it could be a separate card, like a SoundBlaster, or it could be built-in to your computer. Either way, your soundcard comes with an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) for recording, and a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) for playing audio. Your operating system (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.) talks to the sound card to actually handle the recording and playback, and Audacity talks to your operating system so that you can capture sounds to a file, edit them, and mix multiple tracks while playing.

 

Thanks for the information, Filewasp. It was useful, but didn't directly help with the problem.

Dude189, yes I meant a regular stereo audio cable. I checked that it was plugged in right. Couldn't check the Line in volume however ... because I have another weird problem ... my volume control doesn't open up! When I click on the volume icon on the bottom right corner, a window shows up on my taskbar (like when you minimize) , but not on my screen. Clicking on it doesn't help :-( This too has been frustrating me for a long time.

I don't think though, that the line in volume is set to low... because I do hear a hum when I play the walkman ... and it's volume is reasonable. But I wish I could confirm the line in setting by opening the volume controls.

Sorry for the delay in reply, I was traveling.

123champ

 

try Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Entertainment\Volume Control

 

I'm not sure if this is what you mean but take a look at this site which I found on the coverdisk of the UK edition of PC Pro for June 2004;

http://www.polderbits.com/